2 of my neighbors had a tree dispute yesterday,police were called

9 years ago

My neighbor, the one who grows Christmas trees, went onto my other neighbor's property, which is the size of a postage stamp, and when they weren't home, hacked the neighbor's 100 year old willow tree. It looks awful!

Well, as expected, my neighbor freaked out. And threatened to kill him if he ever came back on his property. My neighbor is normally a quiet, mild mannered man who would do anything for anyone, but he loved that tree, so he flipped his lid over what the Xmas tree neighbor did. The Xmas neighbor said the willow was shading his Xmas trees. It's not true.

Unbelievably, yesterday afternoon, the day after the tree hacking incident, the Xmas neighbor snuck back over to my other neighbor's house yet again to find the neighbor's property stakes. My neighbor was not home. The Xmas tree neighbor was digging up the yard trying to find the stakes when my neighbor pulled in, and there was shouting. I could hear it in my house.

2 cop cars soon pulled up and were there for a couple of hours..I don't know how my Xmas tree neighbor could do something like that. .I should take a picture and show it here...

Featured Answer

drrich2

9 years ago

This sort of thing is part of why when we were looking for homes, I told my wife don't even consider anything with a lot size under 1 acre. However good it looks, however good the price, I want at least 1 acre. Not only to have some land to work with for planting trees & what-not, but to keep the nearest neighbors that extra distance away. I think it helps people get along better when they're not too close.

Richard.

Comments (12)

j0nd03
9 years ago
Sounds like the willow neighbor needs to gift a drum of imprelis to the xmas tree neighbor as a sign of forgiveness then sit back and wait.
ilovemytrees
Original Author
9 years ago
What makes me mad is this was truly never about the Weeping Willow tree. The Xmas tree neighbor thinks my other neighbor's grandson had shot his rat terrier in the face with a B B gun, but it's not true. There are many kids around here with BB guns. The Xmas neighbor lets his dogs run wild all around here so it could have been any kid who'd done it. The Xmas neighbor's other dog, a golden retriever, was shot with a BB gun by a neighbor down the road when the retriever came in and was killing his chickens...

This guy's mind is set on the fact that was the other neighbor's grandson, and he knew how much that Willow Tree meant to the neighbor so to get him back, he hacked the tree to death, faking the reason of being it's shading his trees.

What a coward; going after a 100 year old tree that can't defend itself...
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whaas_5a
9 years ago
Sounds like a zoo in that neighborhood.

Get a pic so we can see. Perhaps the willow is over his lot line.
arktrees
9 years ago
Strange how those Christmas trees can suddenly start dyeing for no apparent reason.

Arktrees
whaas_5a
9 years ago
Richard,

I wish I would have gotten 1 acre. I feel like thats the perfect size. I'm on a 1/2 acre which works.

But two of the neighbors are close and they annoy me. The other three are on 1 to 2 acre lots and they are far enough to not cause issues.

My entire lot is officially set up for a privacy screen. Had the reset set on several plants this past winter but its back on. Can't wait for a few years for some things to fill in more. Some are going to town like my Tulip Tree and Fall Fiesta which are both going on over 20'. Too bad my species Dawn Redwood died. that thing likely would have been 30' after this summer.
Embothrium
9 years ago
I have 8/10 acre in a neighborhood zoned for retention of lot size. Of the 5 adjoining properties at one time or another I have had someone come onto or reach onto (in one case) my property and damage or remove plants etc., without permission. The only property where nobody has ever done anything is a rental, the other cases have all involved property owners.

In the worst*, most recent case the couple has been very slowly erecting a fence between us, because I have varying amounts of weeds in view most of the time. Where this has become a problem is some time ago the husband announced he had documents from the city stating that the fact that I was not participating in their project entitled them to a one foot wide strip of my land for fence maintenance purposes. This led to repeated episodes of his wife coming sometimes several feet on my place to spray herbicide, without prior discussion. Recently she managed to nail some potted plants I had near the boundary as well as cut off and spray some self-sown shrubs (of a non-weedy species) I had been thinking about retaining as part of a new planting I am going to make in that area. When I pointed out that she had damaged my plants and other unsatisfactory aspects of what she was going she got in her car and drove away while I was still talking.

Subsequent discussions with her husband became near shouting matches where all these ridiculous beefs it turns out they have been harboring were aired by him, including spurious accusations of malevolent intent or actions on my part.

Bottom line is if you have somebody looking over at you or your place and disapproving of something, cooking up complaints in their heads - that need to have no basis in fact to occur - property rights and what would appear to be a normal level of discretion and respect may often not have a significant effect on resulting actions undertaken.

