I dry my laundry in my garden and my neighbour is really unhappy about it

[WashingWoes]

I really don’t think I’m in the wrong here but keen for opinions which I will take onboard if I come off as unreasonable.
I live in an end-terrace house. Neighbour is attached to me. I peg my washing out to dry on good days. We are a family of four, lots of laundry and I much prefer to peg out than use the (expensive and environmentally unfriendly) drier. My neighbour HATES me for drying my laundry in my garden. Relentless comments about how she can’t enjoy looking at her garden from her bedroom window because she can see my (clean) laundry. About how it’s spoiling her enjoyment of her garden. Why can’t I just use the drier, for everyone’s benefit (not mine, see: bills; climate change…). It’s bad manners to dry ‘smalls’ outside - her husband might see my ‘undergarments’ … honestly it’s relentless. I recently received a birthday card from them (very kind, and appreciated) which said ‘Happy Birthday WashingWoes, we really love seeing your washing on the line, have a lovely birthday’. Please reassure me that I’m normal and neighbours are barmy?

It is. We have a new dryer with sensors and at least 20 programs. It dries in one direction only and it’s shit. Our old one had one setting and was brilliant. Our US one is a Maytag and it’s fabulous. Massive for a UK utility room though.

That's funny because I would have thought that if their house is falling to bits and they're doing illegal building work, hanging out the laundry would be the last thing you'd be worried about.

What country are you in where it's such a faux pas?

I have very elderly neighbours down and across a bit from me. I don’t actually know them since nothing joins up and their house faces on to a completely different street. But I keep an eye open , I know they are still Ok when I see his lineful of spotlessly white y fronts ( honestly, they should be in a detergent advert, they gleam!) hoisted high on a Monday. I actually envy them the height of their washing line, things really blow whereas my line is a bit low and stuff just flaps a bit. They do their sheets and towels on a Tuesday!

Thanks for the opinion, genuinely appreciate it. But my house is not a ‘state’, it was on the cover of Real Homes magazine and won an award for the renovation we did on it. Clean laundry outside does not a nightmare neighbour make. Just someone who wants free drying of their washing. It’s not bringing the time of the street down.

You need to become a bigger dick than she is. Berate her constantly about environmentally unfriendly tumble dryer use. Make it so she's afraid to raise the washing issue with you.

I would buy some really racy lingerie and start putting it on the line 🫢 tell her that if she doesn’t stop complaining that’s what you will do

Is she British?! Some countries don't dry their laundry outside, they use a dryer, so the concept of drying clothes outside would be alien. It's normal practice here in the UK, and has been for many many decades!! What does she think her husband is going to do if he sees your undies on the washing line?! Be horrified? Turn into a sex maniac?! Want her to buy the same undies as you?! She's being incredibly prudish and her reasoning is barmy!! Ultimately, you can do as you please in your own garden, you aren't doing anything abnormal, illegal or indecent. Ignore her!

I leave mine out all night to get "darked on"
(Don't know if you know that old MN joke)? 😂

Is that satisfactory to you? Out all night?

And yet there’s all those horror films with massive washing lines full of bright white sheets in the wind, inevitably destroyed by someone being stabbed through them, blood spatters everywhere! 😱🤣

😂😂

I love putting my washing out. Your neighbour sounds absolutely bonkers. None of anyone else's business. Can't believe some on here think it 'lowers the tone'. Get a grip people

I line dry every day the ground is dry. I love seeing laundry outside

She doesn't pay your mortgage or your electricity bill so it's none of her business. As for her husband, doesn't he know that ladies wear pants?

She's bullying you. So as a poster up thread said wash and dry constantly.

Honestly of all the things to complain about ...

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

I have a horrible neighbour. Endlessly complains about my laundry.
Commented about 'all those sheets' after my Ds was mostly in bed for 6m after heart failure (which I'd informed her about). Suggested her H come around to 'put up a nice whirlygig that you could buy'. No thanks said I. Her husband is a nasty bully who once shouted at my young Autistic child so badly when they were playing in a small tent one summer 'it's not F'ing Glastonbury!!' that they never used the garden again. I shall DELIGHT in hanging my laundry this way.

What a pair of wankers. I'd have let him come round to do it and then never used it.

DD has a neighbour who wanted them to get their roof cleaned as it looked dirty!!! Some people are just bonkers. Every time she said something I would just say "thanks for the info - nobody is making you look at my washing". And I would also put out some sort of bondage clothing (not that I know what it looks like but sure it would bother her)!!

@ThatCyanCat france! I definitely think public appearances here are given much more importance. I am also a little bit worried about their building work but that’s between them and the council. I suppose for me actually it’s what it says about them that they’ll hang their undies out - sometimes in the front garden sometimes at the back; when it’s so visible! It makes me think they don’t care about other people’s opinions and then coupled with the state of their house compared to the rest of the neighbourhood now I think it doesn’t look great on them.

And for further context the building work itself wasn’t illegal but they didn’t bother getting planning permission themselves and the company who did the work said they would handle it all and obviously didn’t. So they’ve built out slightly further than they are legally allowed to over the pavement. She has told me they can’t afford to fix it so I don’t know what they’ll do. The work doesn’t affect the other houses structurally or anything so we aren’t worried per se but it’s more shows how little they consider the rest of the area tbh and now I equate this with them also hanging their washing out for everyone to see most days!

She is being massively U

I also thought the references to Hyacinth bucket here odd because I absolutely associate hanging washing outside with older ladies of that sort or age/style!!! I don’t know anyone in our age group who hangs washing outside other than to freshen bedding. Literally no one. My mum would occasionally when we were small but again only bedding! Everything else is in the tumble dryer. We are even a bit old fashioned amongst our friends and neighbours that we haven’t got solar panels and electricity measuring apps on our phone! So for me actually it’s the other way round age wise

That's just weird. If there's a good drying day it makes perfect sense to put washing out to dry.

I have three washing lines and bloody love them and on the days that I get up to four washes dry I feel like Queen of the Universe! 👸

My neighbours are exactly the same. They complained when I had a rotary line full of washing. They have a stunning garden and said their view was spoiled by my washing line .
I figured we were going to be neighbours a long time so I bought a large clothes horse and now put my clothes on that on my patio which they can’t see. It dries fine on that.

Other than this they have been lovely neighbours and look after our cat, water our plants etc when we go away.
If you can resolve it, then I would. It’s not worth the hassle of falling out over it.

For more context maybe about the different cultural expectations- in our French village, if you let weeds grow along the front wall of your house by the pavement, the council will send their gardeners to remove them and then send you the bill! Periodically in spring everyone gets a letter reminding them that not upkeeping your front of house is detrimental to the area. So perhaps that’s a stark contrast to the UK!

The Hyacith Bucket references people who think they're being posh and gentrified while actually being very common.

Like those who think it's "not done" to hang out laundry...

I don't often hear the words 'primark' and 'sexiest underwear' in the same sentence!

All our neighbours hang their washing out, as do I, and noone bothers a jot.

We've got a railway line that runs the end of our gardens, so our washing is in view of the trains. Can you imagine some of the pearl clutching when people get a glimpse of my (not so) smalls......!