No privacy at home - driving me nuts!

We've lived in our flat for some years, it's a two storey building in a terrace and our flat is upstairs. It's a very nice flat and I love it, but the garden flat downstairs has changed hands more than I can care to mention! Mostly the tennants/owners have been pleasant and the ones we have now are no exception however, I just wish that a (nice) elderly couple would move in and take root! Last summer a single guy moved in, in his thirties I'd guess, he's really lovely and friendly, works in London and we didn't see him much, he now has moved his girlfriend in, she's lovely too, so what's the problem you say? Our bedroom is at the back of the house and and is on a lower level than the other rooms in the house, it has a large bay window that backs right on to their garden, you could almost step out of it and be in their garden. We have some foldable shutters to protect our decency, but it seems that the girlfriend works from home, and in this weather she is permanently sitting outside (and who can blame her!). I'm sure she's not interested in my comings and goings but I feel really self concious flitting around my flat, opening the window, generally pottering, even my rear facing kitchen window is right onto their garden, If I'm washing up or ironing, I seem to be face to face with someone at all times and it's driving me round the flaming bend!!!
I want to go into the bedroom and change the bed but the shutter's pulled right back at the mo and as they've got about 5 friends all sitting in the garden I feel I'll have to wait till it's dark to go over and pull it across. I used to enjoy sitting out the front on my little deck chair, but they are "in and out like yo yos" and I feel a bit of an idiot sitting there. It's as if one of them's always out the back and the other's out the front. When they're together in the back garden there more often than not canoodling...and I don't know where to put my face, I think ...blooming heck I hope they don't think I'm watching them!!!!

I'm just a hard working scruffy old bird, who likes to come home from work, strip of my acrylic work uniform, put on some sloppy old clothes and mooch around the house, doing some housework when the mood takes me, but right now it feels like living in a goldfish bowl!!!!! Aggghhhh!!!!!!

What about some solar film? It would allow you some privacy, but you could still see out, benefit if it gets too hot the film will reduce the amount of heat in the sunny side of the property? Hope you find a solution soon! msx

Actually in the downstairs flat at the front they have some kind of clear frosted panelling stuck to insides of the windows cause they're on street level, so I suppose I could look into that. Managed to drag the screen across last night thankfully. My husband's not bothered at all by it, but I absolutely hate it, just feels so awkward. At least our living room's at the front and the bathroom has a side facing window, something to count my blessings for at least!!! We lived there for over 15 years, but these are the only people for which the garden seems to be in constant use! It's a gorgeous flat downstairs, but the trouble is is that it only has one bedroom, so a single man or woman moves in, or a young couple, they decide they want to start a family and move on. Like I said most of them have been nice, but we've had a few we could have done without especially the noisy ones! Since we moved there we've seen it change hands 7 times.

I live in an upstairs flat built in the early 50s(It looks like a large house but the council built it as two flats), I face the green belt with trees across from the living room and one bedroom. Some years back a friend's daughter who was around 12 at the time said to me, "You get up and move around a lot!!" The kids always played there in the summer and I thought nothing of it, so I got this idea they were sitting watching me all the time. Why I have no idea the interest???? Now I just keep the bedroom curtains pulled over with only a little gap during the day. The living room curtains on the big window are closed a lot as the sun just hits and you can't see the TV etc. The other small window is facing the other way so its okay

The other thing that's getting a bit of a pain is not being able to hang my washing out anymore, you see I have this caravan airer thingy that I clip to the window and hang my washing out on, I was always mindful to do it on weekdays when he was out, but now his girlfriend is always sitting out there I feel uneasy doing it so have to do everything in the washer/dryer. As much as I like them, as I said chances are they'll want a bigger property and will move out, and thus the cycle will start again. S'pose I can't moan too much, at least its not being rented out to a gaggle of noisy students! Wish I had the garden flat, however we have got a room in the attic..can't have it all I guess!

Swings and roundabouts! You gain the loft and lose the garden!

Think i'd rather have the loft, but I want both....I'm greedy lol!

merryone said:

The other thing that's getting a bit of a pain is not being able to hang my washing out anymore, you see I have this caravan airer thingy that I clip to the window and hang my washing out on, I was always mindful to do it on weekdays when he was out, but now his girlfriend is always sitting out there I feel uneasy doing it so have to do everything in the washer/dryer......

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Carry on hanging your washing out. If necessary borrow some huge bloomers and always have at least one pair on the line. I'm sure she'll stop sitting out there then LOL!

We have a similar but different situation with our neighbours "Ken & Barbie" (not their real names but so close one day I'll say K & B to their faces!). They have a bungalow and the bathroom faces my kitchen door and window which isn't a problem per se but at least once a day they have a bath with their window open...together! Sometimes twice a day in the summer it kinda restricts my movements because I can hear them talking or any other noises they may make. I'm no prude and find it quite funny except we have gravel which makes a loud noise when I'm outside so they know when I'm out there hanging out washing or going to the freezer in the garage. Undeterred they carry on a-splishing and a-splashing if you know what I mean. I now double-check the bathroom window is open or shut before I go out. :wink::mysmilie_847:

Saw them leave early last night with some luggage!!!!!! Yay!!!! Might only be for a week, a weekend even, but already I've been making the most of it...shutter back - check, windows open - check, washing out - check. Hope it's the week 'cause I'm on holiday this week, so I'll grab the paper, grab the deckchair and sit out the front without feeling like an obstruction!

