Etiquette skilled reveals the 8 indicators YOU are the nightmare neighbour

If you let your ­children play in the garden before 8am – or you’ve ever mown your lawn at 8pm – it may already be too late.

The list of offences that will irritate your neighbours and make you the subject of gossip in the WhatsApp group is long, and often the result of forgetting how awful neighbour wars can be.

‘We don’t choose our family, and we don’t choose our neighbours. We are thrust together,’ says etiquette coach and author Jo Bryant. ‘It’s all about balance, consideration and good communication.

‘But because we’re British, we often expect people to know what we want when we’re not actually saying it. Good neighbour etiquette means always considering how we make other people feel and the impact our actions have on them.’

She adds: ‘If your relationship with your neighbours breaks down, it will be a blot on the landscape for ever . . . We all have different things that bother us, so be aware of where your lives collide.’

Here are the eight signs you’re the neighbour everyone loathes . . .

You let your kids out to play early 

People rarely think about early morning noise. They’re more focused on the evening. But very young children playing outside at the crack of dawn during the summer is unfair – especially at the weekend.

You can probably get away with letting children out somewhere between 8am and 9am – but anything before 8am on a Saturday or Sunday is definitely a bad idea.

Everyone can hear your Zoom meeting

Try not to be the person with the loud voice who throws open the bifold doors and all the windows, then sits on Zoom meetings so that the neighbours can hear every word. You’ve created your own sound box of noise and no one will thank you for it.

You use next door as a delivery depot 

Most companies will allow you to name a preferred neighbour to deliver to if you’re not in. Ask them first, and offer to do the same for them.

If your neighbour takes your parcel in for you, it is your duty to pick it up as soon as you can. There’s nothing worse than having a great big package cluttering up your hall, seeing someone get back from work next door, then waiting endlessly for them to come and collect it.

It’s the responsibility of the person who has missed the delivery to go and find it promptly.

You are the owner of a noisy hot tub 

Be aware of the settings to make sure it’s on quiet mode – often the problems people have are actually about the monotonous noise of the hot tub mechanism itself.

That said, people in hot tubs can also create excessive noise, so, if you must have one, position it as far from your neighbour’s house as possible.

You mow the lawn at 8pm

If you have a grass lawn, don’t mow at meal times. Certainly don’t do it at 8pm on the only hot evening of the year when people are likely to be sitting outside having dinner.

Equally, don’t buy a power hose and then spend your entire time looking for things to wash down. People don’t want that to be the soundtrack to their summer.

You overwhelm your neighbours

it’s a good idea to visit new neighbours when they move in so you know what you’re dealing with. Naturally, when you get a new neighbour, you’re going to be thinking about the negatives rather than the positives, and nobody’s immediate reaction is: ‘Oh great, we’ve got new people next door.’

There’s no need to start inviting everyone over and inflicting yourself on them – it’s overwhelming and you also risk getting caught in a trap of being invited back, which may end with you ­hiding in your own home to avoid the obligation.

Remember, neighbours are just that, and not necessarily your friends unless you ­naturally forge a friendship over time. Instead, just pop round and introduce yourself – and no, you don’t need to take a basket of baked goods.

You throw parties without warning

If people are pre-warned about unexpected noise from a party, then it is very difficult for them to complain, as long as you stick to the parameters you shared.

But, if neighbours don’t know how long music or noise is going to go on for, it makes them jumpier. I always advise you give a start and end time.

Keep in mind that if you say you’ll make sure it’s wrapped up by 11pm and it isn’t, your neighbours are within their rights to come knocking at 11.30pm.

Special, one-off occasions can warrant a later end time if everyone is forewarned, but regular weekend gatherings and noise should finish ­earlier, say before 10pm, especially if you have neighbours with small children.

You are constantly complaining

Whatever you do, don’t be the permanently complaining neighbour. You will simply become an irritation people will ignore.

Don’t be the one who is twitching at the curtains to see if the people at number four put the bin in the right square foot of space.

Always hang back so that when you do make a complaint it’s seen as more reasonable and genuine, with some impact, rather than you ­constantly picking at people.