Brett’s is a typical neighbour dispute. Whenever Brett’s next door neighbour goes out for a big night her dogs bark until she gets home. Brett (not his real name) is kept awake for most of the night. He’s furious. So he wakes early and cranks up his lawn mower. He knows that after a big night the noise must be hell for her – but it’s his form of revenge.

Disputes like Brett’s are common and create a toxic neighbourhood environment. Our homes are meant to be sanctuaries – but a fight with a neighbour can make you feel under siege. “As someone said to me, ‘you’d be extremely lucky to have gone through life without having one bad neighbour’,” said Natasha Mann, Director of NSW’s Community Justice Centres, which mediates and resolves neighbour disputes.

Neighbour disputes are becoming more frequent and intense as people live closer together. “We’re all living on top of each other these days,” Mann said. “Living in high-density housing definitely has an impact. It certainly is influencing disputes and dispute types. Living in those sorts of conditions we do need to be a lot more considerate of each other than we had been previously.”

The most common disputes are not over noise but dividing fences – a surprisingly emotional issue for many. People fight over where their fence should be, who should pay for the fence, what the fence should be like, etc. The list is endless. Trees are the next flash point, followed by noise from the likes of parties and crying children. Animals – particularly barking dogs – also cause disputes. A growing cause of dispute is the use of common facilities such as swimming pools and barbeques.

Fights with neigbours can create significant emotional distress and cost. But the fact is that many can be avoided. So how do we resolve – and hopefully avoid – disputes with neighbours? There are a few keys steps:

1. Get to know your neigbours

“In the past we all knew our next door neighbours and had built relationships with them,” Mann said. “It’s now quite common for people not to have met or seen the person next door to them. If you can, at least meet your neighbour and build some sort of a relationship with them.”

Many conflicts can be avoided by politely notifying neighbours. If you want to upgrade a fence don’t send them a demanding legal letter. Pop over and have a chat and give them a chance to think about it without feeling railroaded. If you’re going ahead with renovations, contact your neighbour and let them know it’s happening.

Mann says that in many disputes one neighbour doesn’t actually know there’s a problem.

“For example, an automatic light is coming on that is shining into the next door neighbour’s bedroom,” she said. “But the neighbour doesn’t know it’s happening.”

In Brett’s case, he hasn’t told his neighbour her dogs are driving him mad at night. His resentment simmers and is in danger of boiling over, threatening to make the dispute worse. The best approach is to contact the neighbour in a friendly and conciliatory way. Explain the problem and what impact it’s having. In a lot of cases the dispute will be resolved.

2. Mediation

What if your neighbour doesn’t play ball? Maybe they think they’re right, and you’re in the wrong. Before running off to court or hiring a solicitor, try mediation. Most States have free neighbour dispute mediations services. In Victoria it’s the Dispute Settlement Centre, in Queensland it’s a local Dispute Resolution Centre and in NSW, Mann’s Community Justice Centres.

The mediation service contacts your neighbour to raise the dispute with them. Sometimes it’s resolved then. But often a meeting will be organised – some states hold them in mediation offices, other states hire out halls or Leagues clubs.

Two professional mediators usually attend. “Having two trained people there to facilitate conversations between neighbours often puts people at ease,” Mann said. “They can discuss problems freely.”

Meetings take anywhere from a few hours, to two to three days for complex disputes involving whole streets. At the end everyone signs an agreement which is made in good faith. Some people then seek to have them turned into a legal document. “But they seem to stick,” Mann said. “We don’t have many people that come back and say they haven’t been abided by.” Mann says mediation has an 80 per cent settlement rate.

What about feral neighbours who you think are impossible to deal with? Mann says they’re very rare. “We have had cases where a little old lady rings us up and says she has a terrible, scary big bloke living next door who she’s scared of,” she said. “When she gets to see who he is she realises that, although he’s big and menacing to look at, he’s a bit of a softy. Getting to sit down with the person and getting to see things from their point of view changes things.”

3. Legal action

If mediation doesn’t work, then your last resort is legal action through courts, leaving a Magistrate to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. “That should be the last step,” Mann said. She says legal action often leaves a bitter neighbour relationship. “You have to live with your neighbour,” she said. “Even if the court finds in favour of you, you haven’t really overcome the underlying dispute with the person.”

Mann said in a court room someone comes out as the winner and someone comes out as a loser. “There are limited outcomes,” she said. “But in mediation you can come out with a creative agreement.”

If you launch legal action and lose, you could also be saddled with your neighbour’s legal costs as well as your own. In many disputes – such as building a new fence – taking legal action far outweighs the original cost.

Mann says there is one clear exception where taking legal action is necessary – that’s if you fear for your safety and require court or police intervention.

Mann says that it’s important to remember that problems are a two-way street – your neighbour might be doing something you don’t like, but chances are you’ve probably annoyed them – or will annoy them – as well.

“I often go back to the word ‘consideration’,” she said. “If your neighbour’s having a party, and they’ve let you know about it, even if it keeps you awake till midnight or one am, be considerate. You might be having renovations down the track and need builders there at 6.30am.”

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