You've spent you hard-earned cash on some lovely wooden decking and some beautiful outdoor furniture,you've been out for hours feeding and mowing your grass until it resembles a golf green and you've even installed solar lights along your borders to illuminate your flowers after dark.
In short,you've pulled out all the stops to make your garden look absolutely fabulous this summer.But there's one thing that's really annoying you,and it's something you just can't fix.Your neighbour's garden is an overgrown mess,and it's spoiling the view!
If you get irate at next door's lack of garden pride,then you're certainly not alone.According to the Daily Mail,new research by ratedpeople.com has shown that half of us get upset if our neighbour's grounds are left untended and messy.
And it's not just weeds,dead grass and overgrown bushes that bother us.Other common complaints include broken garden furniture,litter left to blow around in the wind,children's toys left strewn about the lawn and half-finished paving or decking projects.
Even when our neighbours do make an effort it seems we're inclined to moan if their taste doesn't quite match ours.Indeed,respondents to the survey named Astroturf and mock Grecian statues as two of their biggest annoyances.
"Britain is a nation of Hyacinth Buckets,with over half the population frowning on neighbours with an overgrown garden,"said a ratedpeople.com spokesman.
Can you blame us though?When we've worked so hard to tend to our own gardens the last thing we want is to look out of the window and see a tangle of weeds and dead leaves slowly making its way over our fence and blocking the afternoon sunshine.
So what's the best way to handle it?Well,if your neighbour is elderly or works long hours,you could offer to help out.Perhaps they simply don't have the time to look after their garden themselves.Audibly complaining could also work.
But perhaps the best thing to do is to just forget next door and concentrate on your own patch of land.Hopefully if you make it look as beautiful as possible,both by day and by night,you'll guilt-trip your neighbours into doing something about theirs.
