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.

...and it doesn't occur to either if you that the child will just pick at it and peel it off???

Easy too see neither of you have any experience with children with SEN.

I wouldn’t mind but it’s putting too many apples in the wrong cart. It’s not part of her routine, she may well forget, there might be multiple people watching tv on different schedules some of whom won’t do it/will
forget etc. Don’t put something in her control which should be in yours. Get a privacy film or fixed blackouts for your windows and fix the problem your end.

If it's light at 8pm, no, I wouldn't. Sitting with curtains shut when it's light outside does my head in. (SEN here too).
If it's dark, then I would, but chances are they'd already be shut for my privacy anyway.

It takes a village. But only some villages will do it, the other villages are full of cunts.

Massively unreasonable, sorry. Get one of those sticky privacy blurry things for your window. Why should she change her window to deal with your problem, when you can change your own window to deal with it?

Yes I would & don't be so bloody rude. I'm not lying nor am I mother Teresa like, but I do know how hard life can be with a child with SEN & getting some blinds for the window would not be a big deal for me, nor would closing them at 8pm.

But I wouldn't need to do that as I wouldn't have an obnoxiously huge TV!

I’m so sorry. That does sound tough. But it is not the neighbour’s problem.

Exactly!!

Another idea for you OP - you can get roller blinds or shutters for outside the window. No chance of your son peeping out then.

'I think you need to look up 'dictate' & 'ask' then compare their meanings.

I do but op will have to look for imperfect solutions if the neighbour says no or if they say yes but then forget regularly, you can get some very sticky ones.

The window film is a good idea for my bedroom window, I normally have the blinds down on it anyway so DS hopefully wouldn't notice. He would absolutely notice if I did that in the living room though and could not cope with that level of change.
I know DS (obviously!) and he's very routine driven. It might actually be enough just to ask if she could possibly do it for a week, just to break his fixation with her TV maybe?
I've tried every distraction technique I know, even if he has his tablet, he seems to have an internal body clock that tells him it's 8pm - let's put tablet down and screech at neighbours adverts" time 😭 I keep my windows closed to avoid anyone being able to hear it and think I'm hurting him .

I can’t believe people on this thread would say no?! It’s half an hour, and it’s only an issue for a couple of months a year when it’s light ish at 8.

i can totally understand your reticence to ask OP, but people need to take a long hard look at themselves.

This exactly, I’d happily help a neighbour is this situation

If you have any suggestions as to how I can prevent a very physically strong 8 year old from opening the blinds again, I genuinely would like to know. I've tried tying up the cords, he literally tries to rip the blinds down to see this TV and get upset at it.

Me too

External shutter or roller shutter?

Yep!!

Obviously I can't picture the layout but unless the TV is as big as her entire wall she probably wouldn't even need to close all the curtains. I wouldn't be offended if someone asked me and we'd be happy to do it in my house for a week. Possibly not forever. However our sympathy was influenced by being a neurodiverse household. The other thing is that you could offer to pay for someone to put some privacy film on their windows. Once I knew someone was watching my TV through the windows in my house and therefore me as a side effect I'd want to close the curtains even though I imagine he couldn't care less about what the people are up to.

No ND in my house so I have no idea how hard it is to deal with everyday. If I could help a neighbour then I would do it. I can’t imagine being such a twat that I couldn’t do a simple, easy, free task that takes two seconds to help someone out

No, it's not the neighbours problem, but it's within the neighbours ability to help the OP out if she WANTS to, many of us would do so happily, but unless ASKED wouldn't know about it.

I'd HATE my neighbour to be struggling with something like this & not simply ASK.

Hang on a minute, that makes no sense. Why should your neighbour do this for a week to “break his routine”? Why don’t you put up the privacy screen/sticker for a week to break his routine? I seriously can’t believe you expect someone else to affect their own private life, when you’re not willing to do the same yourself. I appreciate things must be challenging for you but quite frankly that’s your problem to navigate.

I’d hate someone putting me in an awkward position by making something my problem when it’s not. You have no idea what the neighbour is dealing with. Maybe she has a tough life and coming home to her TV and light in her living room helps her decompress. Once you ask her she either feels obliged to say yes or feels awkward and shit if she says no. It’s not fair to put your problems on other people.

Agree with this. Most decent people, if asked politely, would be absolutely fine with this.