As a drummer for nearly 40 years my trouble with the neighbors was always over the noise. As I acquired some skill the friction wasn't as severe. I tried to practice when the neighbors were at work but even then somebody would inevitably get irritated.
One time I had the practice room in the basement. A band member had helped me set up a basic home recording studio so we could make demos. None of the local clubs would hire a band without a sample of their recording music. My band mates and I had insulated everything so you could only hear a low rumbled outside. But the neighbor liked country music and we were just bunch of pot smoking metal heads. The problem was my band mates didn't take any disrespect from rednecks and some of my neighbors friends had started calling us derogatory names.
That neighbor called the police on us multiple times. But the police couldn't do anything. The officer would just come by and tell us the neighbors called and complained. We weren't in violation of any laws. They usually said we sounded good. One officer said it wasn't that loud and ask if I had some other dispute with the neighbor. There was none that I knew of other than he just didn't like my type.
My neighbor was divorced but had 3 teenagers. One of his son's used to stare at me like he wanted to come over and check out my drums. Although it could have been that I always had a pair of drumsticks in hand and often walked around practicing twirling them. Somebody told me that you can't just be a good musician. You have to be entertaining to watch.
My revenge was like a gift of pay back from the universe. I had tried to work out a schedule with the neighbor but he just wanted to threatened me with violence. He was only trying to intimidate me and it wasn't working.
One weekend my band was playing an outdoor charity event. It was in a vacant parking lot next to a huge flea market, which was having an art and craft fair. There were a few bands and we got to headline because we had an incredibly good yet slightly insane guitarist. He lived alone with 5 horses. He talked a lot about alien abduction and alien control of the human population. But when you put a guitar in his he didn't seem so out there after all. He had one of the most extensive vocabularies on his instrument that I had ever heard.
We took the stage and our set was going great. Then I happen to spot my neighbor and he didn't look at all happy. He was there with what looked like his ex, her new significant other, and his 3 children. I'm sure they were at the art and craft fair and the kids wanted to check out the music. There he was in the crowd. Actually hearing for the first time what he had so vehemently opposed. At the end of each song his family applauded with others in the crowd. Imagine the feeling I had when I realized my neighbor was in absolute misery at that moment. It was easier for him to hate me when he thought I didn't know anything about music.
After the set was the best part. My neighbor's son, the one that always stared at me, wanted his mom to know I was the neighbor that lived next to dad. I was the one who played the drums. So I met my neighbor's ex and her boyfriend without intervention of my neighbor. I gave the young teen a free introduction to the drumset on the spot. Then I gave him the drum sticks I had just used for that particular show. This is just something I've always done. Someone inspired me to play drums and so I'm just passing it along.
The neighbor stopped calling the police after that incident. And kind of stayed out of sight. I never saw his children after that.
My revenge had always been to keep playing and striving to make better quality music regardless of my neighbors efforts to silence me. As it turned out, fate gave me the opportunity to rub my neighbor's nose in the fact that my band was actually entertaining to watch and listen to. And even his own family supported the right for our music to be heard.