A homeowner received the ‘most British complaint’ ever from a neighbour who was kept awake by his Christmas light display.
The homeowner, who wasn’t named, received the polite typed letter through his letterbox, along with a timer to allow him to switch the lights off overnight.
In the letter, the neighbour explained he and his wife had been kept awake by the flashing lights and that it triggered his Ménière’s disease, a condition of the inner ear that can lead to dizzy spells and hearing loss.
He asked: ‘Could you possibly use the timer, if you really don’t need them on all night’, and added, ‘please accept this in the good faith in which it is meant’.
The kind neighbour had even preset the timer to make it easy as possible.
A photograph of the note and timer was shared on Reddit’s Casual UK forum by the homeowner’s brother in law and sparked a surge of support from fellow users.
The letter read: ‘You will probably think this is a rather unusual note, but please accept it in the good faith that is meant. The enclosure is really a Christmas present – if not to yourself and your partner, then to my wife and myself!
‘We are not sleeping well just now, as the flashing festive lights wake us through the night and trigger my Meniere’s problems.
‘Could you possibly use the timer, if you really don’t need them on all night? I have taken the liberty of setting it to switch between about 8.30 am and 11.00 pm.
‘Just set the pointer on the dial to the actual time when plugging it into the mains sockets. With thanks and kind wishes.’
Impressed by the letter, a stream of responses to the post applauded the neighbour for attempting to solve the problem instead of just complaining.
One person wrote: ‘That’s a much more polite and lovely letter than your inconsiderate brother-in-law deserves! A lovely little gift and an apology note back would be lovely’. And they said there was nothing wrong with this and that it was well written, the solution had been clearly explained and it’s a tiny thing to do that would mean a lot to them.
A third added: ‘The thought and the effort that has gone into this shows just how real and genuine it is. I hope your brother does not see it as a complaint in the slightest, it’s someone genuinely and very considerably asking for a favour from him.’
It’s also the same when people let off their fireworks at the wrong time of year, although you can’t put a timer of those things, especially when they’re going off terrorising the heebie-jeebies out of you, but then some people don’t have any respect for other people’s welfare.
Christmas is a fantastic time of the year and the lights do look nice, but do people actually need to keep their lights on at night when everyone’s gone to bed? Who’s going to see them anyway?
It’s not difficult for someone to turn their lights off at night, but they’re easy to forget, especially if you’re tired and heading off to bed, and a timer would seem like the simple solution that most people don’t even think of, and there really isn’t any need to have the lights on past midnight.
At the end of the day, what this neighbour did was just old-style good British manners and he acted calmly and intelligently to deal with the situation. There was no screaming vulgarities or physical brutality, which appears to be the norm these days.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 