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.

Yanbu from me - I'd definitely not have emergency light blue or bright flashing, but I do have soft pink lights on my tress all year round and a few path lighter one. They make me feel cheerful when I come home and they're staying, whether the neighbours like it or not.

People don't have a right to control the whole environment around them, sometimes a grown adult might have to see something on the horizon that they personally don't like or wouldn't choose. Such is the nature of living near other people!
There are some miserable buggers on this thread, but so long as your lights aren't bright white/blue/flashing, then they aren't anti social.
Id much rather have you as a neighbour than someone who takes cars apart in their front garden, or has a continuously yappy dog, or ones who park in the turning circle/block up the road, or have loud parties frequently/row with their spouse loudly. She could have it a lot worse than a few lights in a garden.

Nor me. It sounds like yet another tacky Insta fad. A natural Autumn wreath on the front door can be nice - but anything else seems completely OTT.

Are there Spring and Summer lights as well? 😳

Americans decorate for Thanksgiving sometimes, but even they’re not into all this.

And a lot if lights upsets the wildlife. 🙄

I would be mortified if something I was doing was upsetting a neighbour if it was something that could be so easily resolved. Just take them down/put them out of sight. Why are you so hellbent on keeping them there?

It's naff as anything apart from anything else.

Your neighbour is the one who has to look at the lights, not you. Quite.
I've often wondered why people don't put their lights in their back gardens so they can enjoy them, instead of just inflicting them on passers-by. Are the lights some sort of statement?

I think your static lights sound lovely - very pretty and I too would be cheered by seeing them as the nights get darker.

I have had a moaning neighbour. There is nothing you can do to appease them, best to ignore otherwise you end up in a cycle of moaning and making every increasing attempts to

presumably in a residential area there is street lighting and garden lighting for safety and security so you’re not destroying the total darkness of some remote wilderness. If that is what your neighbour was looking your estate/culdesac set up is obviously not for her.

You're too old to be scared of the dark.

Stop polluting the area with unevessary light. People don't need it and more importantly, wildlife doesn't need it.

Me too. Why are you doing this OP? A few lights to celebrate something but that isn't what you are doing.

One day you might need help from your neighbours. A call to say there's smoke coming from the garage or there was a dodgy geezer looking in your kitchen window. Their attitude will be to do nothing and let you have the consequences with your finger up attitude.

You don't need flashing lights, they are garish. Some gentle lighting at Christmas is fine but bright and flashing, intrusive.

I do not get why you are putting up lights now!

Why is it okay to decorate for Christmas but not for Autumn? Everyone thinks they have taste and other peoples choices are tacky, but taste is subjective.

Luckily, it’s the op’s house, not yours. So it doesn’t affect how special your own decorations are.

Lights aren't something you can see. It's everyone else who can see them! Flashing flights can cause headaches/migraines. However, unless your neighbour is stood staring out of her windows with the curtains open, I can't see what difference it really makes. Perhaps her curtains are thin or she doesn't have blackout ones?!

May be you could compromise? Make sure any lights aren't flashing (not even a little bit) and turn them off around 8-9 pm at night. Lights don't need to be on all night.

Every second bar/restaurant near me has fairy lights or old fashioned bulb strings criss crossing their outside seating space.

I’ve never come across anyone complaining it’s tacky or migraine inducing, showy or intrusive.

MN is another world sometimes.

Lots of people where I live have the solar stake lights up the drive and fairy lights around the fence, you wouldn’t be able to see either from your window. They can always close their blinds as well since you’d only see them at night time…

Do you live in a town or out in the country? We moved to a village and it was so nice to live somewhere with no light pollution, where we could sit in the garden and look properly at the stars. Then we got new neighbours in the house adjoining ours who decided to light up their front and back gardens. I struggle to understand the mentality of it TBH, it was nice at Christmas not the entire year! It's like they haven't grown out of the night light stage.

It’s the flashing that triggers me. I live in a residential estate so whatever the restaurants are doing also doesn’t affect me. That’s very different.

I am a big fan of tacky decorating (and yes, I’m American lol!). I decorate with enthusiasm for Easter and Thanksgiving and Halloween and Christmas and Chanukah. Inside my home. Outside is totally different.

And as usual half of MN is falling over itself to prove how non-tacky and aspirationally MC they are 😂

where I live there is a beautiful row of Georgian town houses. In autumn the steps and front doors are wreathed in hops and leaves with pumpkins cascading down the steps. At Christmas the front gardens are lit with fairy lights and decorated with baubles and firs with nutcrackers and eucalyptus.

it’s beautiful and cheering and anyone who thinks it is tacky is miserable IMO.

We had to ask our neighbour across the road to turn their stark flashing blue/ice white lights to static. They were still stark and uncomfortable to have in full view, but it was better. I'd probably have enjoyed them if they'd been a different type of light and not flashing. What I've never understood is, the people inside their flashing, lit up houses, are unable to see them. Its everyone else that has to put up with them. We have some soft, warm white micro lights in the back garden and they go off at a designated time.

Regardless of your neighbour, all of your lights are really hideous for wildlife whether they're out the front or back, flashing/non flashing.

And the OP has said her lights don’t flash 🤷‍♀️

people who are able to sit in and enjoy the ambience of a twinkly fairy lit bistro garden are able to cope with fairy lights on a house two drive ways apart.

the OPs neighbour just wants to moan.

They have moaned about kids playing outside, a neighbours new fence, a neighbour coming and going to work and now your lights. Keep away from them. I actually just wouldn’t talk to them at all. Keep your lights!

I bet the rest of the neighbours hate them with all their fucking moaning!

Put them on a PIR sensor so you see them when you come home but your neighbours don't have to look at them for all the time that you can't even see them because you're inside.

YABU

If it was just static lights for a few days at Christmas, I'd say it would be ok to disregard the neighbours. But anything that flashes/fades-and-rises and/or is up for more than a few days is an imposition on other people and they have a right to ask you to stop it.

It sounds like you go for lights that are quite extensive. I'm guessing that your "Christmas" lights stay up for weeks. Together with your autumn lights it sounds like months of light pollution (and environmentally unfriendly wastes of energy and plastic).

Lights that are outside the house don't benefit you - except for the few moments when you are coming into the property. They are for the neighbourhood, a communal thing. Sounds like these aren't benefiting anyone.

She has said she can see them when inside,

I'm dubious about that too. If Christmas lights give her migraine how does she cope with going elsewhere during the season when High Streets have light displays and a lot of shops also put up lights? How does she cope all year long with the bright lights in supermarkets?