Unless conflict is what you crave....I must say I put up with a lot from my old neighbours but life it too short and too busy - I just couldn't be arsed to go through "the conflict" as I wanted a quiet life...if its forced upon me then fair enough but im not going to go out of my way to create it...
It doesn't help that you have over sixty million people living in a country that could comfortably accommodate ten million.
I will say I did have a "run in" with my neighbours across the road years ago but we've been alright ever since...so there is two sides to every argument in all fairness Tom.
My next door neighbour called at the weekend to ask if he could use my lawnmower. I said "Certainly, as long as it doesn't leave my garden". What a nice man.
My front lawn and my neighbours lawn are separated by a path to his front door. If I get my mower out and mow mine, if his needs doing I will do his too. He never does mine in return.
I've been having something of a dog-turd throwing campaign with the neighbours of late. Just to clarify (and it appears that clarification is important on this thread...), they are tenants who share a "garden" which borders my garden, but they are located about 50 yards away, so don't really annoy me. Of course, their patch of weeds is covered in assorted plastic crap, some of which seems to have something to do with their kids. Anyway, they have brilliantly contrived to have a disobedient golden retriever. This takes some doing, seeing as golden retrievers are favoured guide dogs. The retriever has decided that my garden, rather than hers, is her toilet and dumps on my grass on a daily basis. The councils here have little plastic bags for putting dog turds in so I help myself frequently to a liberal supply. I pick up my own dog's turds, but after a while I got a bit bored of picking up the retriever's. I did mention it to the owner (a very fat and stupid girl who is referred to as "La Grosse"). Nothing changed. So I started to pick up the turds in bags and lob the bags back over the hedge. I figured they'd get the idea sooner or later. The husband did apologise when he happened to be around as the I was shooing the retriever out of my garden as it was attempting its afternoon dump. But the turds kept coming, and the yellow plastic bags of them kept flying... We heard from a closer neighbour that La Grosse had told her she "had a problem" with us because of their dog. Not so. There is no problem. I just want her to control her dog sufficiently so that it craps in her own garden rather than mine. Our closer neighbour told her that we were quite right to lob the turds back and that she ought to control her dog! Result! La Grosse also has 2 cats who are also both unpleasant, and can't get her toddler to do what she says either. And nor can her husband. Management skills, zero. Still, there has been a marked reduction in retriever turds in my garden of late, so I think the message is gradually getting into their very thick skulls.
Never have a pet that can't double as an ingredient, the same may possibly be true of neighbours by the tone of this thread. I think property boundary issues and disputes are an easy way to a life of stress. It's one of the reasons I have always preferred plenty of space. My neighbours don't interact with me and that's a positive in my book. That said, while blatting out a couple of days ago, I noticed they have a shiny 14 plate Monster 1200 on the drive. This is odd as I've always considered they may (or may not) be bothered when I fire up the Batmobile or a bike if it's early. Maybe they've decided it's easier to fight Termis with Termis. In any case, I have a Ducati owner next door and don't know him or her which seems strange. A work colleague had an issue with neighbours and dogs that has escalated over a few years. Although he lives in a pretty remote small holding, he now has had tyres slashed and other acts to deal with. When travelling with work, his wife who is left home alone becomes very stressed. It seems it is easy to move from slinging turds to vandalism and threats. I'd be cautious thinking there are no consequences to building a trebuchet to launch stale faeces over a shared boundary.
I have a very pleasant way of dealing with'Mr Dickhead' next door.Whenever our paths cross I greet him very politely with a 'good morning' or whatever else is appropriate.You can practically hear his blood boil in rage.Works even better when his wife is with him,she is his simpering dogsbody,as he doesn't want to appear rude and has to mutter a reply.On the plus side they are very quiet neighbours,and that is a big plus.
My sister used to do the shopping for her elderly, infirm neighbour and generally provide advice concerning cold-callers and other irritants. Imagine how angry all that made him. The final straw though was finding a buyer for the neighbour's car, when he wanted to sell it. Unfortunately the neighbour has passed on recently and so won't be able to gain his revenge.
If I had a Ducati owning neighbour next door, I definitely pop around to congratulate them on their fine choice and shoot the shit about it a bit. You might get on really well. One of the peculiarities of Switzerland is that it is very "fence-lite". There are few hedges compared to the UK (pity) but very little barbed wire or permanent fencing. Cattle are normally constrained by moveable electric fencing which disappears over winter. My property has little fencing and dogs, cats and even next door's kids are often in my garden (in the case of the cats, it's like a cats' convention permanently here). This is pretty standard. Consequently, people pay little attention to "trespass". There is none of that "get orf moi laaand" thing. I'm not remotely on non-speaking terms with my retriever-owner neighbours. I'm not going to hassle them about the issue, but I don't see why I should store their dog's excrement in my kitchen bin. I've already picked it up and bagged it - what more do they want? Essentially, all the people in this village are great - down to earth friendly farming types.
