to not let neighbour use my shower!

[NavyOrca]

Next door neighbour messaged me earlier. Her shower has broken and she can’t get anyone to come out and fix it until the week after next. She asked if she could ‘pop in’ to use ours every other day.

I don’t want her to! I’ve got most of next week off work and plan to be at home a lot, doing not much at all, after a crazy busy time lately. I don’t want to worry about somebody coming to have a shower!

For context - I get on with her absolutely fine. We chat now and again and have walked our dogs together a few times in the past.. wouldn’t say we are especially close though.

AIBU to say no to this request? I know that she moved to the area for work and none of her family/friends are around here. So I might be her only option and I do feel bad about this.

Wow, a neighbour is genuinely in need of something basic but important and you want to say no for zero reason whatsoever.
Not very, well, neighbourly, is it?!
Decent society has well and truly gone down the plughole.
Scuse the pun.

I can’t believe the replies here! I think it’s beyond cheeky to ask this of someone! When my shower broke, I bought a camping shower and just hung it up in my shower. When it wasn’t fixed within a few days, I went and had my hair washed at a local salon.

It genuinely wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask to use the neighbours shower.

So you are new in the area as in new neighbour yourself.

id find this cheeky then as there is other neighbours she could of asked surely but chose the new one mmmmm

I responded to that comment earlier
As I said I would use a hotel that cleaned the bathrooms properly

I wouldn’t use a hotel where people shared the bathrooms

All my family are dead. When they were alive the houses were too small for us to stay over anyway so we stayed nearby in hotels that cleaned the bathrooms.
When I was younger I used the family bathroom, we cleaned it, they are family.

When I was at Uni I had my own shower

Tbh I’m amazed about that PPs comment as who goes on holiday and washes in a bathroom used by others that hasn’t been cleaned. Do many hotels really never clean after previous guests? !

That's basically what I did when I was having both bathrooms remodeled at the same time during Covid. Just replace garden with kitchen. And this went on for many weeks. I can't imagine a situation where I would ask a neighbor/casual acquaintance to take a shower at their house.

Volunteering doesn’t make you a good person… it’s your day to day behaviours and how you treat others. Your post shows that you’re not willing to slightly inconvenience yourself to make a huge difference to someone else who is in a bind. That says a lot more about your character than volunteering.

I’m an introvert and so would immensely dislike having to have a neighbour over every other day but I couldn’t say no to a request like this from someone in need who I new had no other options. For those saying she can have a flannel wash, is she supposed to not wash her hair for 2 weeks?

I’d be relieved it’s happened when you’re off work so you don’t have to worry about this when you’re trying to rush out in the morning or get home exhausted - it’s surely more convenient that you have nothing else on all week.

As others have suggested, give her a time slot that suits you, let her in and point her to the bathroom and tell her to let herself out when she’s done so it’s clear you don’t want to socialise and are busy - you could even go back to bed. I imagine she’ll be relived as I’m sure she won’t want to hang around chatting to you every time she’s just had a shower!

Opening the door and letting someone in your bathroom every other day is a very minor inconvenience surely?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting the bathroom in a hotel isn’t cleaned. I think they’re suggesting that you would surely clean your own bathroom?! If you clean it after use, it’s no different to a hotel. If you don’t, you’re the one with the poor hygiene!

I've not read every single post, but the general response seems to be for you to "not be selfish" and to allow the neighbour to use your shower.

I would imagine you've posted, because if you were in the same position, you wouldn't dream of asking, but just cope with an at the sink wash down for the amount of days that the shower could be used.

Having read most of the thread, I think I would agree this favour, if only for the sake of good relations.

I would also ask that the shower be cleaned up after her session, it would be an imposition for you to have to do that.

For the record, I don't think you're mean or selfish, I just think you were taken by surprise, and not sure how to react.

I also agree that the shower should be taken at your convenience, and if she's a decent sort, she'd be more than happy with that offer.

Do be careful that this request (if met) doesn't lead to any cheeky fuckery in future.

Think you’re missing the point. No offence. I’m not concerned about my own hygiene standards I would be concerned about a neighbours that I hardly knew. OP stated she hardly knows this neighbour.

Doesn't she have a bath tub!

