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AIBU?

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Original poster

Neighbour obsessed with what time I get up

263 replies

Mississipi71 · 07/08/2022 10:30

I overheard my neighbour talking about what time I get up in the day. I have no blinds in my bedroom, just curtains, so she can presume see what time I wake up. I even heard her saying "it is 11.30 am now, what time did she get up 11.15?" I don't go into deep sleeps (side effects of anxiety meds) so I never really feel I have had a full night's sleep. I am early retired, with no kids so what time I get up is down to me. I just read in bed, dont play music or watch tv, until I finally drift off. She also has no idea whether I have reasons for sleeping patterns and I don't need to justify anything to her. Anybody else have CF neighbours like this?

OP posts:
DeanStockwelll · 07/08/2022 12:57

SpaceJamtart · 07/08/2022 11:19

My house mate can see into my bedroom as our rooms are at a right angle to each other, he commented when I put a new photo up on the pinboard and when I was in the kitchen looking for my headphones he told me they were on my bed.
Creeped me out a bit, I bought some window film.

That is fecking CREEPY !

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 07/08/2022 12:58

She sounds like a very strange person

Leafy3 · 07/08/2022 12:59

I answered the door to my neighbour in pjs one weekend lunchtime after a getting back early hours from a party. He gave a long look up and down and very clearly disapproved of my lie in!

Personally, I'd mess with her head a bit, if she's that fascinated!

On the contrary, my parents have a very wealthy neighbour- he's an absolute gentleman and aristocracy. Opened the door to him in pjs one lunchtime after arriving there at 1am the night before and he didn't so much as bat an eyelid.

Some people are rude and crass and others are kind and delightfully mannered.

MsFannySqueers · 07/08/2022 12:59

OP I am now imagining you living in the sort of housing complex that features in Richard Osman’s book The Thursday Murder Club. Your neighbour will be found smothered by an old bedroom curtain. Then the club will have to swing into action to solve the mystery !

justasking111 · 07/08/2022 13:01

Neighbours to my left husband gets up at 8am goes out with dog, wife up 11am they both go out with dog. Neighbours to my right wife gets up at 8am in the garden, husband rises at 10am wife provides two soft boiled eggs he then reads the papers she has walked to the shops to get.

Urban life is funny having lived in the country

FangsForTheMemory · 07/08/2022 13:01

I'd put a note through her door: 'Please could you keep your voice down because I don't like having to hear you gossiping about me when I'm trying to sleep.'

DeanStockwelll · 07/08/2022 13:07

@Mississipi71 , probably not practical but it would be great if you would go round closing the curtains in the middle of the day , put a red bulb in your light and get a couple of good male friends to 'visit' you for a hour or so during the day and accompany you with suitable groans of pleasure. 😂

FictionalCharacter · 07/08/2022 13:11

Mississipi71 · 07/08/2022 10:47

Yes, another neighbour was doing some work for her and she was talking about me. I think he was embarrassed because sound carries with the type of complex I live in.

@StressfulBedtimes it wasnt just one comment; she has alluded to it several times. Once when she talked about best times to water plants. She said you can forget mornings, as you are never up. I took that comment with a pinch of salt. Bit different when you find out they are a gossip.

Show quote history

Next time say loudly “I can hear you, neighbour!”

HannahSternDefoe · 07/08/2022 13:25

My bedroom curtains are open at night.
In summer I close them when I get up (east facing) and they're probably still shut now unless DH opened them earlier when he went in search of dry socks
The back ones get closed late am and are closed until it goes dark (9.15pm) when it's hot/sunny.

She'd have kittens watching my curtain habit! 🤦‍♀️

bloodyunicorns · 07/08/2022 13:31

Put a big poster in your bedroom window saying 'I'm having a lie-in, you nosy old bat' and see what she says...

SupremeDreamz · 07/08/2022 13:44

Haha my DM keeps notes on neighbors lives. The young woman on her road HAD A MAN STAY OVER.

Back when I used to visit her she would always open the curtains in case people were watching and thought I was a prostitute. Cue me walking into bedroom from the shower with curtains wide open (thinking I had closed them). I think that was likely to be far more distressing to anyone looking than the possibility I was prostituting myself behind closed curtains.

