I must have the nosiest neighbours on the planet.
Whenever i go outside they appear, having a good look over the wall at me hanging out my washing. Watching me as i struggle with the wheelie bin on bin day, counting my wine bottles when i put them out for recycling.
They are pensioners and have far too much time on their hands in my opinion. They aren`t the lovely sweet type of pensioner though, oh no! They are the net curtain twitching, suspicious old farty types, always on the lookout for kids with a football and people walking their dogs....making sure they have a poop scoop under their arm.
They get up at the crack of dawn so they don`t miss anything and can`t even get to their blooming burglar alarm in time to switch it off, so without fail, every morning it goes off at 6.30. Well when you`ve been up half the night with a teething baby it begins to grate on your nerves somewhat!
Yesterday was the last straw. As it`s rained all weekend the kids couldn`t wait to play out when the rain stopped. They, and their friends, all sat on my garden wall next to my shed, exchanging sweets and dangling their legs in the sunshine. I watched them from my kitchen window thinking how sweet and innocent they all looked.
Well anyway, after tea the eldest pipes up that his sister and her friends had damaged some of the felt roofing on the shed. Without waiting to hear the facts or going out to inspect it, hubby starts moaning and shouting, blah blah blah and how they weren`t to sit on the wall again. Then it comes out that nosey neighbour had seen all this and gone to fetch his tool box and started to repair the bloody shed roof! I was in my house at the time,looking after the toddler and baby, yet he never saw fit to come and ask me!!!
Is it me, or is that well out of order? I don`t think he has any right to touch any of my property without asking me first, whether he thinks he`s doing me a favour or not!
Yet hubby thinks that i`m over reacting!
Now would that happen to be because Mr.Nosey also happens to be my hubby`s uncle? 
It really gets me down cos hubby never stands up for me. He doesn`t want to cause any trouble or create any bad feeling, yet i feel that my home is not my own and i have no privacy. I`m even getting paranoid that Mrs.N.N has some bugging device and listens to my conversations through the walls!
It`s been going on for 12 years now. I remember when i first moved here and would leave my door on the catch during the daytime..... well that was until Mr.N.N walked in unannounced whilst i had my boobs out breastfeeding!
Then there was the time the man from the pru knocked when i was on the loo. I was heavily pregnant at the time and got the shock of my life when Mr.N.N walks in, again without an invite, and shouts up the stairs that the pru man had come for his money!!! He almost sent me into labour!
So now i lock my doors during the day and have nets up at my windows too. I check the coast is clear before i go outside like they do with that annoying Bucket woman in Keeping Up Appearances, and always make myself look busy when i`m outside so they can`t stop me and find out all my business!
It seriously gets on my nerves, and i know it shouldn`t, yet they are intimidating nosey old crows! I try to get my feelings across by being aloof with them, well as much as i can, yet i haven`t the guts to tell them how uncomfortable they make me feel. I wish i could, yet i know that they would come up with loads of excuses and how that`s just the way they are, different era and all that crap, and how the previous owners of our house never had a problem with them.
And that`s another thing! 
This house used to be hubby`s mum and dad`s! So basically i can`t win. I feel like a square peg in a round hole....not up to the job and trying to walk in his mother`s ill-fitting shoes....
SeasideMan
Pro 
I know exactly how you feel. Although we have the sea on one side of our house, on the other side is a square of grass with houses all round, like a mini housing estate. The woman directly opposite across the grass is exactly the sort of nosey neighbour you are talking about and it drives me mad too. She actually stands at her window looking out, for hours and hours at a time. She had a workman in last month replacing her window, and she got a stool, plonked herself 6 feet away from him and literally stared at everything he did. All day. For 2 days. The first week we moved in, we were throwing a ball for the dogs on the grass and she beckoned us over and told us it wasn't allowed. We learned recently that she has never done a day's work in her life, looking after her mother until she died and then inherited her house and savings. She scrounges for every benefit there is. We've been warned to never tell her anything.
So I understand how you feel. It can be annoying at times but all you can do is just try and let it wash over you. It's only a problem if you let it be one.
But no: I wouldn't let them touch my house without my permission and I think it's rude that they did.
Tom.