Lamp post right outside my bedroom window

[elm26]

We've just moved to a new build and the lamp post that is directly outside my bedroom window is on all night, my room is so light and I'm having trouble sleeping, I am short of money after moving and having to buy new white goods as both our washing machine and fridge freezer broke within 3 weeks of each other so I can't get a black out blind until next month.

Does anyone know who I would contact about this? Or any cheap temporary solution?

Probably not, because we're at the end of the financial year. But ours was done very quickly.

Silver foil on the windows, complete blackout. Worked well for a few weeks while awaiting blinds to be fitted. All the temporary blackout blinds fell down or didn’t block the light. Silver foil is cheap and cheerful - hope it helps you get some shut eye.

If our bedroom curtains are open even a tiny crack the street light shines exactly on my pillow. Very annoying. Our bedroom curtains are the cheapest possible blackout curtains and I try to make sure that they are fully closed before the cats jump up on the sills and move them. I also have an eye mask and can’t sleep
without it.

Good idea.

The £20 Dunelm blackout roller blinds are brilliant. Coupled with a pair of blackout curtains I have to feel my way around the room in the afternoon 'cos it's so dark.

Ours aren’t. Turned off from midnight to 5am to ‘save money’ and help the environment apparently. Not sure where the saved money is going as my council tax bill still goes up.

My parents had a street light directly outside their bedroom window. It used to go off at a set time.
Whilst staying with them once I was settling down to sleep and suddenly heard gales of laughter coming from their room. Turns out my dad had let out a massive farm and the light went out at the same instant! 😂

Fart not farm!!!

Contact the council. We did for one on our street and they dimmed it.

What exactly is your problem? @coffeenomore

Aluminium kitchen foil. Spray window with water, attach. It blocks all light. I use it when I’m printing UV sensitive stuff.

you will look like you’re growing drugs though.

I'm going to leave this thread there, it seems maybe some people are trolling or possibly had too much to drink on a Saturday night or maybe they're just rude and not very nice people which is the likely answer. Especially @coffeenomore not sure what your problem is with me asking for ways to block light out of my bedroom, anyone would think I was asking how to bury a body.

Again, thanks very much to all of those with helpful suggestions.

IKEA have some wonderful paper/stick on black out blinds that we used when we moved. Like £5 ish and can easily be cut to size with a bread knife, as well as having little clips to hold them up when you do want light in.

For several years now I've used a piece of blackout material I got from Dunelm on my bedroom window, cut to the exact shape of my window, held in place with sticky velcro to easily remove and put up. Works much better than a blind as there's no gaps around the edges as it's flush, and it cost 7 quid all in.

This. They can attach bits to the bottom to reduce direct light into your window

We’ve got a street light outside our spare bedroom window. I ddint notice it was there when we viewed the house . It’s on all night and is really annoying. We bought decent blackout curtains from Dunelm but they didn’t block out all the light so we got blackout blinds made to fit the window, from Blinds2Go too. It’s really dark in there now.

I hope the council helps with a light shield @elm26 because curtains and blinds aren’t cheap.

I'd rather councils aren't switching streetlamps off during the night when safety is already precarious.

They can fit a diffuser to an LED lamp which diverts the light away from your windows. However, it's unlikely that it'd be actioned before you can get a blackout blind.

And whoever said about you must have viewed the house, presumably it wasn't in the middle of the night.

The lamppost removal people.

Just a word of warning if these are black outside-facing they really attract the heat in the summer! They are red hot to touch but it depends which way your bedroom is facing. My bedroom is East facing with no shade from other buildings so they get red hot till afternoon in the summer. If you're in a built up area you'll be ok or if you remember take them down every morning. Otherwise there might be ones that are white outside-facing and these will reflect heat not absorb it.

Hi, I actually do some work for a company that makes street lights. This should not be happening (the council deffo don't want to waste money lighting roads in the day!). Contact the council (or the estate owner if it's on an estate).

First, are all the other lights in the street on at the same time or not?

If only yours is on, there is probably a number on the post somewhere. Email/call them and say asset number xxx is faulty. It might have a sensor in that can't see how light it is (it should come on at dusk) or not be connected properly.

If it's your whole street, write and say you're aware of a light pollution issue, it's shining in your bedroom, and ask how old the LEDs are, a lot of the really old ones create a lot of glare and light spill. They can save money by updating them.

It definitely shouldn't be happening so just report it and see!

I turned the one off that's outside our house. You can open the front panel with a suitable tool and pull the handle inside down and it turns it off. Have a look at the locking mechanism on the panel. Mine was just a simple shape and was easy to undo.