To ask neighbour to close curtains

[Handrearedmagpie]

First of all, I know IABU. It's more a question of HOW unreasonable.
My young DS is autistic, non speaking and has a severe learning disability. Meltdowns are triggered by sudden changes like adverts on the TV. Neighbour diagonally across street from me has very large windows and an ENORMOUS TV. Never shuts her curtains/blinds so DS can watch her TV from our house and fixates on it when his own tablet is removed before bedtime.
Every. Single. Night. It's meltdown when adverts appear on her TV. Obviously I shut our own blinds but he knows her TV is there and just opens them again, or he will go upstairs and hyper focus on her TV from my bedroom window.
How horrendously unreasonable would I be to ask her to close her blinds for half an hour at night just to avoid this nightly hysteria??! I'm at my wits end with it.
YABU - absolutely unreasonable. It's your child's disability to manage.
YANBU - you can only ask and see what she says.

But some people like to be neighbourly and are happy to help people out. It’s obviously an alien concept to some people on this thread but most people I know would have no issue with doing things to make their friends and neighbours lives more pleasant.

Obviously if it’s a huge inconvenience then that’s different and you say no. But a request like this would have zero impact on my life and I’d be happy to do it.

Same here. Many people who live alone also keep the TV on all evening for company/background noise, even if they are doing something else. I don’t switch my TV off when I go into the kitchen to cook dinner, etc.

Sorry but its not fair to ask the neighbour. Get some external shutters fitted to your house if privacy film doesn’t work.

😂

No we’re not. Maybe we just have nicer neighbours but where I live we’ve all made little changes to our day to day lives to accommodate each other when we’ve had babies or elderly parents living with us.
They’ve had no impact on our lives but have made a difference to our neighbours.

We’ve also said no to things that would have been inconvenient.

If you ask as a favour abd say you accept if her decision is not to then it can't hurt to ask. I would if asked nicely with an explanation.

Yes, this.

8pm isnt late at night!! I

Good for you.
🫣

Eh?
Are you confusing me with someone?
Also, not wanting to have my life dictated by someone else's child does not mean I don't have compassion for that child. 🫣

WTAF?

Have you even read the OP’s post? About how routine driven her DS is? Have you even got a shred of empathy at all?

Nobody nobody is asking anyone to take responsibility for the OP’s child. They are asking a neighbour to do a small thing to help. That’s all.

Honestly reading some comments on this thread make me totally despair of society.

Trust me, I worry constantly about how I will deal with the meltdowns as a lone parent to a very high needs child. This isn't normal parentting where you can just put strict boundaries in place.

Erm it was you saying closing her curtains would change her life! 🤷‍♀️

I hope the OP realises that the holier than thou crowd on MN are certainly not indicative of the general population, thank god.

Requesting a neighbour who you have never spoken too, do not know and have no interest in other than appeasing your own problems to set phone alarms, shut blinds, change tv locations is bat shit crazy.

Sorry but there is personally responsibility, the OP should be exhausting all possible options before trying to put pressure on random strangers for her own issues. You have ZERO idea what personal problems the neighbour has of her own before trying to emotionally blackmail them with bloody flowers and chocolates as many have suggested..

This would be a great idea if her TV wasn't mounted to the wall, or I would happily keep her in flowers till winter!

It's the living room that's the main problem. I've tried putting a lock on the outside of the door to stop him going in but he burst through it to get to see her TV (not to watch it, to wait for the adverts and scream 😭)

By asking someone to alter their behavior she is asking them to bear some responsibility though.
Having sympathy doesn't mean having to be the solution.

Eh?
Being told when to close your curtains does change daily life.

Since when is being neighbourly ‘holier than thou’?

But it mean putting un due pressure on a potentially member of the public, if i found you were asking my elderly mother stuff like this id be going round telling you what for.

As she would naturally be fretting about it every day.

Being neighbourly is not asking someone to do things for you , you would not and never previously bothered to speak too or interact with until it benefits you 🙄

Indeed, this thread has been a real eye-opening view into a different, shitter world for me. We know almost everybody on our road and I am confident that (with the exception of one bloke who's a committed arsehole), all of them would be happy to acquiesce to a request like this. As would I. It's bizarre how many people are saying that the OP feels 'entitled' to help from her neighbour, or is 'demanding' help. It's just asking a favour, a normal thing, and given how reasonably the OP has come across here I'm pretty sure she won't kick off if the neighbour says no for whatever reason. It's also odd how many people are saying 'well I'd say no because [insert something to do with emotional support dogs with SAD]', or because they see closing some curtains as on a par with the twelve labours of Hercules. So what? Closing your curtains for a bit might be a life-changing upheaval for you, but you are not the neighbour in question, so it's irrelevant. And yes you might forget occasionally but I'm sure the OP would appreciate the times when they do remember, and she isn't expecting the neighbour to sign an agreement whereby if the curtains remain enclosed by 8.05pm then damages become payable. Honestly the contortions people will go through to paint a woman at the end of her tether as being unreasonable for asking a favour...it's crackers.

All I can think is that your life must be very dull if closing the curtains for half an our is such an onerous change to your life then.

We obviously have different definitions of being neighbourly.