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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want our neighbours to not dry their laundry on their front drive?

347 replies

Hop27 · 30/12/2021 06:55

We have new neighbours, they seem to live out their garage. Constantly fixing their 3 cars, parking their cars in front of other peoples drives. Sitting in their cars with the door open talking on their phone via the speaker, vaping - music blaring. Now drying their laundry on an airer on the front drive. AIBU to think put it in your back garden like normal people FFS. The rest is bad enough, but the whole street doesn't need to see your pants!

OP posts:
BlackCatz · 30/12/2021 07:54

@Hop27

Sorry should have said they are opposite neighbours so every-time we drive/walk past we see their washing. We see it from our bedroom & my DH's office window.
Oh, the horror.
Bluntness100 · 30/12/2021 08:02

Always love these threads, they make me laugh out loud. It’s like one person says something and a bunch of folks repeat it. It’s the same on threads like “my neighbour is naked at his window” and folks write it’s his house, shut your curtains if you don’t like it 🤣

Drying your washing on thr front is really unusual and I’d find it quite odd as well op.

GrendelsGrandma · 30/12/2021 08:03

On the plus side, if you have time to fuss about where your neighbours dry their washing then your life is probably pretty sweet.

invisiblereally · 30/12/2021 08:03

I understand OP. It's because It's not nice to look at and I suspect the noise of NDN hanging out in front lawn most of the time is wearing.

It's weird to put an airer up at front, as unless they are watching their clothes could get nicked (even as a joke by passing teenagers).

HangingOver · 30/12/2021 08:03

every-time we drive/walk past we see their washing. We see it from our bedroom & my DH's office window

You sound nuts.

LetHimHaveIt · 30/12/2021 08:03

'They can do whatever they want on their property'

Cute. And on page one, as well.

No, they can't. That's why the tort of nuisance exists 🙄

That said - while the music and the blocking of drives may constitute a nuisance, you can't tell people where to dry their washing and, of all the things you've listed, it's the one which wouldn't bother me (nor indeed most normal people) in the slightest. I wouldn't play it as your trump. Who cares if your husband can see it from his office window? Does wet washing not exist in his world? Does he think some apple-cheeked Disney fairies in late middle age do it?

HangingOver · 30/12/2021 08:04

It's not nice to look at

Why? Is bits of fabric Confused

Changemaname1 · 30/12/2021 08:06

But if I look out the back of my house I can see my neighbours washing drying ?? What’s the difference ?

The noise and parking all over bullshit would annoy me though

Muchtoomuchtodo · 30/12/2021 08:08

I’m just jealous that you’re having weather where you could even contemplating drying washing outside!

invisiblereally · 30/12/2021 08:09

@HangingOver

It's not nice to look at

Why? Is bits of fabric Confused

Don't be obtuse It's far nicer to see nicely kept front gardens than to have a view of someone's drying pants and clothes. When washing is out in back garden, as it's enclosed you don't get a view of it. Front gardens tend to be more open.

No I'd prefer not to see my NDN underwear drying on the line as the view from my sofa as I look out the window or walk out my door. Not all of us are glued to the TV of our phones. Some of us notice our surroundings.

However, that said there's nothing illegal about hanging your washing out the front on your own garden, so nothing can be done. If I was NDN I would worry about people taking my clothes to mess around.

grapewine · 30/12/2021 08:09

@Hop27

Sorry should have said they are opposite neighbours so every-time we drive/walk past we see their washing. We see it from our bedroom & my DH's office window.
This is such a Hyacinth thing to be bothered about. It's clean washing.
HangingOver · 30/12/2021 08:16

Not all of us are glued to the TV of our phones. Some of us notice our surroundings

Lol nice assumption there pal. I do notice my surroundings - I just don't give a shit about seeing clean washing being dried in an eco friendly way. I don't find it unsightly at all. It's just people going about their lives.

muddyford · 30/12/2021 08:17

I often put my airer in the front of my house, as it's south-facing and this time of year I don't get the sun around the back until the afternoon. But only towels, sheets and T-shirts, jeans. Not underwear!

Blinky21 · 30/12/2021 08:18

That would annoy me, it's just untidy. Someone did it on a street near us recently and the neighbours objected, it made the national news.

invisiblereally · 30/12/2021 08:20

This is such a Hyacinth thing to be bothered about. It's clean washing.

There's people that notice their surroundings and people that don't. It won't bother you much if you spend all your time watching tv , playing on your mobile, Xbox games and going out. If you are someone who likes to sit quietly with a book, by the window on your sofa enjoying the light and view from the house you chose, then it would be a bit jarring to have a view of other peoples drying washing at the front of their house. It's unusual.

No matter how much MNers are falling over themselves to prove how cool they are that it 'wouldn't bother' them, I suspect in real life it'd bother most people.

ememem84 · 30/12/2021 08:27

I dry my laundry in our front garden. Washing line is closest to garage where the machine is. Makes way more sense than dragging laundry back and forth through the house.

BarkminsterBlue · 30/12/2021 08:29

In December?!

RandomLondoner · 30/12/2021 08:33

you can't tell people where to dry their washing

Every one of the three purpose-built flat developments in London where I've owned a flat has had a clause in the lease forbidding laundry from being visible. I think the wording in the current one not only forbids hanging it out of windows, it's not allowed to be visible if anyone looks in through the windows.

I think these clauses exist because visible laundry drying is associated with slums, and many people aspire to live somewhere beautiful and uplifting, rather than in places that are ugly and depressing.

FortunesFave · 30/12/2021 08:33

I sort of get it OP. My next door neighbours live in their drive. All they do is hang around shouting at their four nutty dogs...the same thing...which does nothing as the dogs bark anyway. They're always there...bloody hosing the dogs down, running in and out of the house and garage...WHY? WHY? Just use the back garden ffs!? This is Australia...the whole place is sunny and they have shade both back and front!

CriminalOrator · 30/12/2021 08:35

I just can’t understand that with all the antisocial stuff they do, it’s the innocuous location of their drying washing that bothers you.

GoodPrincessWenceslas · 30/12/2021 08:40

The blaring music would bother me much more than the washing.

Changemaname1 · 30/12/2021 08:42

Honestly not trying to be “cool” saying it wouldn’t bother me

My back garden is my relaxing space very quiet rather than the front of the house which is obviously on a road and any day I’m sat out there in the summer I have a view of lovely trees one way and my neighbours washing inclusive of her and her husbands underwear the other way 🤷🏻‍♀️

Don’t see how it’s any worse out the front of the house ? And don’t see how the noise wouldn’t be more of the issue ?

YourenutsmiLord · 30/12/2021 08:43

Keeping up appearances is a thing of the past.

Justgettingbye · 30/12/2021 08:45

No I wouldn't give a shit Confused got more to worry about

NowEvenBetter · 30/12/2021 08:46

’every-time we drive/walk past we see their washing. We see it from our bedroom & my DH's office’
And? Is that a bad thing? Why? How does seeing fabric impact you?

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