House viewings - neighbour refuses to take down flag

[KayleighhMum]

Our house is up for sale and we have viewings commencing from tomorrow - 7 in total lined up over the course of the week.

Our neighbour hung a large England flag from his top window on Friday and it has remained up. DH saw him outside the front on Saturday and politely asked if he could take it down before Tuesday. He basically laughed and said if any prospective new neighbour dislikes the flag then they won’t be the sort of person he’d want living next to him. It remains up now.

I am concerned this would be off putting, but speaking to my mum earlier she thinks I am over thinking things and it wouldn’t make a difference if someone likes the house.

Do you think we should try and ask again or would you assume it shouldn’t put people off? We are semi detached so it will definitely be noticed.

No prior issues with this neighbour who has always been friendly etc.

It’s the Women's Rugby world cup
at the moment.

Oh yes. That will be the reason.
🙄

What connotations? Because someone says so? I think we all have to ignore the noise that some sections of society are making because they want to shut down debate. I’d be more interested in whether the neighbouring houses were well maintained etc

This whole disgust people have with our national flag is ridiculous. This is England so seeing an English/British flag should be completely normal.anybody who wants to live in England should love seeing our flag. I love nothing more than being in another country and seeing them flying their national flags with pride

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to ignore the noise unfortunately. Surely you get that?

No-one should get upset about seeing our nations flag flying proudly from someone's home.

Nobody disgusted by the flag, they are disgusted by racists tainting it

People who don't suffer because of it doesn't care :v

They should when it's done to support racists

It will put people off (eg me) but there's (hopefully small %) that would find it positive. So swings and roundabouts.

I don't think any good will be done by asking again, it might sour the friendliness until you manage to move.

Well, sometimes it is sport. When the Lionesses won a European cup a few weeks ago there were lots of St George flags out. As to Pride Month, since it became a kink fest full of TiMs and has ousted Lesbians for being genital bigots, I think quite a lot of us have ceased to support it - esp after the Safeguarding officer of Sussex Pride turned out to be a paedophile.
Also, family and nation are the bedrock of our democracy. We decry them at our peril. Without the nation we cannot rally ourselves to protect our way of life, our beliefs and our culture - which would be a bad outcome.

It certainly would put me off.

When I moved into my house a friend popped over and was horrified by the St George's cross flying on a neighbour's house. She made all kinds of unpleasant assumptions about the neighbour, e.g. unemployed, ignorant, racist, bigot, 'gammon', 'white van man'. I was quite shocked.
Later I met him and found out he was in actual fact a decent, hard-working bloke, with grown kids and an amazing job in professional sport that takes him all over the world.
I asked about the flag. He said he was a patriotic Brit and so used to seeing flags in other countries he thought he'd fly his own. He's turned out to be the best neighbour!

I think it's a good filter for you too, you shouldn't be dealing with someone who has a problem with the flag of the nation they are living in

Genuine question, why do you live here if you clearly hate it so much?

What, you mean that you didn’t make a huge assumption and judge this man before you met him? That’s very un mumsnetty of you…

There IS a World Cup on at the moment. The Women’s Rugby World Cup started last week, we are hosting the tournament, and England played last Friday (and absolutely kicked ass 🌹🏉) and will be again this weekend.

So in fact, this is a perfectly appropriate time to be displaying England flags.

Unless you think a Women’s World Cup isn’t an important enough tournament to merit displaying flags, in which case you might want to examine your own prejudice before you start judging other people’s.

Happily, the BBC just announced that the England match last week broke viewing figure and match attendance records so it looks like some people think it’s a big deal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/cm2vg8205rgo

What is it called when people pin up Palestine flags then? Is that Hamas supporters? Terrorist organisation supporters?

Ok I’m done. I agree with @OonaStubbs on something. What’s happening.

I’d assume the neighbour was a racist and there’s no way I would buy.

Are you white perchance? Just thinking about the statement that you made that you wouldn't notice. Cos as a brown skinned person, I would notice and, while the flag itself is not inherently offensive to me at all, I'd make a quick risk assessment. The chance of the flag being there (outside major football match periods) because the person has particular views about immigrants/ brown skinned people is medium to high. I would therefore not risk buying the house next door. Which is a win for the neighbour and tbh, whilst I feel a bit sad that I need to worry about stuff like this, it's kind of helpful for me to have the heads up!

And nothing at all to do with the Rugby???

That was nearly 20 years ago now and was the first time I had heard someone be so judgemental about the English flag. I was staggered by the venom and all the associations listed!

Good for him, you're being a CF asking him to remove it!