I know what you mean about neighbours too...I work as technical support for the equivalent of our Council's Town Wardens...I get calls about neighbour disputes ALL the time. One day this bloke rang who had already been to ask his next door BUT ONE neighbours to turn the music down (which they had, to some extent) yet I could hear the music, quite clearly down the phone. Even though he was inside his house. It's maddening what some people think is acceptable and what is not.
Maybe the neighbours should be part of the survey done by the mortgage company now
and of course any new neighbours would need to provide references and existing neighbour approval before being permitted to move in to a property?*
(*I have already thought of a flaw to my plan...my current neighbour would have been allowed to move there under this system...but she's lived there 18 years and now has a 15 year old son who understandably - being 15, stays up half the night when she is working nights playing video games and playing music. How do I know this? Because it's so loud I thought the other night that it was actually inside my own house, and I could still hear it with ear plugs in! But, he doesn't do it all the time, only when she's at work. So it could be worse!)