A nurse living on a leafy suburban street has been given a restraining order demanding she only trims her garden privets once a month after making her neighbours' lives hell for three years with a campaign of "obsessive hedge cutting".

Susan Sheldrick, 45, along with businessman husband Nigel, 49, shattered the peaceful serenity on the wealthy residential road where they lived in a detached house next door to their tormented neighbours, company boss Justin Jackson and his wife Heather.

A court heard how a dispute with the Jacksons culminated in Susan Sheldrick lopping down the garden hedge which separated them, mainly with electric strimmers but occasionally with shears, at one stage twice a day for a week.

The couple were found guilty of the campaign of harassment, which also including them vacuuming their car at 1am and singing under their neighbours' window late at night, after a trial.

The four-day trial listed the Sheldricks' infuriating antics, prompting magistrates to put a restraining order on the couple on Thursday - limiting them to cutting their hedge just once a month.