Living through construction

We've been feeling the strain lately of living with construction all around us. It's little things, but lots and lots of them. They start to drive you slowly insane. For example, the photo here.

Was there any way the stucco guy could have dumped his bucket of cement somewhere other than a perfectly nice bit of our landscaping?

Could the threshold between our living space and the new space have been sealed up with a bit of plastic before drywall mudding, so as to avoid having our entire lives covered in white dust?

What about the speaker holes in our ceiling that coughed up chunks of prehistoric insulation phlegm until I covered them with paper plates and gaffer tape?

To be fair, we were warned about these things by everyone we talked to, including our architect and contractor, so we have ourselves to blame for not moving out. Nevertheless, I needed to vent.