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

[Hop27]

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!

[quote whereiamumhiding3]@VikingOnTheFridge
You sound like a bully as that is such a lazy inappropriate cliche to say attempting to denigrate anyone who expresses that it's good to be thoughtful of neighbours and to be bothered enough to contribute to a nice tidy neighbourhood

In real life people are bothered by anti social things

People are literally telling you how many housing developers put it into their contracts no laundry out the front and have been doing so for 20+ years.

As already said, it's not rocket science

Some PPs doing childish name calling isn't going to change facts that many people would be a bit bothered if their neighbours did what OPs new neighbours are doing as it's slightly antisocial.

[/quote]
Nobody is saying some people won't be bothered by washing on a front garden. That's a strawman. However, those people are idiotic, because there is nothing anti social about it.

For that small minority living in areas where there are covenants, it will be reasonable to be unhappy they're not being upheld, but everywhere else it will be a ludicrous view. As for bullying, the pretence that other people are doing something wrong if they don't happen to share your esoteric views is getting dangerously close itself.

TLDR: what you wrote was ridiculous.

@Hop27

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!

Maybe the front garden gets more sun/breeze/is just better for drying. 'Normal people' don't dictate where others dry their clothing, that said, the music would bother me, and the vaping too!

Hope they not hanging underwear 🩲 in the front garden

Would be obscene

@DistrustfulDinosaur

I think it's common in England for there to be a clause in property deeds prohibiting washing from being be hung out in front gardens. I noticed it in all my tenancy agreements from previous properties and also in the deeds when I bought this house. It's just an average house in an average area, not new build or on a fancy development. In practice, it seems quite arachaic and I'm not sure who would do the enforcing or how it would be enforced!

Ours would be enforced by the Management company or the Housing Trust as owners pay annually a fee to maintain the common areas . It is a new estate . They do warning letters and fines to start with . You would think that people would see common sense and behave responsibly .

I'm with the OP on this. There are certain behaviours by residents that collectively dictate the 'tone' and feel of a neighborhood. I liken it to the 'broken window effect'. Sure, some washing hanging up in the front garden is not the end of the world, but I would see it as a negative. I live on a street where pretty much everyone has a bit of pride on the appearance of their homes and gardens, people dont litter, you don't see old sofas and
abandoned kitchen goods dumped on street corners, folk don't blast music or light fires in their gardens. There is an element of self policing as everyone knows the minimum standards and the end result is an attractive place to live with few dickheads. There is a relatively new block flats near me with balconies, quite a smart building when first erected. After a while some residents started to keep bicycles, boxes, old washing machines, kitchen cabinets and other crap on the balconies, it just became an eyesore and looked run down, graffiti started to appear in the communal areas. Shit like that does not happen over night, it is small incremental negative actions that over time drag down a neighborhood.

@Flipflopblowout

It is best to live and let live - if only some neighbours would leave their neighbours to do this.

so that means falling to the lowest level ? Those people rule ? I think if most people were honest they would like to live in a neighbourhood that is clean and tidy free of hens , rampant dogs off leads , people with masses of cars in their yard , old mattresses , washing , people letting their dogs piss and shit all over your front garden , camper vans , work vans and rubbish bins on view all week ? Just some of the stipulations of my area by laws .

@rooarsome

My thoughts exactly, how uncouth!

Music might bother me but not the washing. Middle class people are so weird about people actually using their front gardens.

@Starcaller

I have a house that has wonderful views from the back across my garden and across the Cairngorms, which is a view that I can control because it's my own garden. I don't really have much interest in sitting at the front to look into someone's driveway or house or into the road, no. However lovely someone's house is, I don't really want to sit and look into it!

Lots of older houses have their living rooms at the front and kitchens at the back

Not everyone is lucky enough to have two reception rooms they can sit with view of back garden as well as front.

You are deliberately misquoting me, at no point did I say I look into other peoples houses or at the road, and it's not difficult to READ what I actually wrote instead of twisting it round.

I enjoy the view from my living room which is general lovely view of my garden and neighbours'gardens. So like the majority of people in real life, as I bought my house with lovely views from living room, I too would be sad if that view was disturbed a bit by out of place drying laundry out the front. Luckily I have considerate neighbours who don't do on this .

The same way we all dyscreteky store wheelie bins to side of behind hedging so front of house doesn't look ugly

I think you're being VVU. Looking at a bit of washing never hurt anyone.

Depends what the street is like really.
My PIL lived near Bradford and there were streets of old terraced houses with washing lines strung across the front and small gardens at the front but not at the back where there was a lane.
I grew up in the north-east where we had small enclosed yards at the back with washing lines in the yard- never at the front of the house.

I think from the 1930s onwards houses began to be built where the front was the 'public' aspect of the houses. There was often a small garden for 'show' and a larger back garden where washing was hung. People were encouraged to buy homes if they could (and councils also began to build estates ) and be part of a considerate community- tend their gardens, maintain their property, consider their neighbours.
Most people did not want to live in poor conditions and if they could moved into streets/areas where housing was better, they did.

