Neighbour fights over oak tree

[LeonVis]

What is the wisdom on this situation ?- a medium sized oak (Q.robur) belonging to a client grows in the corner of her property, resulting in the crown spreading over her garden and the 3 neighbours. One neighbour has built a structure underneath this tree, and in time has insisted on the owner (lets call her Linda) removing the overhanging branches. She refused, claiming that it would unbalance the tree. Recently the neighbour (lets call him Schmuck) got a contrator to hack off the offending limbs and dump them over the fence. In our country you can do this, although its not a neighbourly activity.
The problem now is that the tree has a large hole in the once round canopy, exposing it to the north-wester, our winter storm winds. If any branches break off, he refuses to take reposonsiblity.
So, - who is right? What do we do with the tree? Methinks reducing the long limbs but maintaining the shape could work. Am reluctant to recommend removing the entire tree, although this will mean Schmuck won't have any reason to complain about acorns falling on his zinc roof.
Ideas?

 

[Zale]

Any pictures?

 

[treemandan]

Might as well blow yer own head off. You do see the simularity?

 

[Bomber]

Tell your client to move, away from the jackass neighbor

 

[treeseer]

" In our country you can do this, although its not a neighbourly activity."

There are limits--if the overall tree is damaged, compensation can be pursued, and Schmuck should be told of this in case he feels like cutting again.

" Methinks reducing the long limbs but maintaining the shape could work."

Possibly. pics would help a lot. Destabilization can be exaggerated. don't overdo it!

 

[rmh3481]

Plant another acorn producing tree right beside it!

 

[ozzy42]

Does Linda offer to hop the fence and clean up after HER tree?
Can't have it both ways .Can't say on one hand ''I own that tree and I will let it grow however I want'' and then on the other say "It's on your side ,you deal with the mess''
Like it or not ,not everyone loves trees.


As much as I am against doing a ''up to the sky'' trim on an oak tree,I am also against HOs
that believe it is ok to violate their neighbor's property with unwanted growth.
You did say the ''shmuck'' asked ''Linda'' to take care of it first,right?

 

[TreeAce]

Am I right to assume the tree was there before any people built anything even close to it? Reminds me alittle of a case where a women put her new hot tub under the over hang of the neighbors black walnut......duh..

 

[Slvrmple72]

Am I right to assume the tree was there before any people built anything even close to it? Reminds me alittle of a case where a women put her new hot tub under the over hang of the neighbors black walnut......duh..

Bet that makes the hot tub water a lovely color!

 

[ForTheArborist]

Might as well blow yer own head off. You do see the simularity?

The wise man speaks again. Speak on oh profound wise man. Speak on.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

 

[treemandan]

The N is near.

 

[ForTheArborist]

That's great tree D. You know you remind me of someone that's semi-suicidal. Just sayin'. :msp_w00t:

 

[ForTheArborist]

On a lighter side, I was doing a removal way back, and a woman has me come take a look at her tree. She says the neighbor has been basically up her arse for years about removing some huge pine, and she want's a price on removing the few limbs over her neighbors and a price on removing the whole tree.

Later her neighbor who bugs the other lady about taking down the tree asks me for the firewood. I get to know her a little, and she seems okie doke. Really, you meet 'em one day, and you leave 'em the next out here, so I'm not blinking about "just another one." She passes muster to me.

The firewood lady has me remove a small tree and a stump for her. I remove on the day was across the street removing the tree I was originally in that area for, and I come back to pop out her stump while I'm back grinding the stumps across the street.

She pays me for the tree on the day I pop it out, but on the day I pop out the stump she doesn't pay for the stump. I'm not charging her much on either because she's a senior, and it's just a few more minutes of my time for some extra pocket money. It's not enough to go to court over either. She just says to me that she already paid when she paid for the tree and proceeds to shut the door and call the police.

Hell, I leave all of that alone. I can't bother, or it'll cost more than it's worth and nothing can be done about the nutty ol' bag paying me the bill.

Later on I get a call from the lady that owns the big pine, and she want's me to be a witness of the firewood lady's character in court in order to get a restraining order. The firewood coot had been bugging her with letters, stopping her in the front lawn, and knocking on the door. She even tried getting her in court a few times. This time she actually drilled holes (or paid someone to do it) into the pine. It's a 90' giant. Great tree, and she poisoned it.

I went to court with the woman, and there was some kind of restraint put on her.

Yeah, the firewood lady that just never gives up. She even had me go up to the neighbors behind her house to see if I couldn't land the removal job of some other trees that were bugging her. She talked like they were all into it, and it's a good deal. The neighbors tell me she's been bugging them about it for years, and those trees belong to the neighbor that got her tree poisoned. Whoa! Wack azz people.....geeeeeze. So I'm up there for nothing, and that was the moment I realize this fool was a lost cause.

So I'm doing a job a while later around the corner from all of this, and the lady with the poisoned tree stops to talk. She says that this screw ball hag rips off landscapers all of the time, and it's just for little bits of money each time, so they don't press law suit over it. Yeah, just doesn't pay them.

 

[imagineero]

In most parts of aus you are entitled to trim back anything over the fenceline and return the branches to the tree owner - but only up to whatever you can cut according to the local area tree preservation order. Generally it's 10%. There are some weird paradoxes here - according to tree preservation orders pruning must be carried out to AS 4373 pruning of amenirty trees, meaning spikeless pruning, collar cuts etc. According to federal law though, you can only cut back to the fenceline If the tree owner refuses to give you access to the property - meaning stubs. What do you do?

