AIBU to expect my neighbour not to have garden lights?

[2Jays]

I purposely live in a dark place. By that I mean I live down a dark lane, away from street lighting and next to an unlit woody park. I have become really sensitive to light at night and cannot sleep with even a tiny bit of light in the room. I also cannot wear eyemasks as they cause pressure on my face (yes I know I sound fussy but I have sensory issues).

My neighbour of the last nine years has suddenly decided to illuminate his garden at night. I'm not sure why because the position of his house means that he cannot see the lights unless he is sitting in his conservatory, which he rarely does. His garden runs across the front of my house and we share a fence but his house is set off to the right. The lighting.can only be seen by me. Apart from the light sensitivity it also attracts interest to a previously unseen area (we are side on to a park and most people don't even know our houses are here), I feel like the lights make us much more visible if someone wanted to nose around at night.

I've attached a rubbish photo which shows his garden, mine is the completely black area underneath it. I know it's not Blackpool illuminations but it is enough to change things significantly for me.

We used to get on ok but he is quite ill and has become increasingly grumpy about my kids so I am reluctant to ask him to turn them off but I'm already struggling (hence writing this at 11pm) and know I must tackle this but AIBU?

YABU to expect anything, yes. It's his garden.

There is loads of evidence that light pollution is damaging to wildlife, the environment and human beings. It seems though that people would prefer that over having their rights infringed. I don't mind low level fairy lights but that is not the case in my neighbours garden.

Perhaps it's just the picture, but that does look like very low-level lighting to me. I appreciate that it still makes a huge difference to you but it might be worth getting someone else to look at them in real life to get a perspective on whether or not they are excessively bright/intrusive, as that will shape the conversation you have with him about it.

This reminds me of Chuck from Better Call Saul a bit…

Anyway, I think there’s no harm in having a word with neighbour, but be prepared for him to say he prefers to have the garden lit up for safety/security reasons or whatever. The blackout blind sounds like a sensible solution.

My kids are rarely in the garden, one is 13 and rarely leaves her room and the other is 9 and plays out (but on her own). Next door have two kids who are pretty loud but their outside time is well managed. He is home all day, everyday so we are aware of his needs. He seems to get cross with my daughter when actually the noise is coming from our neighbours kids.

You say he's increasingly grumpy about your kids. Are they annoying him and have you sorted out any issues before complaining about his lights?

Do you do the same with your children. You mentioned that he has issues with them. If he is not impacted ,at all, by your noise he may be more amenable to your issues with the lights. If you are one of those ' children make noise, children are allowed to play' people then you must accept that he has no interest in your sensory issues.

Yanbu. I think they should be banned as they are so harmful to wildlife. Maybe ask the council if there are any by-laws?

I don't think I am entitled. Just as he is welcome to his light am I not also welcome to darkness.

Of course you are, but just as he's adapted his property to have light, you need to be the one to adapt yours if you want darkness. You can't expect other people to change how they (legally) use their homes and gardens just to suit your sleeping habits.

If you need darkness to sleep (and I sympathise as I'm similar) then you need to buy blackout blinds and sort that for yourself, not expect the neighbours to change for you.

That's a strange comment! Surely children are allowed to play?

I think having a stroke often seem to make elderly people very paranoid about burglary

Somebody wrote "You are entitled to darkness in your own property, not in everyone else’s."
Redraft that: "You are entitled to light in your own property, not in everyone else’s."
Are these senteces equal? Or does the light trump the darkness, becaue, unlike the darkness, it leaks.
And try rereading all the posts and imagining that it is sound that is being discussed. I'm pretty sure that hereabouts people get very concerned about sound coming from neighbours, and don't tell people to move or install expensive sound insulation. Why is light different?
And re: security. Security lights create areas of blackness, in which evil doers can lurk, with their eyes dark adapted, while the people in the lighted area simply cannot see them. Round here, the sensor lights are very good at signalling the presence of foxes, but then they go off again
My neighbour has fairy lights which irritate me no end, because I like to see the stars out of my bedroom window, and not draw the curtains, but they aren't too intrusive and in winter go off earlier (solar). I put up with them. I think if they had suddenly arrived, I might have had a word about timings.
We did have a problem a while back, when a builder installed lights all night, aimed directly at some houses. They were so bright that the one shining on my bathroom window, with the curtains drawn and the door shut, lit my landing so well I didn't need to turn my light on to go to the loo. I could have picked up small objects from the floor.
That got sorted by the parish council - they had been using a very old planning permission not previously put into action. (It wasn't their works they were protecting, BTW.) I did a lot of reading about dark skies and lighting at the time, and sent them some blurb.
Light, like noise, crosses boundaries, and what people do in their own gardens impacts others. Being considerate is called for, and I have been surprised by the reactions on here. Imagine if it were the hot tub, the bar, the trampoline, the sound system. You wouldn't be telling the complainant off then, would you?

