skidoodle - i'd agree with you, if it wasnt 6 years down the line, with countless 'polite' chats, and reasonable requests.
See further down....
I had to knock on their door on a Sunday night once, over the Christmas holidays because he was hammering and banging at 11pm at night - having done so since 5pm that afternoon.
I knocked on their door, and they were oh so apologetic. Said it was an emergency. Personally, if i knew i was going to be making a racket late into the night, i'd make my neighbours aware to expect noise late on, and why. But that's just me.
When he built his extension, we got 2 weeks notice of party wall agreement (well below the minimum notice) but that was fine. He started one day without warning, and accessed our back garden without permission and started moving things away from the fence so he could start work - again - fine but a courtesy call would have been nice.
He spent 5 months, building his own extension, doing the work as and when he could. Which often meant late nights. He trampled all over our garden, killed a number of plants (without offer of replacement - we didnt complain either), and he smashed a coldframe when he left his workbench in our garden, in an unstable position and it toppled over (we had a small child at the time and we couldnt let her in the garden for most of the summer too). He did replace it (well, his wife did - she wasnt aware until i happened to mention it one day in passing), but I had to wait 9 months for the replacement, and had to buy another one in the meantime because I couldnt wait any longer for it. For the duration of this - we had to repeatedly ask them to put up a secure boundary, because their dog kept running into our garden and crapping on our grass - another reason our DD couldnt use the garden.
He changed his gutter, and connected it to our steel one by securing with a bolt through the bottom of it. It now leaks everywhere. He hasnt put in a proper drain for the downpipe from the gutter, and has directed it so that our garden now floods when it rains.
He regularly lights bonfires in his backgarden in a huge metal barrel to dispose of materials from his work (rather than disposing at the local dump that charges).
Their teenage sons (especially the one who vandalised our car), used to often play exceptionally loud music, from 3.30pm onwards until we either knocked and asked for it to stop, until about 9.30pm-10pm at night. I note the music has stopped more recently. I am assuming that it coincides with their teenage sons having more of a social life.
His extension is actually over our boundary line, and, it exceeds the height that its allowed to be. He promised to paint the shared wall - he didnt. He often bumps his huge van into the neighbours parked cars, thinking he's not been seen, and never tells them. I'm pretty sure its because he is over the alcohol limit. I'd be forgiven for thinking that, since he's often seen appearing from his van with a beer can in his hand.
In fact, one night one of his many brothers came around and left the handbrake off of his huge pick up van (with integral crane!), and it rolled across the road and side-impacted a neighbours car, leaving a huge dent and push-in. He never told them. I knew because I heard the bang, woke up, and got DP to knock on their door to let them know what had happened.
The things they do, constantly overstep the bounds of reason, without a thought or apology (apart from the odd one or two, if they feel they havent got away with it...). They know they are noisy. They joked about it a bit when we first moved in, because the previous owners had tenants who worked nightshifts and were utterly pissed off at the noise levels that one day, they went out early in the morning, leaving their stereo on full blast until they came back at 11pm at night. The previous tenants were policemen......