Fifteentoes · 07/08/2022 13:46

Go to your local print shop and get a large A0 poster made of a hand with the middle finger raised, and erect it on the room side of your curtains facing towards them. Then get up whatever time you like, wait till you're sure she's watching, and open the curtains . . .

ilyx · 07/08/2022 13:48

OP that is SO CREEPY! Does she live alone by any chance? I’d be tempted to say something rude like “I heard you talking about my sleep patterns earlier, do you not have much going on in your life? I have no idea about any one else’s sleeping patterns!”

BellePeppa · 07/08/2022 13:48

Next time I’d passive aggressively laugh and say nonchalantly ‘are you stalking me, that’s a crime you know’ then ‘laugh’ and walk off.

CambsAlways · 07/08/2022 13:51

Oh I’d keep my curtains closed and make her think, I’d tape some gorilla mating noises 🤣🤣

FOJN · 07/08/2022 13:52

DashboardConfessional · 07/08/2022 11:32

Or open one only!

Show quote history

The would be my approach. I'd have some fun with it. I also start randomly opening and closing curtains in bedrooms you don't use.

Original poster
Mississipi71 · 07/08/2022 14:00

MsFannySqueers · 07/08/2022 12:59

OP I am now imagining you living in the sort of housing complex that features in Richard Osman’s book The Thursday Murder Club. Your neighbour will be found smothered by an old bedroom curtain. Then the club will have to swing into action to solve the mystery !

Not quite that exciting, I am afraid 😅

OP posts:
Original poster
Mississipi71 · 07/08/2022 14:08

Thanks ever so much for confirming I am BU in giving it a seconds thought but not about my neighbour. I have read all your replies, but can't quote them all. Until I started contributing to MN, I hadn't even given a thought to my having ADHD, which overlaps, I now believe, with my anxiety. Just different symptons I have which correspond with hyperactivity and restlessness. That may sound contradictory to my thread subject. It is all very well for these ppl to judge, but they have no idea, or maybe care, for your individual circumstances.

OP posts:
godmum56 · 07/08/2022 14:15

Morethanthis71 · 07/08/2022 11:14

I get that this probably isn't the case for you OP, but I do keep a check on my retired neighbours and one of the first indicators for me that I need to check in on them in the past has been that curtains and/or windows haven't been opened by late morning.

thank goodness you don't live next to me, you'd be forever checking and I'd be forever telling you to GO AWAY

godmum56 · 07/08/2022 14:16

FangsForTheMemory · 07/08/2022 13:01

I'd put a note through her door: 'Please could you keep your voice down because I don't like having to hear you gossiping about me when I'm trying to sleep.'

do this OP

traceyzebdee · 07/08/2022 14:17

I had a similar issue years back when I lived in a house that faced a supermarket car park. I used to get annoyed when work colleagues would see me and say something like "we went shopping on Saturday and you still had not got up by noon" - I felt like my privacy was being invaded - I lived on my own and what time I get up was my business.
At first, I started being very self concious and got out of bed, opened the curtains and had my lie in with the sun streaming in or went in the spare room (uncomfy bed).
In the end, I got a vertical blind installed behind the curtains and kept it closed all the time. It was much better privacy and an advantage was that I could get naked in my bedroom whenever I wanted.

Jellywobblescobbles · 07/08/2022 14:24

I hate nosey people. Wish I could live in a detached with land around it.

Ladyof2022 · 07/08/2022 14:25

SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 07/08/2022 11:11

I've never quite got my head around how getting up early is considered to be a necessary virtue, and anybody who doesn't is seriously lacking in moral fibre. You'd have to a bit thick to go with that view wouldn't you? Grin
That's aside from the weird obsession she has about your sleep routine, which is quite frankly, really odd.

"I've never quite got my head around how getting up early is considered to be a necessary virtue"

Because those crops in the field won't harvest themselves AND because after sundown there is no light by which to read the Bible, so everyone went to bed.

Ladyof2022 · 07/08/2022 14:27

Fifteentoes · 07/08/2022 13:46

Go to your local print shop and get a large A0 poster made of a hand with the middle finger raised, and erect it on the room side of your curtains facing towards them. Then get up whatever time you like, wait till you're sure she's watching, and open the curtains . . .

Definitely this. A3 would do it.

JemimaPuddlegoose · 07/08/2022 14:27

I once had a neighbour gossip that I was obviously a prostitute since she saw me being dropped off home in a taxi full of women at 1am.

Except that I was obviously in my work uniform and what prostitute goes to work wearing a polo shirt with the name and logo of a major family tourist attraction (which most people know does overnight/late night events) emblazoned all over it, plus baggy jeans?

Some people just like to gossip.