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.

ND mum here. Feel your pain but you can't expect neighbours to do this nightly. Put window film on the outside of your window. It'll last a few weeks I'm sure and then the cycle will be broken x

Put blurry stuff on the outsid of the window if you think he'd peel it off from the inside or buy wooden shutters to close up from outside. There are things you can do without bothering your neighbours.

How would that work unless you go and fit it inside the neighbour's window? The concern is not the neighbour seeing in which is what privacy film is for, it's the son looking out.

For the privacy film to work the right way in your own home for the issue in question it would have to be fitted back to front and stop you seeing out at any time

And if a blind doesn't work then I can't see that a film would!

The black out rolls work on both sides of the window, are cheap to buy and easy to apply with water and take down

I would happily do it under the circumstances too op. It’s worth trying but she might say no.

You may be doing your neighbour a favour if you politely ask for the curtains to be closed. I’d be mortified if people on the street could see the crap I may be watching on the TV.

Could put it on the outside or fix a waterproof roller blind to the outside somehow.

I wouldn’t think that with an 8 year old. However, I appreciate the PP’s 8 year old is ND so it’s a possibility. I’m not sure how hard they are to peel off- i’m guessing not that hard , thinking about it!

That would be my problem too. If I was the neighbours I wouldn't mind, but I would say I will do my best.

Why would it impact negatively? She's got windows on the other wall which she can leave uncurtained, and it's only for around 2-3 months a year that it's light enough to make a difference anyway.

What's so onerous about closing blinds nightly? Most of us do it automatically.

I wouldn't do this if asked. How are you going to manage your child long term if at 8 years old you are having to ask the neighbour to change their behaviour because you can't manage his?

I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t remember each night at 8pm and I also work in a windowless office all day, so I want/need the summer daylight for as long as possible. Getting home at 6, and having to close my blinds at 8pm would be pretty rubbish.

I’m not saying this is the same, but it reminded me of my neighbour asking me to paint our fences grey, because they had just painted theirs grey and decided we should too.
At first he asked nicely, i said maybe but not on my to-do list right now as many other things we were working in our home and garden.

But then he started messaging a few times a week, knocking on the door, summoning me in the street, asking when we could do it as it was making the street look untidy and he had to look at these fences from his home office window. 😂

2 years on, and we have not painted the fences, on principle 😅 btw the fences we have are just non painted ‘fence colour’ but in great condition 🤷🏻‍♀️

Your request is completely different, for a genuine reason and nowhere near as entitled as my neighbour- his request would have cost me time and money!
Also, I very much doubt you would start harassing your neighbour, if they say no the request.

As i said in a previous reply, perhaps a note through the door might suffice? Just so it doesn’t make them feel sort of surprised and put on the spot?
Do you speak in the street at all?

Best of luck, I hope you find a solution.

At the moment it's still light at 8pm. I wouldn't think of closing blinds at that time.

At the moment it's still light at 8pm. I wouldn't think of closing blinds at that time.

It's easy. You just get a finger under an edge, which isn't hard to do, and it will all peel off.

Sitting with blinds closed when it's sunny outside is physically uncomfortable for me. I have better mental health when I get more light, don't sleep as well if I close the curtains too early and feel a bit suffocated. Those things are important to me and my well-being, so I wouldn't be up for it while light. I might make the concession for a week to be helpful, but not ongoing. My needs matter too.

When it's darkened.

Me too

You can ask. I’d say yes, and so would most people, but as you can see on this thread, some people don’t care about other people and would never inconvenience themselves. Can you get an outside door lock for your bedroom door so he can’t go into there to watch it? Might be an option, or shutters as someone suggested, though they will be quite expensive.

Is it a particular channel? Like if someone said they'd pay for me to have the posh version of Netflix with no adverts I'd happily accept as I don't watch terrestrial anyway.

Why can you close your own curtains or blinds? Seen as though they can see out of your own window?

Me too. I might use blinds or net curtains but I’d hate to think I was creating all that stress when I can easily sort it.

Btw, we have reall thin paper blinds on our LR which means we can use them for privacy without removing sunlight.