What makes people this way?

I have a bunch of neighbors where I live who are incredibly nosey! I've heard them speak about me in particular, but once I've heard one of them repeating what my mother's conversation about me to my dad. They're constantly doing things to get under my skin. Like making loud noise, but it doesn't because they're at a distance from me. As I said, they constantly talk about me. Just today, One of them cut down a bunch of trees so that he could see where I live better.

What causes someone to be so obsessed with another person who has never even met them and doesn't even know their first name! These neighbors live around me and I can't see them because there are trees. I'm just wondering, why do they give a crap about one person? I should be as irrelevant to them as they are me. I guess i'm making them relevant though, but that's because they're annoying me.

What goes pn inside the minds of such nosey people? From what I've heard they seem really caught up in my life when they should be focused on their own!