AIBU to keep our lights up despite neighbour complaining?

[AutumnLighting]

We moved into our house just before Christmas last year. We are one of 6 houses on a lane in an u shape and our house is directly opposite one of the other houses. All of the houses are set back so we are not close to the houses opposite.

When we moved in last year, we put up lights on our house and in two of our trees at the front of our house as well as 2 nutcrackers and a Christmas wreath on the door. Nothing garish, just white lights. Every time we saw the neighbours opposite they would comment on the lights and decorations. They said things like that’s is a lot of lights, did you leave any in the shop for anyone else, we certainly can’t miss you etc. We took the lights down in January.

This is now our first autumn in the house and my husband has put up some lights along the front of the house, a garland around the front door and a wreath on the door. We went out for the evening and have come home to a note from the neighbour opposite which said she doesn’t like the lights, none of the past neighbours have ever put them up and that the lights will give her migraines like the ones we put up at Christmas did. She would like us to remove the lights.

How do we respond to this? My husband thinks we just ignore it but I said she will talk to us when we see her if we don’t go over and talk to her about it. He said he’ll tell her not to look at the lights. What would you say? We obviously plan to put the lights up for Christmas again this year so that isn’t going to go down well either.

We know she has moaned about other things to some of the other neighbours like their grandchildren playing outside on their bikes so she seems to be a moaner.

Do they flash? If so, you are being pretty unreasonable. If they give her a migraine it's pretty unkind to keep them up.

Do they really give her a migraine?? 🧐

Are the lights static and not flashing? If static, I'd suggest she needs better curtains, or suggest a compromise of turning off by say 9pm. If flashing, I'd turn the flash off because they can be incredibly annoying, even with blackout curtains!

Out of interest, why do you need Autumn lights and how are they different to your Christmas lights?

My opposite neighbours put up blue lights in December. I can just about put up with them for a month but if they kept them up any longer I would actually cry. YABU.

Your neighbour is the one who has to look at the lights, not you as you presumably can't see many/any of them from inside the house. So what's the point? Take them down and give the poor woman a break.

Lights now? Antisocial and awful. 2 weeks over Christmas is enough. Is she supposed to sit with her curtains closed! You would be my idea of neighbours from hell. Just be kind to
your neighbours!

Completely ignore her about the wreath. She's got too much time on her hands. I think lights are a bit OTT for autumn though.

I don’t think I’d like it but I certainly wouldn’t be telling someone what to do on their own property so just ignore her.
it may make things difficult for you for neighbourly relations but I can’t see how she can make you take them down

Bright lights at night can disturb sleep and definitely do disturb nature. Can you have warm white? Fewer lights? Lights that aren’t visible from her windows? I’d compromise here.

I’m your neighbour. I hate garden lights. For starters they are bad for and confuse wildlife.

Pick up on the unspoken protocols and etiquettes of your new neighborhood. Why do you want to upset the apple cart?

IF you absolutely must have the lights, for the sake of harmony, turn them off at (say) 9pm.

Why on earth do you want lights up on 1st September? I'd hate to be your neighbour, presumably you're intending to have lights up for over 4 months? It's so anti social.

If you like lights why don't you put them in your back garden so only you see them, instead of inflicting them on others. It's acceptable to have lights in the Christmas season but not otherwise.

Your neighbour is the one who has to look at the lights, not you as you presumably can't see many/any of them from inside the house. So what's the point?

That. The poor woman has seen these go up on the 1st September, and realises that this is it for a minimum of four months.

You are being incredibly unreasonable

If they’re on the front of your house then your neighbours will see them much more than you will. Why not decorate your back garden as pp said? Although as another pp said, they disturb nature.

I would hate it if my neighbours had multiple outdoor lights on permanently. It’s light pollution and really unnecessary.

The ones we have at moment don’t. They just provide a ‘glow’ as we drive up our drive. The Christmas ones can flash. We put them on the setting that goes from off to slowly getting brighter or one that flashes very slowly downwards, not the setting that looks like a rave.

Neighbours a while ago, thankfully now gone, put blue white lights on their pagoda in the garden it lit whole rear of my house..which is just obnoxious when our gardens and nature need darkness...it was like a horrid disco. We still have bats, lovely mature trees all need darkness.

I suppose our human route was lit if we went to the bathroom at night, trying to be positive (except that light is bad for humans too)...with modesty glass in the bathroom their was no defence to the ghastly light..unless we had drilled tiles to put up an unhygienic blind..in a bathroom 🤢

What do you need lights outside your front door for? It's only other people, upon whom you're inflicting them, that will see them. If you like lights then put them where they're not polluting the environment for other people - ie inside the house, not outside it.

Or inside your home??

I agree with many of the responses here.

I love outside lights (tasteful ones not tacky) but I do think that September is too early.
An Autumn wreath yes that's lovely but Autumn lights no. I can understand your neighbour being pissed off that its too bright for her to relax in her own home.

Why don't you just save the lights til Xmas when it's much more reasonable to be slightly annoying for 2 weeks only.

I genuinely get migraines from flashing lights & have had to ask our neighbours opposite to if they could change the setting to static when they have them up at christmas. I explained why & that I have no issue with static lights but become very ill with flashing lights (I get classic aura migraines, violently vomiting for hours & need to sleep to get rid of the migraine which is hard when Im throwing up for hours). They were brilliant & changed the setting immediately.

Please dont put flashing lights up, they can make some people incredibly ill (you usually have to push thr setting button on the light box 7 times to change the lights to permanent static)

Who doesn’t have their curtains closed at night?
Do you sit there with your curtains open, staring at the house opposite you?

lol at autumn! Kids are still on summer hols, don’t wish your life away!

Maybe put a couple of lanterns by your front door instead - it could form part of a harvest display with gourds/pumpkins

I think any sort of flashing light outside is unreasonable, too many people are affected by them

Both those would be really irritating. Again, you're missing the point that she's the one that has to live with the effect, and not you.

I don’t know. From her house to ours is quite far due to the length of driveways and the width of the lane. Her house also has a hedge that covers all the width of the front of her house other than the bit she drives her car through, if that makes sense. Our house has some hedge as well so our views of each others houses are obscured a lot. At the moment she would have to look through the gap in her drive and ours to see the lights as they’re only on the lower part of the house. She would see a small part of them. At Christmas we put them higher up on the house as well and with the trees they will be more noticeable to her, but we are quite far away.

Exactly this. You are not seeing your lights, your neighbours are. Decorate inslde to your hearts' content.

Flashing lights - even not on a rave setting - are antisocial.

Don't have them flash at all, it's incredibly annoying.