Bugger! - They're back! I do not BELIIIIEEEEEEVE it! Must have been a very quick overnight stay somewhere, though judging by the bags they were carrying I would have thought (hoped) longer. Jeez, they're in the fecking garden already....Decided to wash a load of bedlinen today so I could get it hung out and dry before I go out later, no fecking chance now...tumble drier it is then...gggrrr!

I know where you're coming from merryone, I too have young neighbours though I live in a semi. When they first moved in after a year of it being empty and up for rental, they were a young married couple but 8 months in she leaves, guy lives a long while alone and works away weekdays (bliss). Then he moves in his present girlfriend but she's a 'wailer', think of the film Porky's, hard to deal with when the bedroom is adjacent to my teen girls, lets just say my DD's grew up a bit faster than I planned. My subtle hubby let it all out one day (I was horrified he had the gall) she's been fairly quiet since though but and it sounds trivial but she has this laugh, think loud dirty laugh, I can hear it through the walls when we watch tv, very OTT. It used to drive me insane, made me dread them being in the house and I don't work but I have since chilled and thank my lucky stars they aren't terrible neighbours as there can be far worse and I know cause I have had them. Now I actually feel I don't want them to move. BUT I feel your torment, it can affect you deeply. Like you I love it when they go away which they have this weekend.

I am moving house because I live in a semi and have had students on the other side of the partition wall for 13 years. The situation has changed so that now I an surrounded by students ie front back and both sides. Most of the other neighbours in the road have left. OH sleeps through the noise but not me even with ear plugs.
I couldn't find a nice bungalow and my house purchase fell through so I am buying a first floor flat which I will live in until I find a house or if I like it, I will stay. Hopefully the neighbours are quiet. They are old. Previous experiences of old neighbours has meant loud TVs sometimes blaring all night if the person falls asleep in front of it.
As to putting washing out in front of neighbours, I don't mind even with my giant Bridget jones knickers.

I think my problem is more centred around the fact that, cause I don't have the garden and am using a caravan airer clipped to the window as well as hanging shirts from the window frame that I'm invading their space. Yes, the outside air is as much mine as theirs, I get that - but if I lived downstairs, would I be happy with a view of somebody else's washing in effect hanging in my garden? This is why I used to be careful to try and dry washing on weekdays when nobody was there, however with the girlfriend having moved in and seemingly working from home - just feels a bit wrong. Thankfully yesterday, they went back out again, so I did manage to get everything dry, but I can't rely on it anymore. It's bad enough having to rely on good weather. As neighbours they're great people. They have no objection to me keeping my folding bike in the small communal hallway, they don't make a lot of noise, in the bedroom or otherwise - So I'm very lucky in that respect. I remember having a fairly heated discussion with a previous owner of the downstairs flat, regarding my folding bike, and it was a very small folding bike as well, which took up next to no room, it was like having a compact suitcase standing in the hall. They shoved a note under our door, which was pretty terse and in no uncertain terms told me they wanted it removed as it was a fire hazard and would hamper escape should we have to vacate the property. I went and knocked on the door and tried to reason with them as it obstructed neither of our front doors and gently reminded them that as occupants of a ground floor flat that not only did they have a choice of two doors from which to leave the building, should they need to exit via a window it would be extremely unlikely that they should hurt themselves in the process!! I would have been happy to defy them, however, hubby who hates any kind of confrontation insisted that I chain my bike outside, and of course within a space of a few weeks it was stolen!!! They were the most arrogant couple anyone would have the "pleasure" to meet!
On one occasion the fella decided that he'd paint the communal front door. I went downstairs to go out one day and there he was in the hallway, tools, sander, brushes and other bits strewn across the floor, not a single word like, oh can you get past alright, sorry, or I'm just painting the door btw. I said Oh, I didn't know you were going to paint the door "well someone's got to do it..he grunted back" ( The door didn't actually need painting imvho) however, I said well if you want any money towards the paint...."no you're alright" ..and what colour are we going to have? Blue he grunted..and then later when I came back with my shopping he didn't even move to let me get through, I had to ask!!!!! However, the worst time was when by coincidence we were both going out at the same time he was opening the front door and I was right behind him, clearly going out too - He shut the door in my face...so I shouted up the road at him " Didn't your parents teaching you any...bleep manners?!" Which he ignored! which was probably just as well. Not long after a "for sale" sign appeared, and I was that close to writing "YAY" in marker pen on it!!!!!
New neigbours in, knocked at introduced themselves, a week or two later I asked whether they'd object to a small folding bike in communal hall....."Course we don't " was the reply!!!!