A neighbor’s small request is easier to answer before irritation turns it into a larger dispute.

Neighbour trouble is nearly always an accumulation. The first mention of the hedge, the bins or the parking arrives mildly and gets postponed, and by the third time it carries months of stored annoyance, at which point the conversation is about respect rather than about a hedge. The size of a dispute usually reflects how long it waited.

When someone next door asks you for something small, deal with it that week if you can. If you cannot, say so and say when. And if you are the one holding a growing grievance, raise it early and plainly while it is still only about the thing itself.