u/Char-char123

Hi, A few years ago, shortly after we moved into our first home, our neighbour (whose property backs onto the side of our garden) introduced himself saying he’d lived there for “30 years.” About a week later, he asked if we’d cut our boundary hedge down to 4ft. We politely declined because we value our privacy and didn’t want our dogs to be able to jump over it. He then cut about a foot off the tops off two of our 7ft trees himself, not just the branches that were overhanging his property. Around a year later, he got tradesmen to cut our hedge. They completely butchered it, leaving large gaps throughout. Some sections were cut to around 4ft while others were left at about 12ft, so it looked terrible and no longer provided privacy or security for our dogs. In the end, we agreed to split the cost of installing a 6ft fence instead. Whenever we grow anything up the fence, such as ivy, we can hear him complaining about it. Once we saw him in the street while he was talking to a friend. His friend looked at us and asked, “Is that them?” and our neighbour replied, “Yes, it is.” We found that quite odd and uncomfortable. He also flies a drone low over his garden, which means it can easily see into ours. When he’s in his garden, he often has his TV playing very loudly through a speaker with the back door open. He also has a backup generator in his shed, which is extremely noisy. We don’t feel we can properly enjoy our own garden. Is there anything we can do to improve our privacy and reduce the noise levels?