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?

Are you hanging out your sexiest lingerie, op?
If so, maybe her dh has been salivating over it and she's just jealous 😂

I was just about to post the same idea. A friend's mother years and years ago had complaints about her daughter's black and red underwear on the line, indecent apparently!

Ooh does that actually work? Hadn't even thought of that. Thank you, I'll give it a go. 😊

No thanks, I’ll be drying outside in my own garden morning, noon and night.

We have that in Ireland too😉

No thanks.

You aren't in Saltaire are you? Titus Salt established a model village for the employees at his wool mill in 1851 on the outskirts of Shipley and called it Saltaire. (Sir Titus was not hampered by false modesty. Or any modesty.) He laid on all the facilities his workers might need, including a laundry. The quid pro quo was...no outdoor spaces were to be used for drying your washing because Sir Titus didn't think it was aesthetically pleasing. It's interesting that later generations of terraced housing went the other way, with private outdoor space built in where you could hang your washing out in the good weather.

Even the new estates with a management company and eleventy-billion rules don’t ban hanging washing in back gardens (conveyancing solicitor so I’ve seen lots of them).

Is she deranged??? Who writes that in a birthday card?!

I wish I had some sexy lingerie to hang out, but alas, as an old mother of a 6 and a 3 year old, all I have is soft bras, scaffolding and hoists. HOWEVER payday is fast approaching and perhaps I should invest in some neighbourly gifts for myself…

My neighbour's husband refused to let her dry washing in the garden, he drove her to the launderette to dry it instead. That was batshit, and so are you neighbours. I'm hanging out my third lot today, hooray for sunshine on bedding day.

OMG, they're as bad as each other (and definitely patronising!). Double down OP - you need at least two more washing lines positioned close to your shared boundary so they get a really good view. 😉😂

Edited to correct typo.

Is your neighbour a snob or southern. I have only come across this attitude once by a wealthy Londoner who expressed his pretend shock that poor people actually hang washing out in their gardens. He was pretty nasty about people and was making comment no doubt to show social inequality between him and others.

Not Saltaire, but I do know it quite well! We’re in north Leeds (where laundry is legally allowed to be seen out of doors)

You are much politer than I would be.

I'd just tell her that I couldn't give a shit what she thought of me drying my washing outside and would continue to do it. I'd also inform her that her hierarchy of the terrace was bullshit.

What a cheek she has

so much better for environment to line dry

Totally not unreasonable - I'm gutted I'm stuck in work today so can only get one load out and going away tomorrow so can't do some then. If you have access to a garden, no health issues to prevent you carrying /reaching then drying out washing is only sensible! Free and sustainable plus everything smells great.

I'd say it's more common in people who are trying to "keep up appearances". Shades of having to keep your doorstep scrubbed and yourself "naice" to show you were respectable.

Definitely not a southern thing, it's perfectly normal to hang washing out down here too you know!

Plenty of people (me) don’t have tumble driers. Drying washing outside is way better. For the clothes and the environment

She is indeed barmy.

I'd be off to Primark to buy a selection of the sexiest underwear I can find and hang it just where he'll get an eyeful while he's doing the watering.

Not for wear - just for share ...

Bonus, his garden will be looking lovely so she should thank you really, what with all the extra watering in this heatwave.

I currently have 3 loads of washing hung out. I am looking forward to going to bed tonight in clean bedding that smells of fresh air. I don't hang out underwear because I don't want to waste precious line space but everything else is hung out at every opportunity.

Double points if you're wearing some of it - and nothing else - while you hang it out

These tight fisted Yorkshire folk don't like anything with elastic - they can't abide anything that "gives"

Ha, I've just been trying to remember to to do that! Thanks.

Outing myself as a Nosy Nellie, but I noticed a couple of years ago that my neighbours only hung out sheets/towels and male clothing, despite there being a woman living there. It suddenly made me wonder if she thought me declasse for hanging all my clothes and everyone's underwear out. (I'm not originally from the UK so also didn't know if there was a subtle social norm on this stuff).

Fast forward to this year's amazing spring/summer drying weather and she is now doing it too 😁 I like to imagine I have liberated her from whatever voice on her head told her or wasn't naice!