When I moved into my first house, the neighbours popped by to say hello and they seemed really nice. Shortly after, we arrived home one day to find my neighbour’s car blocking our driveway. We parked down the road and I knocked on the door to let them know, politely that we plan on using the driveway so if they could keep it clear, we’d appreciate it. He laughed and said no problem.

About a week later, he did it again and I knocked on his door again, asking for him to leave enough room for us to get our car on the driveway. He told me there wasn’t much space to park along the road. I agreed with him but pointed out that by blocking my driveway, I was effectively adding to the problem on the road with my car.

Not long after this, I received an official ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ letter (from my neighbour, the Neighbourhood Watch representative for our area) stating that complaints had been received about the length of my front garden grass (which at the time was about 2 inches long). The letter stated that my grass was likely to attract vermin and if I didn’t do something he would be forced to report me to environmental health. I responded by putting gravel down in my front garden.

He continued to park over my driveway on random occasions (about once per month) and I started writing polite notes asking him to stop and putting them under his wiper blades. On one occasion, he blocked my driveway with my car on the drive and I had to go and ask him to move it so I could get out. It was extremely awkward.

One day I came home to a note through my door from the RSPCA asking me to call them. When I did, I was told a complaint had been made about my cats stating that they looked thin, were being left out all day and even on fireworks night. I invited them round to meet my cats. They did and when they saw that my cats are not thin and in fact quite the opposite, have a cat door and permanent access to food and water, the only question they had left was to ask about fireworks night. I told them one of my cats is fearless. He’s a little warrior who would rather sit outside and watch the fireworks rather than be kept in. The other two were hiding under our bed. I explained about my vindictive neighbour and the RSPCA lady told me it was a waste of her time being called out for this, but not my fault in the slightest.

Then my husband was suddenly unwell and the day we returned from the hospital, my neighbour's car was parked over my driveway. I restrained myself from writing something horrible and simply left another of my polite notes on his car.

Something snapped in him that night because he turned up at my door telling me to stop touching his car. I told him to keep his voice down and that he didn’t scare me. I told him he needed to stop parking over my driveway.

Truth is, although he didn’t scare me, he had completely worn me down. I hated the house I had loved when I walked through the door for the first time and it was all down to him.

I put the house up for sale and when I received an offer that was quite below the asking price, I checked the social media profile of the person who wanted to buy it. He loved loud music and was about to have a baby. The walls were thin. I knew this from listening to him snore through the walls for all that time.

I accepted the offer and moved on, hearing through the grapevine that my horrible neighbour had also moved too about a year after we did. I like to think it was the loud music and baby crying that did it.

Edit: Thank you for the edit suggestion :)