I get callouts a couple times a month to trim branches on one side of the fence. I always encourage people to ask the neighbour. You can generally get a better outcome for everyone that way. 10% can only be done every 12 months though, so what if both sides want something removed? Who gets priority? Some neighbours refuse to give permission to cut the tree, and I've had a hose set on me once. I try to be friendly, give good advice, and do the best job I can do. Most people want every branch on their side done, which I wont do. It's a tough call, 'amenity' is hard to define when you're talking about peoples land, and freedom to enjoy your own land is tricky too.

Shaun

 

[sgreanbeans]

Whatever the situation, when you have neighbors fighting, it is always best to move on, let them figure it out, them come back to it if they can resolve it, I have never seen a dispute between home owners come out good for the Tree Service. Always caught in the middle and easy to blame.

 

[treemandan]

I like my friends down the road, they know I do more than I should for them but not anymore. They had a little poplar ( sorry that's tuliptree or tulipius treeius for the sticklers) it was rotten at the base, top heavy with vines. It shifted awhile ago and was leaning over the street and they knew it was a hazzard. That halloween snow storm brought it down across the road. He goes out with his Puluon, cuts up the decent parts of the trunk, drags it back to split and leaves the top mess in the neighbors front lawn. All he had to was drag it to the edge of the lawn for municiple pick , to late now and there is still sits on some poor old dude's lawn. Dude even posted the pics his wife took of him playing hero treeman on FB. That wasn't the entire reason I choose to delete my FB Account but it helped.

before that the guy put one on his other neighbor's roof with that Pulon and I had to get it off on a Sunday while listening to " we don't have much money". You think the guy would be around to help at least? Absolutely not! Well, I guess that would be the silver lining?

Before that I gave them some logs and got hollered at cause the husbands saw broke trying to cut it. She demanded I cut it after stopping me one morning on my way somewhere else. I even lent them splitter.

And I told them about the dead oak in front of their door, told em it was tight but I was good enough to handle it without charging an arm and a leg. What do they do? Well , what any person with common sense does...Borrow 25k to build a flight a stairs under it.

Now, who wants me to make them their own special bullet? You have to provide the bullet, any bullet you want, I just write in the name, its 5 bucks for one and I need the money cash upfront.:tongue2:


I was working on one of my good clients property, they asked if I could go over to the corner and make sure that their neighbor didn't have any problems with the tree from their side that fell across his drive. I said " I can't, i really can't" Then i told them why, took me about ten minutes to explain, they said they thought he was a prick too.


Then I showed her my bullet, back then it only said " Treema". The N is near! The N is near!

" That's all I can stand, I can't stand no more"
Popeye the Sailor circa 1942

 

[treemandan]

But boy do I love my clients, my people. They listen to me when I say things like " This #### is to hard for me to deal with crap like that" or " let me tell you about the last time that happened" and they don't try to get me to do stuff I don't wanna do after i said I didn't want to. I WANNA LIVE! Thanks guys!

 

[Grace Tree]

I like my friends down the road, they know I do more than I should for them but not anymore. They had a little poplar ( sorry that's tuliptree or tulipius treeius for the sticklers) it was rotten at the base, top heavy with vines. It shifted awhile ago and was leaning over the street and they knew it was a hazzard. That halloween snow storm brought it down across the road. He goes out with his Puluon, cuts up the decent parts of the trunk, drags it back to split and leaves the top mess in the neighbors front lawn. All he had to was drag it to the edge of the lawn for municiple pick , to late now and there is still sits on some poor old dude's lawn. Dude even posted the pics his wife took of him playing hero treeman on FB. That wasn't the entire reason I choose to delete my FB Account but it helped.

before that the guy put one on his other neighbor's roof with that Pulon and I had to get it off on a Sunday while listening to " we don't have much money". You think the guy would be around to help at least? Absolutely not! Well, I guess that would be the silver lining?

Before that I gave them some logs and got hollered at cause the husbands saw broke trying to cut it. She demanded I cut it after stopping me one morning on my way somewhere else. I even lent them splitter.

And I told them about the dead oak in front of their door, told em it was tight but I was good enough to handle it without charging an arm and a leg. What do they do? Well , what any person with common sense does...Borrow 25k to build a flight a stairs under it.

Now, who wants me to make them their own special bullet? You have to provide the bullet, any bullet you want, I just write in the name, its 5 bucks for one and I need the money cash upfront.:tongue2:


I was working on one of my good clients property, they asked if I could go over to the corner and make sure that their neighbor didn't have any problems with the tree from their side that fell across his drive. I said " I can't, i really can't" Then i told them why, took me about ten minutes to explain, they said they thought he was a prick too.


Then I showed her my bullet, back then it only said " Treema". The N is near! The N is near!

" That's all I can stand, I can't stand no more"
Popeye the Sailor circa 1942

That's funny and I don't doubt that it's completely true.

 

[treemandan]

That's funny and I don't doubt that it's completely true.

Everything but the bullet part though I should show it to more people. Maybe drive home the message.

 

[imagineero]

Nobody likes a crybaby Dan, stop carrying on like such a ##### and just pull the trigger.