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.

this. Unless you can easily sort privacy glass.

Now this IS something I didn't even know was possible!! Off to Google them now!!

Wow how kind.

Putting up the window film could result in hours, weeks or months - possibly even years - of meltdowns. (Ask me how I know)

Perhaps the window film would also be ripped off at first opportunity.

OP is not unreasonable to want to avoid that.

Bet you have lots of friends.

It seems you're in the minority looking at responses.

OP could word it sensitively.

If it's that important to neighbour she can say no.

Because I know he would headbut the window so hard he risks seriously damaging himself. I put some window film stickers on the living room window at Xmas - never again.

If you can get blinds to close off the windows to outside, then great, and better in he long run. But its absolutely not unreasonable to ask your neighbour to close their curtains for a bit. If there's a real reason they can't they will surely say. I wouldn't refuse and I can't imagine any of my neighbours would either.

I wouldn't mind if my neighbour asked and would try my best to do it but I'd probably forget most nights as it can be quite chaotic and I dont always have an eye on the time so could be quite difficult to enforce.

@Handrearedmagpie assume your neighbour is a poster like this & just ask!!

ignore all the twattery & selfishness & hope for the best. It's only for a few weeks that ut'll still be daylight shes shutting out , it'll soon be dark at 8pm.

Agree. Perhaps the neighbour will be pleased to know that everyone can see into her living room. As frankly, she can’t know as who would want that?

YABU. You could pay for mirrored film on her windows if she's willing, or why don't you close your curtains? Or grow a hedge or something?

Yes i do thanks for asking, They also don't expect me to try to control how they live their lives within their home especially not strangers.

Well your post did not go where you wanted or get the response you were after did it 😂

Actually, you are right. Shes in a bungalow on a corner plot and has two large windows, one on our street and one looking onto the side street. It would just be closing the blinds/curtains on one of the windows.

In Germany lots of homes have external metal shutters you operate from inside.Banham do them in the UK and there will be lots of other firms.

Sigh

people who don't have any experience with children who have SEN might not naturally understand how difficult it is, but they could at least read & TRY to understand.

Looks like you did not check the voting then, as it appears there your in the minority.

Again, I’m so sorry for your challenges. Genuinely. I just don’t agree with making that someone else’s problem. It’s more the nature of the request. Asking her to change her private life on a daily basis. It’s totally not unreasonable to ask someone to accommodate an autistic child on a one off basis eg let them queue jump ahead of you because they are having a meltdown. Totally fine. That’s a nice thing to do that doesn’t really impact on someone’s life. But asking someone you don’t know to do something daily that impacts their life negatively - that screams entitlement.

This!

You can definitely ask. I’d be happy to if it was just for 30 minutes and helped you with this.

As I have said, I have no window coverings as I prefer natural light 24/7. I give zero fucks that people can see in.

but I'd happily put blinds up & close them at 8pm if it helped the OP. All that I would ask is that she tells me when it's no longer necessary so I could return to my preference.

The fact she has other windows in the room that wouldn't be affected id definitely ask her. If its going to make someone's life so much easier. It's a whole 30 mins a day for possibly just a week or so

I'm afraid that if I was your neighbour and you asked this of me, I'd assume you were judging the size of my TV.

Late? 8 PM?!! its still daylight!

But it’s still light outside at 8!? I wouldn’t want to sit in darkness, or have to use lighting if I didn’t need to. What happens if your routine starts later/finishes later due to changed circumstances on some nights? Do they need to be on call to adapt to your request if your needs change? I’d hate this. Enough for me to remember stuff which needs doing on an evening after work, without having something else to remember. You’re kind of making your problem someone else’s, and it’s a bit unfair. But like others have said, you can ask. They’ll say yes or no, but I would hope you wouldnt judge them for refusing.

Can you put a tiny bit of Vaseline on the outside of the window and slowly build it up over a week or so so it gets harder to see out?
alternatively get a universal remote control and switch her TV to bbc to avoid adverts