Cara Lovell has been told her clothes airer is lowering the tone

It might only be a plastic clothes airer, but Cara Lovell has been told it is lowering the tone of her street - despite being inside.

The 22-year-old has been asked to remove the drier and a mirror from her window by a disgruntled neighbour.

The owner of the flat above her Folkestone home claims the offending items have prevented them letting their property.

Cara said: "I am very angry. This is a lovely area, we work hard to be able to afford to live here and get on well with our neighbours.

“I am annoyed that someone thinks they can dictate to us where we keep our belongings in our own home.”

University graduate Cara and her partner moved in last year.

As winter came and they could no longer use the garden to dry their washing, they started using the airer and placed it in the bedroom at the front of the flat.

“We just use it for our work clothes, no underwear, and put it there because it gets the sun,” said Cara.

“About a month ago there was a note pushed in our front door asking us to remove the airer and an ironing board, which was in fact our full length mirror.

“The note said it looked unslightly, was lowering the tone of the neighbourhood and was preventing the writer from renting the flat above ours.”

Cara got another note with a phone number for the owner of the flat above, so called her.

“I was pretty angry and said I found it disgusting that she thought she could dictate where I put my belongings," she said.

“There is a hedge in front of the house so you can’t see our window from the road and if you come up the front steps, you would have to go out of your way to see in.”

The owner of the other flat, who would only give her name as Mrs Ryan, said the airer was left permanently in the window.

“It does not look right,” she said. “It gives people the wrong sort of impression.

“When my flat became empty, I had prospective tenants round who said it was a lovely flat but they did not like to look of what was in the window.”

Mrs Ryan said she voluntarily kept the communal areas of the house clean for the benefit of all the tenants.

“I object to seeing washing in the window,” she added. “If they put it in their back bedroom, they would get the sun all day.

“My flat has now been let but I had two or three people turn it down.”