Unless it's really loud in the early hours we should try to exercise a little tolerance. If you live in a terrace or in a semi on an estate you can't expect the world to keep quiet for you. I get on well with my neighbours & if they want to BBQ & make a racket i ive with it & they afford me the same privilege. Loud club music is cr*p at anytime but unless you are lucky enough to live in the middle of nowhere...god i envy you Debs! you have to learn to live with each others noise at least during reasonable hours.
To sum up, provided it's not in the early hours every night a little tolerance should be exercised. Im usually very quiet in the laters hrs. but no one can reasonably expect the world to revolve around them.
As for the clipping of the speaker/amp wires i know i would'nt react well to that at all whereas a polte request to turn it down would suffice. As we speak the kichen door is open & some nieghbours are enjoying themselves. No problem, why should they keep quiet for me? 
I was at my wits end and they had been asked many times, i could have called the police but did not And it was dealt with, i would do it again, as i said at the beginning....right or wrong, yes they could have called the police and i would have been in trouble for criminal damage, but these people i was dealing with only understood one course of action, if i had called the police i would have become a target for their youthful antics...