We live on a shared drive with 2 other houses. We’re all detached but our face actually faces the other two house.
We’ve had minor disputes with next door (or house closest to us) for years regarding parking, partying under our bedroom window in the small hours, banging and clattering in the garage at 6am on a Sunday, a hole in the bush etc etc ... none have resorted in an actual argument but the relationship is strained shall we say.
Last year he put Christmas lights up on the 1st December and had them flashing into our bedroom window all night every night. It was making our whole room flash continuously. I let it go for a few days but it was really getting too much so I asked him if he would mind either switching them off at 11pm or at least stop the flashing. He stopped the flashing until the week before Christmas and then put them back on again until January. I believe he overheard me slagging him off to DH around the same time.
Anyway, last week in November this year he put the bastards back up. Flash flash flash all night. I was going to give it a week before asking him to stop it but low and behold, someone else cut his wires and broke them as well as decapitating his reindeer. He immediately blamed me and said he’d be reporting me to the police but he checked his CCTV and found it wasn’t me, it was a young bloke who had cut numberous houses lights on the same night. He apologised to me. I accepted. However he’s out there now putting up new lights and they’re more excessive than the ones he had up before!!! How do I approach this without causing a barny as he’s already sensitive about the bloody things since his house was targeted. Or am I being a Scrooge?