What Would You Do?

I remember many years ago a friend telling me, “Sometimes when I am waiting at a bus stop, I would see a woman come to her front door to collect her post, and as she comes right up to the front door, the whole front door was frosted glass and it showed she was naked, and everyone at the bus stop opposite could see her,” My friend was very shy and there is no way she would have gone over to the other side of the road, while everyone else was watching, to tell her. I remember thinking, “That poor woman lived alone and there was no one to tell her, for how else would she find out?”

Where I work there is a woman who lives next door, and over the years she has been a difficult neighbour, bombarding our Manager to cut one inch of the small bush in our garden, that is next door to her wall, she has done this every year without fail. She is relentless with her emails, yes, she is a perfectionist and there is nothing wrong with that, order is a good thing. The Manager always asks the gardener to come in, to cut off the inch of the small bush. She too lives alone, and one evening when I’d finished work a few years ago and it was dark as I was walking down the path of the work’s garden, I could clearly see her at her bathroom frosted window naked, from the waist up.

It’s not very often I finish in the evening, so one day I decided to go to her home in the day time, I was going to tell her, what I’d seen, I was nervous would she be angry with me? I only knew her as the woman who was always moaning about out little bush, if I’d seen her on the street, I wouldn’t have known what she looks like, but I knew which house was hers. I decided to be bold and went up to her very neat little garden path, to her little house, I rang her bell and waited, but she was out, probably at work. What I should have done was to bring a little note so I could put it through her letter box but I hadn’t thought of that.

I decided to put it out my mind for other people who live at the back, they too can see her and they too could go and tell her.

Last year I had my garden done and all the trees were cut down, then suddenly one day I thought, “Our bath is right next to the frosted bathroom window!” Our blinds are always open we never drawer them together, and I became paranoid, I asked my Husband, “When you take the dog out for a walk, go around the back and have a look if you can see our bathroom from the street,” His reply? “You can’t.” What sort of an answer is that? I’m still paranoid about it.

I remember watching one of those tricks on telly years ago where someone put up close to a frosted window and the item could be seen clearly, like the window wasn’t frosted anymore.

I saw that neighbour this week at her window again as I left work in the dark, would she die of embarrassment if I told her? How many other women in this country are in the same situation as her, with no one telling them?

Would you go and tell her? What if she asks, “And how long have you known that?!” Especially if I tell her I work next door…..