Votre mère était un hamster et votre père éperlan de baies de sureau !
 
 
 
I had a similar problem years ago when the guy in the apartment below used to play his bass guitar along to various records so loud that I couldn't hear my own tv on full volume and if I asked him to turn it down a bit, he would actually turn it up. I found out his phone number and used to phone him at all hours of the day or night, then put the phone down when he answered. I often used to wake in the night for some reason, and had a phone next to my bed, so I always took the opportunity - seemed rude not to ! Funny thing was that I could actually hear his phone ringing and also hear him getting out of bed and going to his phone which was in his lounge, and then hear him shouting when he realised he'd been had again ! When I heard him go back in his bedroom I would ring it again. Sometimes it would take several goes before he thought to leave it off the hook !
 
I honestly don't think I could go back to living in a communal type property now. It's also nice to know that I can pretty much make as much noise as I like and not annoy anyone else.

A lot of modern constructions have terrible sound insulation. I remember a friend moving into the upstairs apartment of a brand new house a few years ago. We were sat in the living room right after he moved, and his downstairs neighbor came home from the supermarket. The sound insulation was so non-existent you could hear the rustling of bags in his kitchen. I live in a solid old building that once had pretty good sound insulation. Until I moved into one of the 'renovated' apartments and found that they'd removed any insulation that was once in the walls. Now I can hear conversations my neighbor is having. I don't mind hearing a mumbled "mfph mfph" from next door, but when you can actually make out the words you know it's bad. 
 
I'd kill to live in a fully sound insulated pad. The Armory on West 42st is one such building. Musicians flock to those apartments. And a client of mine has a place on the Lower East Side that was converted from an old school and they're the same, absolutely no sound leakage from upstairs/downstairs/next door. Places like these are wasted on non-musicians. 

There is seldom a time here except in winter when I cannot hear either a lawn mower, weed eater, blower, or some sort of pump motor. It is absolutely annoying. For about a year I flew a Bonnie Blue flag off my front porch hoping it would annoy my neighbors. Most thought it was a Texas flag... DOH!
Craig is right, there are passive/aggressive things you can do to annoy them back. Just don't get arrested, always make it seem incidental, though sometimes I think a "death ray" would be nice. It would be nice to be Gru for a day! You could set up some outdoor "security" lighting that shines into their windows. I'm sure that you could be louder than them if you wanted to be. You could make a habit of blowing off your yard whenever the wind is blowing their way, I'm sure that being in Nevada there must be dirt and dust around to use... and if the wind is usually in their direction you can set out some fly traps, they smell like death warmed over... or there is always Limburber cheese discreetly placed. Get a rooster. Get a bigger compressor! Get an old car from the junkyard and put it on blocks in the front yard. Put an old refrigerator out there, knock one hinge off it. Get some fake pink flamingos to decorate the yard and some old tires cut them in half (like a "C" shape), paint them white and use them to decorate too. Perhaps soon they will move if you junk things up enough, keep a cloud of dust in the air, make it stink, and use the outdoor "security" lighting.
 
At the end of the day it does nothing though... hopefully whatever the neighbor is doing wont take long...
 
Yes people are annoying. Seriously, the best thing you can do is just try to not let it bother you... just chill. Don't let it ruin your day. There is really nothing else you can do that wont hurt you more than anyone else. You don't need the stress and if you nurture it, it will grow.
 
J

Rain
... in a residential neighbourhood where there's a mere 10 ft between houses, you will piss off your neighbours?
 ...

My neighbors are two young kids, a daughter and a dog. So, at any given day, they start a party with some bad rap, and all you can hear is the boom boom to tell you how good the music is supposed to be!
 
So I caught them outside, and I was driving in and playing Hawkwind, LOUD in my car, and one of them heard it and said what's that you're playing. So I told them. And I joked that one night I was going to play it so loud from my speakers that they would not be playing boom boom loud at 3AM anymore.
 
I also warned them that I had plenty of hard music to keep it going all night long!
 
It's been rather quiet since!

sharke
A lot of modern constructions have terrible sound insulation. I remember a friend moving into the upstairs apartment of a brand new house a few years ago. We were sat in the living room right after he moved, and his downstairs neighbor came home from the supermarket. The sound insulation was so non-existent you could hear the rustling of bags in his kitchen. I live in a solid old building that once had pretty good sound insulation. Until I moved into one of the 'renovated' apartments and found that they'd removed any insulation that was once in the walls. Now I can hear conversations my neighbor is having. I don't mind hearing a mumbled "mfph mfph" from next door, but when you can actually make out the words you know it's bad. 
 
I'd kill to live in a fully sound insulated pad. The Armory on West 42st is one such building. Musicians flock to those apartments. And a client of mine has a place on the Lower East Side that was converted from an old school and they're the same, absolutely no sound leakage from upstairs/downstairs/next door. Places like these are wasted on non-musicians. 

Silver Towers on 42nd where we lived for a few months in 2011 and 2012 were pretty awesome in that regard. The only noise we'd hear came from the hallway or from the street when we were on the lower floors. I often miss NY and I'm quite sure that that suite and its location contributed to my liking of NY.
 
Here... The air traffic took some getting used to. Seems there's always a plane in the air somewhere over Vegas. Most of them are easily ignored but since we've moved in, a few passed low enough for the windows to vibrate. Rare but it happens. 
 
The folks on our little street are ok, and overall it's not that bad. Many of them seem to have a thing for little dogs, but in most case, they're responsible owners and there really isn't much to complain about. Lawnmowers aren't that much of an issue because few people have lawn to take care of. So most of the time, the noisiest thing is a leave blower that can be heard on occasion. 
 
So it'd be sad to have one neighbour ruin all that. 

As usual, I tend to have far more fun thinking up creative responses than actually taking the action to do something.
 
At the last nice house I owned, my neighbor and I had a long fence at the top of an embankment with a road about 20 feet below.  We found out the hard way when an 82 foot portion of a tall tree fell into my yard that the two of us owned most of the embankment (to within three feet of the road).  That meant we would also be liable if anyone got hurt on our property and, of course, lots of kids wanted to walk at the top near the fence - completely ignoring the No Trespassing signs.  My neighbor wanted to mount machine guns at the top (retired ex-military, what do you expect?) but I wanted to hide some high-powered remote speakers out there instead.  Then, when one was navigating along the fence, I could send some interesting sounds their way.  Ideas included the growl of a very large cat or bear, machine gun or chainsaw sounds, death yells or angry dog barks.  Actually, one of the funniest suggestions was to have a couple voices talking really low and saying things like "Hey, let's go for this one!" and "Do you think he'll taste like chicken?"  The picture below shows the tree that fell in the yard and my part of the fence.  It really doesn't do the height above the road justice, but imagine navigating along that fence through the trees when it's dark.  Those sounds would be really effective!  (Remember your looking at an 82 foot tall section of that tree.)
 

I'll give my neighbor a break every year or so as he relives his childhood with his cassette collection and his bong.
Usually goes till midnite or so and then it's over for a year or so. 
 
Now, I've got some new renters living on the other side with 3 big dogs. Thing is, their fence is about 10 feet from my house and that is where they like to relieve themselves. The smell has gotten pretty bad and I don't know what to do about it. I've voiced my objections in a non threatening friendly kind of way but, obviously they don't get the message. They'll pick it up after a few days or so which by that time the stank has diffused some only to be replaced by the new.
I don't like to rock the boat with neighbors because usually once it gets started it always seems to end up in all out war..
 
Any ideas?

Give them a "hint?" 
 

Good idea Craig..

Ropel animal repellant.
It may smell worse than the dog dung, though.