Neighbours have become a nuisance for 18 million Brits, according to research conducted on behalf of Ocean Finance.

It reckons that half of those who have encountered a nuisance neighbour feel stressed or depressed as a result, a quarter (24%) want to move to a new area, 1 in 5 (20%) no longer sleep well and 18% say that they no longer feel safe in their home.

Nuisance neighbours come in all sorts of forms, so Ocean Finance has put together a handy list of the top 10 common annoying neighbour traits:

1. Your neighbour appears like magic every time you leave the house waiting to strike up a conversation as you try to sneak unnoticed from your car to front door.

2. Overt bin thieves – Neighbours who claim your black bin, despite your house number quite clearly being stamped on the front in big colourful stickers.

3. Don’t remember eating the contents of that Domino’s pizza box? Of course you don’t, and that’s because you didn’t. Your neighbour not-so-discretely plonked it there.

4. Cat poo in your garden? Dog waste outside your gate? Or do you just run the gauntlet of the snarling dog every time you leave the house?

5. Monopolisers – That family next door who has six cars, four residents and never stick to the unwritten code of parking in-front of your own house.

6. The neighbours who force you to have your password set to an unmemorable code to stop them getting in: gHbu87%”kH90(bxX32”$^6gH.

7. The chap next door who must think you don’t own a TV, and so cranks his volume up right to the top to share EastEnders’ storyline with you every night.

8. The neighbours who give you a live, close-up and unfiltered Jeremy Kyle show every day.

9. The curtain twitchers, gossip instigators and MI5 interrogators.

10. Not content with a couple of rusting cars on the drive, these neighbours accessorise with half a motorbike, an old fridge and a mattress.

Spokesperson Ian Williams said: “Good neighbours really can be good friends and are a vital part of a vibrant community. But most Brits will recognise at least one of these less welcome neighbours too – and sadly for some people a problem neighbour can make their lives a misery.”