Oi, noisy neighbours, leaf it out

For years the Mistry and Lee families got along fine. Now the Sheffield neighbours are on Non Speaks after the fir tree that grows just inside the Mistrys’ boundary was cut in half. Vertically (right).

The Lees complained about the noise and the bird droppings, the Mistrys said, ‘Well what do you want us to do? We’re not cutting it down’, and the other side said ‘Well we are, so there’.

Now the half- tree, on an otherwise unremarkable street in a fine Northern city, stands as a totem to the pettiness of everyday suburban horror.

And how some rows should never be started, because they calcify into something far worse.

Like the case of Dr Elizabeth Hall, 74, who appeared in a Birmingham court earlier this month to be sentenced for harassment and breaching a restraining order — charges stemming from a quarter of a century of increasing ill- will between the pensioner and her neighbour, Christine Penny.

Their row started with a claim back in 1996 that Mrs Penny played Frank Sinatra’s My Way too loudly. regrets? Very few from Dr Hall, who is up on three charges of harassment.

My nightmares about nightmare neighbours keep me awake throughout the night. I’d like to teach the world to live together, in perfect harmony. Especially if they live next door.