I'll try and keep it simple.
When we first inspected the rental that we now live in(which has 2 separate houses on it and share a driveway), the agent told us not to worry as the landlord does not live in the other house. We find out later after moving in that while the landlord doesn't live there, his mother does, and the landlord visits everyday, sometimes multiple times. Flying up and down the driveway like a drag strip. Sometimes blocking the driveway, or access to our garage. The landlord and his family avoid saying hello or making eye contact. They are a bit odd. It seems as though this is some passive aggressive behaviour to show us that while we are renting, it is their property. I feel we were mislead by the agent in mentioning that the landlord doesn't live in the other property, while technically true, she omitted the connection to the person who does live there and the fact the landlord will be around everyday.
Now occasionally the real estate has told us certain parts need to be maintained, fair enough. They claim they noticed the areas needing maintenance on one of their "drive by" inspections. This is nonsense, as areas they mentioned cannot be seen by driving past, they can however been seen if you are a sticky beak and stick your head over the fence from the other property. I also doubt they do any drive by's because the property and the real estate office are a pretty decent drive away and they can't even be bothered to turn up for the inspections that they organise themselves.
So I feel the landlord is being trivial with some complaints, the real estate doesn't check for themselves and just sends us sensationally worded and exaggerated emails. I really do feel it is petty, or perhaps an ulterior motive(like get us out and jack the price up etc). On the flip side, the real estate is rather unresponsive to us when we contact them about certain things, to the point that something that has never worked since moving in has not been fixed or acknowledged after bringing it to their attention 3 times.
So I am at the point where I am losing whatever patience I've had and feel I should bring up everything that bothers us, from certain things not working, to the landlord and their family/friends treating the driveway like a race track, and down to the trivial things.
What do you guys think? How would you go about it?
I'd say move out, why bother living in a stressful environment? these changes that you are expecting, won't happen overnight or over a single notice. you may win this round if you complain enough but I bet they'll make sure you won't live in peace.