I was pointing out why I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it. As other PPs have also done.
Others have blown my comment out of all proportion.

Plus I know cleaners have done a good job because I can see they have. If there was ‘stuff’ everywhere I’d see it. You get what you pay for …a professional clean. To me, a few strange hairs would be gross.

Each to their own

It's winter and it's cold. The reality of getting out of bed, putting clothes and jacket on, having a shower in someone
else's house, then getting wrapped up again to go home to finish everything else would become a PITA for her pretty quickly.

You could raise the points above suggest a 'Bucket and bowl' shower? It would be a lot easier for her. Millions do it and working aboard for 2 years with a unreliable water supply, I honestly ended up just as clean. Do this when ours breaks now.

Only difference was there I had to pour a cap of Dettol into the water to kill what ever lurked in the Typhoidy water :S

Mumsnet is so odd at times. On any given week there will be a poster asking for help because they don’t want to give a colleague a lift to work. Responses to those posts are generally heavily weighted in favour of it being a “colleague problem, not an OP problem” and multiple people saying “no is a complete sentence”.

This OP has a neighbour asking to enter her home every other day to use her shower, and is told to “be kind”, “take a long, hard took at her values” and told she’s being “selfish”.

I think this is an inappropriate ask from your neighbour, OP. I wouldn’t want an acquaintance coming into my home, getting naked and taking a shower at my expense and potentially leaving me to clean up. The whole thing sounds uncomfortable and has the potential to go on for longer than the period she suggests. There are emergency plumbers or the neighbour could join a gym and use their shower. It’s not your problem to fix.

In which case it's pertinent to ask you - how can you be so concerned about a neighbour sharing your bathroom, a bathroom you clean because your hygiene standards are so high against staying in a hotel because the bathroom "look's clean"?

Cleaners in the best hotels work under time constraints - they have too many rooms they need to clean and there is no way, even 5-star hotels, can be as clean as your own bathroom.

I'm nor missing the point, you are. Instead of answering me, address what the OP has been asking for.

It isn't a big ask. Just say you can use the shower between and give her a half hour slot.

We had a period of almost 6 weeks when we had no hot water (emergency situation). I was beyond grateful to my neighbours who allowed myself and my children to shower at their house occasionally.

Well say no, but don’t expect friendly neighbour relations going forward. Why not just say that’s fine but will have to be x time as i’m busy next week

I really don't see how it's a big inconvenience. She's not asking to come and cook dinner in your kitchen, or sit and watch TV in your living room! You can be cracking on with what you're doing, you'll barely know she's there. If it was a whole family, that'd be different, but just one person? I'm a huge introvert, anxious, and literally never have guests, but even I'd be OK with this.

Given you know she has no other local connections that can help, it is only 10/15 mins and it’s a basic human need I’d say yes. Put yourself in her shoes OP.

Our shower broke last year and our neighbours offered us their shower. We do have local-ish connections (and they know that) but as we live out in the sticks a bit it would be a faff to travel to them just to shower. We worked around them with timings and were as quick as possible. Always been immensely grateful.

I'd definitely find that an intrusion, and would have to say no. I'd probably say that a one off might be fine, but I cannot commit to it being ongoing until your shower is fixed, sorry. She maybe needs to look a little harder for an emergency plumber.

Just ask her to do it on x days between x and x time. Make it work for you with leaving her in your flat while you food shop or whatever. You’ll probably need her help one day and this is all part of being a community.

Kind people can have boundaries.

This.

This sums it up for me perfectly..

I don’t think it is a question of kindness alone here for me but a question of boundaries. Of course, it’s kind to help out a neighbour but i would only do this if I felt comfortable with it. If it were my neighbour on one side who asked, I would say yes as we have built up a good relationship. It would be at certain times of the day though. It is good to help each other out if you can.

If the shoe were on the other foot and I was the one needing the shower, I would try to use every other option available to me before asking a neighbour to be honest (sink wash, leisure centre, closer friend, work shower, get another plumber out quicker, bath attachmeht…) At the risk of sounding ridiculous, Showers are pretty personal and private spaces to me where invited guests, close friends and family can go but a neighbour is pushing it a bit for me! But if she had very few other options and it is under your conditions, go for it!