My gran and grandad lived in an upstairs Tyneside flat in a street where people were decent and considerate - but poor- and helped each other. They all knew each other. They kept their houses clean, painted the doors and window frames, cleaned the windows and front steps, looked after the tiny front gardens, lived considerately. Yet round the corner from their street was a street of exactly the same Tyneside flats that was really rough- houses not looked after, paint peeling, dirty curtains, gardens full of crap, rubbish outside front doors, people sitting on front steps smoking and drinking, arguing, playing loud music.
The streets were owned by landlords- I don't know if they decided who they put in each street but it was very noticeable and known to locals. If you said you lived in 'Sydney Street' it was considered respectable, if you said 'Melbourne Street' it was considered awful.
My mam was scared to walk us up Melbourne Street when we visited my gran and grandad. We went the long way.
How we live does affect neighbours and we should be considerate. I am really surprised at people saying it doesn't matter. It does. We all have to be tolerant to an extent but what the OP is describing doesn't sound like good neighbours to me.

@IamGusFring my street had none of those things but yet we still have washing drying in the front gardens! No back gardens, and the yards face north so don't get the sun.

I would not be happy: The display of washing in just another manifestation of the way your neighbours are wilfully defying social norms knowing that it may irk the other residents.

In the UK we have social norms for front of house: no cladding, no vile paint colours, no massive/unkempt shrubbery. Bins out at the right time.

You can do your own thing in your back garden, but not the front.

It wouldn't bother me. There are are communal washing grounds here which are also used as kids play areas and to sit out on summer. No one cares what is on display on the lines.

What rubbish @VikingOnTheFridge
The bullying was you namecalling - which is inappropriate and unkind.

Read what I said as it's an accurate assessment.

There's no need to misquote me or try to change what I said, as people can read themselves

Where my brother lives in Illinois no one is allowed to hang any washing outside at all even in their back gardens.

I wouldn’t like it op and in the twenty years I have lived on my road have never seen anyone do this on my road or anywhere near where I live.

Well said @LuluBlakey1 !!

There are clearly some housing neighbourhoods where it is necessary and the norm to hang out washing at the front.

That was a really interesting personal history about your grandparents roads

I agree with you and so do many others, that OP is unlucky with these new anti social neighbours. And it's ok for her to say so on this anonymous site.

It sounds like OP isn't UK as she talked about it being 30 degrees out. It sounds like it isn't the norm in her area either.

I think it's nice when people take pride in their home & contribute to keeping the area lovely.

I understand the problems with noise and parking, but how is drying your washing at the front instead of the back antisocial? I can see some people don't like it, but why does it bother you?

Jesus. I really do think people need to stop using the US as an exemplar of how people should behave in a given neighbourhood. It's a marvellous country with much to recommend it, but on balance I'd really rather people were allowed to hang their washing out than use a Remington pump-action 7600 to blast the head off, say, a jogger/child/Postmates driver.

The music blaring - I’m with you

The car - ditto

The washing out front? STFU. As someone who has been given grief for having the temerity to hang my clean laundry (yes, that includes pants!) in the comfort of my own back garden, I can’t fathom why anyone would clench at the sight of clean clothes…

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

Then stop looking. And get a life!

It does bother her though
Bovrilly and OP explained why. I think it's ok for PPs who aren't as interested in their neighbourhood looking nice to say that is how they feel, but I think it's belittling for PPs to tell OP she isn't allowed to have a viewpoint that's different.

I walk with sticks and years ago had some old furniture and mattress replaced and couldn't book for council to collect it for 3 weeks , the quotes to take it away privately were £300+ yet council charge was about £55 at the time. I couldn't move it myself so it had to go to front garden where council could take it from.

I spoke to all my close neighbours first, apologised for it and reassured when it would be collected, and stored it under tarpaulin behind hedge hidden from the road until you walked on my driveway.

. I'd see laundry drying as similar unsightliness that my neighbours shouldn't have to look out at front of my house on if I can help it. (It's different if it's not possible & that is only place you can fry laundry, but it is possible as OPs previous neighbours managed)

I also think it's different if someone buys a house with view of someone else's back garden as that's enclosed and they knew the view when they bought house and is normal to dry laundry in back gardens in warm weather.

But that's what I don't get - what's unsightly about clothes drying?

(Or - it's not that I'm not interested in my neighbourhood looking nice, but how do drying clothes make it look not nice?)

It’s much more environmentally friendly, better for infection control and cheaper to hang it out in the sun.

Get over it OP. It’s just clean washing.

My NDN bought me a dark green tarpaulin over so we could cover the blue tarpaulins so it was less jarring view from his living room. Both sides of me could see it from their living room windows and both were really accepting & lovely about it as and they appreciated the consideration and apology from me for the untidiness for those 3 weeks.

These are the same neighbours who each have let me put my car on their drives when roadworks blocked entry to mine and I've let their visitors park on my driveway on the odd occasion they've had a lot of visitors for a party and for a funeral wake and asked me, so that no one gets a traffic ticket.

I think consideration for your neighbours if they are reasonable people, benefits everyone as it builds sense of community and kindness back.