Neighbour finds our christmas lights "annoying"...

jaqui59

Marisco wrote: »

I honestly cannot see what the fuss is about all this? I never close my curtains until I go to bed (got no nets either:p) but if lights across from me bothered me that much, I'd just close them for the duration!! Are her curtains tissue paper thin or something???

You took the words straight out of my mouth!

harrys_nan

Alikay wrote: »

It's always been a little treat on December evenings to stick the kids in the car in pj's and draped in a blanket and head for a particular street on the nearby council estate to see the Christmas lights! We play the Christmas CD and have a few sweets. Posh areas are rubbish for decorations!

We don't do the outside of our house because we're both scared of heights, but really appreciate the effort that other people make:)

Do you mean that street nr Stourbridge?

Marisco

Now these are Xmas lights!!:D

dizziblonde

As an addition to the widdler-tree mentioned before - today we're greeted with the appearance of two reindeer, made of what appears to be bacofoil and chicken wire on someone round the corner's bay window. They're not secured down or anything (was watching them put them up) so first gust of wind and Rudolph's going to go flying.

Oh and if anyone sees a house with "Welcome to Derby" strung across their roof - let the council know cos they want their nicked Xmas lights back please.

If the neighbours over the road from us did their house it WOULD annoy us. We've all got, as a legacy of when the houses were built, the most bizarre frosted-glass octagonal windows in the corner of our bedrooms (it's like a cross between Playschool and a ship's porthole) and no one on the street has curtains up at them because of their arkward shape, the frosted nature of them and the fact they're right in a dead corner of the room... so if we had flash flash flash all night - it would grate on an awful lot of people (the council have even put shields on the streetlights to stop them shining back into people's upstairs windows for similar reasons).

Welshwoofs

BigBlackcat wrote: »

Now, are you absolutely sure that you wouldn't mind people looking in your windows? What.........if God forbid...........they saw something they deemed tacky??? Can you imagine the shame and humiliation??? :rotfl:

Can I imagine the shame and humiliation? Nope. I don't care what other people think of what's inside my house.

You see where you're going wrong is assuming that because I'm not shy about stating my likes and dislikes, I give a flying whatsit what other people think of my taste. I don't

Welshwoofs

Marisco wrote: »

Now these are Xmas lights!!:D

That makes me very nostalgic for the rolling black-outs of the 70s.

Oldernotwiser

mummyoftwomonkeys wrote: »

ignore the moody old mare, I love seeing all the christmas lights outside the houses and so do my kids. Sounds like she was just looking to pick a fight with someone to me

And yet another one who thinks her children's pleasure is worth upsetting people!

Nicki

pimento wrote: »

So it's 10% of the year, so what?

So its not the tiny amount of time you implied in the post I quoted. Given that its causing upset to someone, its a sizeable chunk of the year, every year, hence it may be worth seeing whether a compromise can be reached to minimise the inconvenience to the neighbour.

Would you be happy if your neighbour decided to practise his bagpipes every night between 6 and 10pm for five and a half weeks continuously in preparation for New Years Eve, provided he didn't do it at all for the rest of the year? You could wear headphones or earplugs to minimise any noise disruption.

Just because a visual intrusion into your home life doesn't disturb you, doesn't mean it doesn't disturb anyone. And lighted displays are very different to say painting your house yellow with purple stripes. Its not just that they might not be to your aesthetic taste, they also intrude into your property whether they flash or not, and might not be fully blocked out by curtains if they were lightweight or perhaps medium weight also but unlined.

If you equate light disturbance with noise disturbance perhaps you can see where the neighbour is coming from. And again, the neighbour did not come round shouting and swearing, or even ask OP to take the display down. She simply made her aware, after SEVEN years of holding her tongue, that the lights inconvenienced her. Had she not done so, OP would have been none the wiser, and might have upped the display every year oblivious of the upset she was causing. Now at least OP knows and can take this into consideration if she chooses in future years.

pimento

If I thought my neighbour had a genuine grievance, of course, I'd compromise. I don't want to upset him, but I don't think Mrs. Firstthinginthemorningoperalover does have a legitimate complaint. I think she's being very precious, probably yhinks the lights are lowering the tone and has forgotten what it's like to have children at Christmas.

As it happens, one of our neighbours does practice the bagpipes for a week a year for the summer fete. Does it bother me? Not really because I know it's only going to be for a finite time.

(Caveat: I don't put any decorations up for Christmas, inside or out, but if my neighbour wants to THATS HIS BUSINESS.)

Nicki

pimento wrote: »

As it happens, one of our neighbours does practice the bagpipes for a week a year for the summer fete. Does it bother me? Not really because I know it's only going to be for a finite time.

That's my point! A week a year is bearable. Two weeks at a push. Or even 10% of the year, spread over the whole year. But five and a half weeks, every day for four hours solid :eek:

BTW my next door neighbour in a terraced house also practised his bagpipes, and we didn't mind either, but that was because it was for an hour or so at a time, it wasn't every night, and he told us in advance if it bothered us at any point to come round and ask him to stop (which we never did in seven years of living beside him). None of these perfectly normal and neighbourly pleasant arrangements apply to OP, or apparently would be acceptable to her.

Its obviously really polarised but I still can't see what is wrong with letting the OP know the lights bother you, if they do. If you lived next door to someone whose music or TV bothered you, the first step would be to mention it to see if you could work something out between you, and I just fail to see why this is different just because it is Christmas lights and the OP has children.