(After the one spraying episode (of at least several) that damaged the potted plants I asked both representatives of my city and my attorney about the one foot automatically granted property access; the people at the city had never heard of any such thing and pretty much laughed at the idea, and my attorney said no municipality would ever grant such rights).

When I worked for an arborist he was earning thousands per year being retained as an expert witness by attorneys; often the cases were ones where somebody had had a neighbor's trees removed without permission. In my area people get crazy about salt water views, a local judge(!) made headlines by having something like an acre of an adjoining public park logged so he could see better.

*Except, perhaps for walking out to the back garden one day and finding about 30 ft. of branches skinned off our side of a tree that is entirely and clearly on our lot, except for the half of the crown that hangs over the fence - and was mostly untouched!

This post was...
ilovemytrees
Original Author
9 years ago
The situation has gotten so much worse. My next door neighbor found out this weekend that the weeping willow tree is not on his property, it's on the Xmas tree neighbor's. Apparently the Xmas tree neighbor knew this all along and kept that information in his back pocket to use when it benefited him. It also means the pine tree, the only other tree on my neighbor's property other than a maple he planted 5 years ago, is no longer on his property either. That tree is now gone....My neighbor's wife loved that tree, in particular. She was crying telling me look at what the Xmas neighbor has done... So not only did they lose several feet of property, they have lost the 2 trees they loved. I feel terrible for them.

They are fully expecting that 100 year old Willow to come down anytime now...

Our property buts up to the Xmas tree guy for about 44 feet of our property. It's all Christmas trees. Well, we found our property stakes and put rope up from stake to stake on that particular portion of our property. And wouldn't you know, one row of his trees, because of their growth, are now half on our property. The rope goes right throughout those trees. He planted them right on the property line several years ago so each tree is half on his land and half on our's....

We want him to stew for a little bit....No, we aren't doing anything to his trees. I would never kill a tree like that, or disfigure it. I don't mess with someone else's property. Period. He planted those trees; they're his. But we want him to know that we aren't going to be F'd with....

2 beautiful trees, the Pine and the Willow are coming down all because of neighbor retaliation. I can't believe it.

This post was edited by ilovemytrees on Mon, Jul 14, 14 at 7:04
arktrees
9 years ago
ILT,
IMHO, you have to on the Christmas Trees. People like that just can't play nice. You let him get away with it now, he will continue to push bit by bit. Needs to be some sort of repercussion for his jack assery. Remember all those trees are destined to be cut anyway. It's not like they are going to be 150' giants. Hacking the other two trees, he obviously has no regard for them anyway, other than potential $$$.

JMHO
Arktrees
cadillactaste
9 years ago
Such a shame...our property doesn't butt up against anyone's yard. A ravine on one side and private lake roads at it's boarder. Can't begin to think how strange it is to have someone wack at trees. If it is over his not keeping his dogs contained to his own property...that got the dog shot...it's a shame it was shot...but, keep your dogs where they belong. Not roaming the neighborhood.

Maybe your line showing his trees on your property will keep him from removing the other tree the neighbor loves but isn't theirs? Time will tell...

We have land beyond the lake roads that are also ours. Our neighbor paid to have them surveyed. Unbeknownst to us until I caught the surveyor doing his job...and I informed him that he was on my property and I hadn't called him...and would not be covering any bill he may have when his job was done. That was when he informed me the neighbor was paying for him to survey these lots...The neighbor was parking on part of our land...we didn't care. But, for some unknown reason...he had our lots surveyed...now he doesn't park there any longer. Maybe he thought he owned them...then learned he didn't and stopped parking. We're easy to get along with...it wasn't bothering us a lick his parking there. But, didn't wish to address we knew he had our property surveyed without our knowledge. Never had a problem with him...and chose to pretend nothing went down...no need to create one.
poaky1
9 years ago
I feel bad for the Willow tree lovers, especially having a Willow live that long and not be declining, but, I am shocked they weren't aware of the property line. My present back of the property neighbor is okay with us as far as plants being on the line, but the front one, I would follow that mark of the line, the husband is a nasty thing, the wife seems fine. But they have silver maples on the line, I have oaks on the line, he squawks, I will. There is alot of room between me and the nasty guy, thank goodness.
poaky1
9 years ago
It takes nerve for the Xmas tree guy to come on the other guys property when he's not home, some of that was surely Willow guys property too. There is a nervy guy like that 2 houses back from me, happily a good distance away. I won't get into it, but he is something else. He bugs the guy between me and him, their properties but up to each other, with some spruces between these 2 guys, he can see between the spruces still.

2 of my neighbors had a tree dispute yesterday,police were called

drrich2

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2 of my neighbors had a tree dispute yesterday,police were called

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