Yep. We have lived here like this for 9 years but because my neighbour suddenly wants to light his garden so it can be seen from space, I have to stump up time and money to accommodate it. I don't think wanting darkness at night is precious or that I am pathetic for wanting freedom from the endless stimulation of modern life. If someone is not affected by it then great but others are and it is very challenging.

Black out curtains shut out all light. You need to invest in these as yabu to expect your neighbour not to have lights in his garden.

Your kids make noise, he had lights.

Each to their own.

My ds has autism and absolutely cannot just make his sensory needs disappear. He's tried, we've tried, it doesn't work. This means he sometimes has to change his behaviour, or use aids (your blackout curtain would be his noise cancelling headphones) to cope. He also gets annoyed that he has to take action because other people won't be more considerate, which can be annoying but actually, often what seems inconsiderate to him is just other people living their own lives their way. That "rigidity" about how people should behave is also part of his autism, but that he can do something about.

Point is, you may not want to spend money on blackout blinds but this you can do, and it will solve most of your problem (you can pair them with a dawn bulb on a timer if you want to recreate your natural wake up pattern).

Sounds like your kids are affecting him but he has to lump it when it comes to them. Yabvu.

One person's 'play' is another person's absolutely bloody annoying ,pain in the arse noise. The squealing of small girls on a trampoline for hours on end cuts through your brain like no other. The constant thump,bang,oooooooh of a football on an adjoining fence is an absolute PITA. When it is your children and you know that you are going out in half a hour it doesn't irritate. When it is next doors children and you have no idea whether this is 20 minutes or 4 hours, it is very different.So yes, children are allowed to play, but ideally with consideration for the people either side who have lives too.

Firstly your next door neighbour probably has no idea that the lights impact you so much to be honest- a few lights in his garden probably didn’t cross his mind as needing to check with neighbours first.

I see no harm in having a polite conversation with him tbh. We all have slightly different needs to each other and that’s okay but you can’t go demanding no light ever of a night and as much as you may have a good reason you can’t stand light he may also have a good reason he needs them lights.

a blackout blind of decent quality and curtains should help massively too and ideally I would recommend at least trying that first.

To be honest Op I think you could debate who is right and who is wrong until the cows come home and still not have an answer.

You can’t control other people but you can control the impact upon you. (I say this from experience of very noisy neighbours in the past) As has been suggested look at blinds and other solutions. I know you said you hate sleep masks but have you looked at silk ones? Much more comfortable. If you combined this with asking him to consider turning off after 11pm (more than reasonable) hopefully you can get a better nights rest.

Nope my kids aren't noisy and we do try to remember his needs. We have been made to feel uncomfortable using our garden at times because he is sensitive to noise but he is there 24/7 so we cannot live like saints.

Yep. We have lived here like this for 9 years but because my neighbour suddenly wants to light his garden so it can be seen from space, I have to stump up time and money to accommodate it.

The lights are really not that bright. You admit you're sensitive to light so that's why they bother you, but that's not your neighbours problem.

And yes, of course you should have to "stump up time and money" if you want total darkness on your property!

You want it all your way. You can't live like saints so he is unreasonable. He is seriously ill, elderly and ,presumably, afraid but he must ignore all that because you don't want to get a piece of cloth over your windows. You could have measured it and ordered it in all the time you have been on here.

And yet you let your kids disturb a man with serious illnesses.

You are being selfish. You won’t use blackout curtains you won’t use an eye mask, well I think you will need to get used to it then.

Only one of my children ventures outside and normally with me. Several times he has shouted over the fence for us to keep the noise down when it hasn't been loud. One time he told my daughter off for forgetting ask to get her ball back from his garden (she had asked politely every other time and had forgotten in her excitement). She came home crying and now is really nervous of him. I get that people don't want to hear kids and we try hard to keep the noise down but we have to live too.

And try rereading all the posts and imagining that it is sound that is being discussed. I'm pretty sure that hereabouts people get very concerned about sound coming from neighbours, and don't tell people to move or install expensive sound insulation. Why is light different?

I think this a helpful analogy, but I draw a different conclusion from it than you. I think OP is entitled to quiet but not to silence, and similarly she's entitled to not have bright and intrusive lights pointed at her property, but she isn't entitled to pitch darkness in any garden she can see. I genuinely don't know if these lights are the visual equivalent of a boom box in the garden at midnight or if they're the equivalent of neighbours chatting in their own house but with the windows open - I think the picture looks more like the latter but I think it's hard to tell from a picture.