Dear Dáithí: Our elderly neighbour is making our life a misery

We love our house and our community, and we’d rather solve this with kindness than confrontation, but we’re running out of patience and ideas

We don’t want a row or to make formal complaints — we just want to live peacefully. His wife has apologised and said he’s “particular”, but that doesn’t help when he’s interfering with our property and upsetting the children.

My husband and I are a young couple with two boys, aged seven and nine. We bought our first home three years ago, a semi-detached on what we hoped would be a friendly, easy-going estate. Sadly, one neighbour is making that difficult.

The couple next door are in their 60s. The wife is lovely — always up for a chat — but her husband seems permanently cross.