New neighbor cut our tree branches

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tough one. Obviously trespassing onto your land and cutting your tree is totally unacceptable, and you would be well within your rights to take them to court. On the other hand, you probably won’t recover much in damages—it seems to me vanishingly unlikely a court would make them pay to replace the damaged trees with new mature ones—and you do have to live with them going forward. Probably the mature thing to do is swallow hard and let it go, despite how badly that sucks. Sunk cost now, and the more you think about it, the more it’s going to bother you, which just makes your life worse and does nothing to them.

OP here - I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I think you're right. This is definitely NOT how I wanted my first introduction to our new neighbor to go. I don't see us being "friendly" in the future, unfortunately. I spent today researching privacy screens and decided to have some Nellie Stevens holly bushes planted in this area, underneath the existing (and butchered) pine trees. I don't think it would be worth suing them over this, but it would certainly be nice if he offered to pay half of what I'll wind up paying for the privacy screening. Not going to ask him to, but that would be a "neighborly" thing to do.

You seem preemptively angry that he won't pay for the bushes that you haven't told him about. Either tell them that this is the solution and how much it costs and see if they will chip in (and if not, be pissed) or let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious, do the neighbors benefit from having those lower branches gone? Do they now get more light or air circulation? I can't understand why they'd have the tree guys clear the branches all the way around.

Some people are weirdos about trees.

I'd be pissed they trespassed on my property. For example, who knows if the tree cutters were self insured? If not, they could try to sue if they got hurt on your property. It's not ok to enter someone else's property without permission. To clarify, were they actually in your yard cutting, or cutting them from his side of the property?

When they came around to cut the branches on our side, they were in our yard. We spoke with the crew and they were very apologetic - the foreman said he's been doing this for 25 years and knew that the owner's directions were wrong/illegal. We told him it wasn't his fault, just wish he had refused to do it.

So, the experienced, licensed, bonded, insured professional knew that it was illegal to trespass on your property and cut your tree for his personal profit, but did it anyway, and you told him that it wasn’t his fault?

IMO, the owner who TOLD him to do this is at fault. Sure, the tree guy shouldn't have gone ahead with it, but it's the owner who is ultimately responsible for thinking nothing of it and directing the crew to do so. And when we confronted the owner, he dismissed us and acted like it was no big deal. If it had truly been the crew's fault - if they had not been told to do this, but just went ahead and did it - then sure, they'd be to blame. But the ahole owner thought he was entitled to chop off the branches on our trees on OUR side of the property line. He is responsible.

Every company that does any kind of work that involves a property line knows not to cross a property line. These guys are jerks and are culpable. My neighbors lawn guys are angry I don't use them and they are responsible for the damage they do to my property even if the homeowner told them to do the work. They might get a pass if the property line is fuzzy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever trimmed a tree OP? They grow back quickly.

Not all of them. You clearly don't know anything about trees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did the neighbor cut branches on your side without trespassing onto your lot?

The tree company did trespass.

File a police report

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take better care of your property.

+1

And get a fence. These are your options.

It’s not like neighbor handed you the bill.

Agree that he prob thought the lopsided tree looked ridiculous.

You sound like a whiny and lazy neighbor.

I marvel at the idiocy that abounds on this thread. Apparently, you can't read. Do something about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I bought my house, a next door neighbor came over with a document for me to sign giving her permission to enter my property and trim any tree she wanted at any time. I waited a week, then told her my insurance company and lawyer told me to decline due to liability, and that in future she would need written permission to even enter my property again. Haven't heard a peep since, but she has sued 2 other neighbors (and lost) for various things in their yard that she didn't like.

What?? What on earth would give *anyone* the notion that they can touch in any way a neighbor's trees/plants/etc?? I think I would have laughed in their face right then and there.

Is her first name Beth, and married last name begins with an "L"? Our former neighbor did something very similar. Her DH is a shrink. She's insane, and we always said it's fitting that a shrink married a crazy. Your response was a lot more clever and creative than ours. I'm still chuckling.

I posted this and no, her name is Irene and she sells antiques. She has a husband but I don't know what he does other than pretend to fix things in the garage to get away from her. I'm sorry you have your own Irene by a different name.

[Anonymous]

We had three evergreens leaning towards the neighbors fence. They were concern that the trees may damage their fence. So we had them and six others removed. Now they are pissed they lost the privacy we had provided all these years. They are going to be more mad if we decide to remove all the tall oak trees because we can't no longer use the gas leaf blower in our county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious, do the neighbors benefit from having those lower branches gone? Do they now get more light or air circulation? I can't understand why they'd have the tree guys clear the branches all the way around.

My thought is that they realized how lopsided the trees looked after cutting the branches on their side, so decided to make it all symmetrical by taking the liberty of cutting on our side too. These were full pine trees, and the lower branches provided the privacy screen. Now we have what look like a child's drawing - tall tree trunks with branches sticking out starting about ten feet up.

Pines grow back usually

[Anonymous]

They were most likely trying to make the tree look symmetrical - which I totally appreciate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an idea. Trim your trees so they don’t have to. Be a responsible neighbor.

OP's f'king neighbor showed up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever trimmed a tree OP? They grow back quickly.

This has to be the dumbest post on this subject. My neighbor reached across our fence and hacked at our cryptomeria which never recovered. Some evergreens don't grow back. Even on deciduous trees, they can look terrible and not recover for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious, do the neighbors benefit from having those lower branches gone? Do they now get more light or air circulation? I can't understand why they'd have the tree guys clear the branches all the way around.

My thought is that they realized how lopsided the trees looked after cutting the branches on their side, so decided to make it all symmetrical by taking the liberty of cutting on our side too. These were full pine trees, and the lower branches provided the privacy screen. Now we have what look like a child's drawing - tall tree trunks with branches sticking out starting about ten feet up.

Pines grow back usually

Wrong. You do not know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar situation but our trees slowly died as the trimmers did not know what they did. I had the trees removed and then built a six foot fence about four feet into our property with two gates. We store our trash cans and our yard stuff inside the area. Since we have only the fence on our side, they have no fence and the trash and other material our visible from their screen porch. Since their yard slopes down from our side, they would have to build a very tall and expensive fence to screen these items. They complain to us constantly and suggest they plant trees.

Didn't you just cede 6 feet of your property to your neighbors by building the fence that far into your property line?

[Anonymous]

Our landscaper (who is also our neighbor's landscaper) went into our neighbor's yard and trimmed his side of the tree without our permission. We specifically told him the one branch that hung over our yard that we wanted to remove. We had no idea he went into the neighbor's yard until the neighbor texted us and was very angry. At this point there's nothing we can do except not hire this landscaper to work on trees ever again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an idea. Trim your trees so they don’t have to. Be a responsible neighbor.

This