Our neighbour flicks cigarette butts over our shared fence like it’s an ashtray. I gather them up and discreetly return them over the fence. Should I say something?

B.B., Werribee, VIC

Credit: Illustration by Simon Letch

A: There was a guy who lived in the house next to mine and he did the same thing. Every day, about 10 times a day, he’d stand right up against the fence and smoke a joint for about two minutes, then cough for about 25. And not a polite, Noel Coward-esque throat-clearing ahem-cough. This was an emphysemic, seismic, acchh-achhhhhhh-ACHHHHHHING-ing that built up and up until I worried he was going to have a respiratory explosion and bits of charred lung-confetti were going to flutter over the fence and get all over my washing.

He also threw his butts over the fence, but

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