Mean streets: the psychology of neighbour disputes

Eunice Day’s breaking point came when her neighbours asked if she would move her car from a communal grass verge in their cul-de-sac so that it could be mowed. After several weeks of polite hostilities, Day stormed a neighbour’s home in the Dorset town of Ferndown, a row ensued, and the resulting scuffle left the 81-year-old in court charged with assault.

In Bedminster, Bristol, fed-up locals have taken a more passive-aggressive approach to ‘outsiders’ parking on their streets. Suburban vigilantes have been creeping out and sellotaping notes to windscreens urging their owners to park outside their own homes instead. Over in the village of Polstead, Suffolk, meanwhile, one couple are contemplating a £160,000 legal bill, run up attempting to force their neighbours to take down a fence as part of a long-running row over access.

The Bible urges us to love our neighbours, but a recent survey by mobile phone brand OnePlus suggests that a third of us don’t even know their names.