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?

They may well have some indoor drying rack. I would still much rather have my washing dry outside. It's quicker, it doesn't risk causing damp inside, it doesn't clutter up a room that I need to use for other things, it gives the clothes a nice outside smell, bed linen dries without creases, I can fit much more washing on the line than I can inside, it's so much easier to hang stuff on the line than trying to fit stuff in a restricted space...

For me it's a no brainer; but we're all different.

When I was young we lived in a 4 houses to a yard terraced house, everyone hung their washing out & if it started raining someone would always fetch everyone's washing in, this was before everyone got tumble dryers & mothers were expected to be out at work even with small children. There was no snobbery, my brother & I were the only children in our yard & spoiled rotten by our adopted aunties & uncles. You always knew what day of the week it was by what the women were doing, Monday was washday, Tuesday was upstairs cleaning day, Wednesday was downstairs, Thursday was baking day, Friday was shopping at the greengrocers & washing the outside paintwork & scrubbing the back & front step, if any woman didn't scrub her step on a Friday it meant one of two things, either there was a family crisis or a death in the family, everyone noticed & the word would go round the terrace & one of the neighbours would do it for them. People looked out for each other, not being nosy but cared.

I use indoor airers as well but if the weather is mine nothing is stopping me hanging my laundry out in the garden - it's more hygienic for a start, they dry better and you get that wonderful outdoors scent on them.

When I have room I'd love to get a tumble dryer for occasional use in winter but for now I make do with airing cupboard.

But a load of thongs and all sorts and hang them out like bunting.
What a strange view of life they have. Love a washing line

What a depressing post. Economically disempowered women with a stultifying and publicly-judged cleaning schedule? Fuck that. I’ll take my PhD and salary, and being responsible for my own laundry.

I don't like seeing washing on the line, it looks awful. Nobody does it in my street. We don't live in wartime Britain any more. I dry mine in the house on one of these, they are dry in a couple of hours.:

https://www.lakeland.co.uk/53211/drysoon-heated-drying-pod-airer?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20891890221&gclid=Cj0KCQjw35bIBhDqARIsAGjd-cbsWRDkSObQKaZZbac3VCC2ez6taxw9AIYLI_5pE-SU5aEMDP3QHBoaAs6tEALw_wcB

In a lot of places you are not allowed to dry washing outside. Certainly not in the USA.

Mine’s out today. Hate having to dry inside. Smells better too

Ridiculous woman, how much time is she actually spending gazing out of her bedroom window?

As for the passive aggressive birthday card you should have ripped it up and put it back through her door.

12 items?? I can get far more on the line thanks. And, it's free. You'd hate our street. We all hang our washing out on lines. We have lovely neighbours too and have jumped over fences to get in washing thats out when it starts to rain as have they with ours!
No one cares what it looks like.

Generally speaking, one shouldn't spend time gazing into neighbours' gardens. Whether you choose to hang washing out in your own is up to you, but if you don't like looking at then keep your gaze to your own garden.

I don't care what other people do in their back yard, so long as it isn't illegal or aggressively antisocial, and I sure as hell don't care what they think about what I do in mine. Washing is a fact of life. Wet washing needs to get dry. A dry day and a good wind, with washing on the line, is a match made in heaven!

My sheets are on the line on the Google Earth view of our street!🤣

@nat6999 That sounds like a lovely childhood 😍

Aww I like it, such a sense of community. I work full time, the kids are in wrap around care and I love my job. But even so, a greater feeling of community would be lovely. I barely, know my neighbours.

I’m over 60, and I’ve never thought about whether I should hang out washing or not. Sometimes I do.

If next door's laundry is so offensive, either put up a 2m fence or put a paper bag over your head.

It is entirely legal to hang out your laundry in the USA unless you have chosen to live on an estate with a homeowners' association.

That's funny 😁

"wartime Britain" 🤣
Just because there's some washing on the line......🤣

I know it's crazy 😂

I don't know what was weirder, that or the not even factually correct appeal to American cultural mores.

...and the heated airers are oh-so-affordable!

She’s bonkers, and prudish-bonkers, which is even worse.

Widowed FiL, who’d just moved to a smaller house, was told by two female neighbours that it was ‘not allowed’ to hang washing in his garden, and that he needed to put net curtains in his front windows, because ‘it wasn’t nice’ without them.

Pleased to say he ignored such rubbish.

My DPs used occasionally to talk of a ‘net curtain mentality’, which IMO just about sums up these two, and OP’s neighbour.

America - destroying the planet as fast as humanly possible and also bragging about it! Awful

Why on earth did you buy the smallest model if you use it all the time? I have the bigger one and a tumble dryer and I still peg out my wash whenever there's a chance of it drying.

Oh my I haven’t read all of this but was a bit taken aback that some posts suggests people don’t actually like seeing washing on the line outside.
I absolutely LOVE seeing a long line of white washing blowing in the wind. Oh and the smell of line dried fresh sheets and towels !