Last fucking straw

[sarahC40]

Handhold please and advice (on how not to utterly lose my shit or get arrested for this). It’s not been a great lockdown.

Saving Grace: my garden. Lovely tree, probably in the wrong place but predates the houses, was cut down without warning, so that my view, which was of said lovely tree, is now of the back of someone’s house. They have now closed all of their blinds because, yes, we are now overlooking each other.

The tree is in no man’s land between the gardens - it doesn’t belong to them. They’ve got down everything that overhung my garden (my son woke up to find men climbing over my fence and most of tree gone) and they’ve left a twenty foot high stump. My other neighbours were open mouthed in shock, so this isn’t just me sounding off; it’s horrendous.

I know there’s nothing that I can do, but I would like some vengeful suggestions that I won’t act on but will help me as I try to stop crying at the fucking awful sight of their fugly house.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

1) Go and buy the highest brightest most fuck off security light you can get and fix it to your house do that it shines straight into all her windows. 2) Buy your kids a trampoline and put it right up to your border so every time they bounce, they are looking into her garden. Bonus points if you can get a squeaky trampoline. 3) When she is sunbathing/having a BBQ in the summer/has her washing out to dry, start burning all your garden waste and waft it towards her.

Also do what everyone said and find out exactly who owned that tree and see if you can get the bitch fined/prosecuted. If there were nesting birds, what she did is criminal.
Both of your neighbours knew they were going wrong, which is why they didn't discuss it with you first.

I would do all of these, and more if I could think of them.

They are buggers - even the "nice" one.

Surely if it has a TPO it is the tree surgeons who will be fined? Ditto the bird nesting thing.

No update from OP since 16.25, let’s hope she’s not been arrested 😳

DO NOT GET AN EUCALYPTUS!!!

We moved into a house with one. I loved it, it’s swishing, it’s airy ness, the swing we had in it. It grew and it grew and it grew and in about 3 years it was visible from miles around. we had to cut it down (too close to the house) and it cost £800

Also no birds liked it cos it was a foreigner

@Lurkingforawhile

Sycamore is a good call for growing quickly as well. In the last couple of years some self seeded ones are nearly the height of our house

It's a bugger, though.

Self-propagates all over, drops seeds and petals everywhere, and the sap is sticky as hell if it gets on the car. Plus it gets HUGE. (But better than looking at your bitch neighbour)

I would stare through her window every time the blinds are open - like Feathers McGraw the penguin in Wallace and Grommit.

Plant crocus bulbs on their lawn to spell out 'Fuck Off' when they flower next year.

Addendum to @averylongtimeago 's post

On the subject of Silver Birch - be careful that you get a specifically dwarf variety, the forest type will get to a height of 60' eventually. Ask me how I know :-)

@SoupDragon

Surely if it has a TPO it is the tree surgeons who will be fined? Ditto the bird nesting thing.

Both will be fined, I think.

Neighbours don't have a right to take down a tree that isn't theirs.

I feel for you OP. I'd never realised how attached you could get to a tree, until our neighbour asked if we minded if he cut down the one at the end of our garden. Luckily he was decent enough to ask first so the tree is still there, but it wasn't until the possibility came up that I realised how attached I was to the damned thing!

I like the frozen sausages idea myself.

Sorry OP - I'd be furious and upset too

@Handsnotwands

DO NOT GET AN EUCALYPTUS!!!

We moved into a house with one. I loved it, it’s swishing, it’s airy ness, the swing we had in it. It grew and it grew and it grew and in about 3 years it was visible from miles around. we had to cut it down (too close to the house) and it cost £800

Also no birds liked it cos it was a foreigner

THIS. One of them destroyed our garden wall in a matter of a few years.

And agree with others who say check your boundaries, and find out who owns the land. It will be owned by someone even if unregistered (admittedly that makes it harder to find out).

@MajorMujer

Eucalyptus grows quickly op.

Beyond inappropriate for small gardens. I moved to a fairly small new estate. 2 (dumbwits) neighbours planted these. One neighbour has taken hers out (finally) - the other neighbour keeps having to pay to have it massively cut.

Are you in a conservation area?

Never understand this. We have a lovely cherry tree for one week of the year it blossoms it’s lovely, across the back neighbour gets his leaf blower out and blows the blossom off it. He has to reach quite a way over too as there’s a bit of no mans land between the houses too. It’s a wee bit of blossom in back of his garden for a week. It blows away. He also does things like waters his garden in the middle of the day and soaks my washing and me sometimes!

Why cut the whole eucalyptus down? Why not keep it pruned?

These people sell massive trees, OP, if you can get one in- I guess it depends where the roots from the existing tree are.
majestictrees.co.uk/

Bastards, I’d be so cross too.

Birds love my eucalyptus.

Oh, op, so sorry, I do love trees... markers of the seasons🌳 and homes to so many animals and birds. We often have a ‘wayward’ hedge because Mr and Mrs Blackbird are nesting in there and I’m paranoid about disturbing them!
When we were kids, we were taught all the tree names, leaves etc and I was able to spot so many just by their shapes, leaf style etc. You must be in despair, I hate nature vandalism like this 👹
Nothing to add, except sympathy for you... and I love your sons idea for the back of his blinds!!

@SplendidSuns1000

How crap of them!

In my old house we had a lovely blossoming cherry tree on our driveway. Came home after a weekend away to find new NDN had cut it down and dug up the stump as they were replacing the original victorian railings between our driveways with horrific grey fencing. The tree was growing into the railings and so they removed it all. The railings belonged to us as well as the tree and they'd taken them to a scrap metal place! It was a young couple who eventually got in a lot more trouble when they took out and replaced the windows with plastic double glazed monstrosities in their grade 2 listed building.

If we're talking about arson I'd like to chuck them in your neighbour's shed before we set it alight please!

My NDN also living in listed building did loads of work without planning permission including replacing wooden window frames for plastic. They were taken to court and got criminal records so lost their teaching jobs, could no longer get insurance on cars etc and couldn’t get credit cards or mortgages. Just because you own a property doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want to without consulting others. That includes cutting down or trimming certain trees.

Ring up your local council and ask to speak to their Tree Officer and get their advice. Mine are hugely helpful.

@Boatingforthestars

Sneak into their garden after nightfall with a bag of frozen sausages and a hammer. Hammer said sausages upright into their lawn evenly spaced.

Watch on as all the local cats and foxes completely destroy their lawn over the next week digging them out!

I'd love to claim this idea as mine but I have borrowed it from another forum.

Waves frantically @Boatingforthestars with a knowing

Miserable sods - they could have just pruned it. Tell on them to Chris Packham? And check with the council and/or whoever actually owns the land whether they needed permission; a quick Land Registry search will tell you who the owner is. Seconding what averylongtimeago said, but try adding in a multi-stemmed silver birch and/or pleached fruit trees, limes and evergreens. They take up very little space so would work well in your garden. Look at online specialist nurseries for good quality stock, get smaller fast-growing species for value & possibly cut the costs by buying with similarly disgruntled neighbours? In the short-term, can you put a trellis or training wire along your back boundary and grow something on it for a quick fix over this summer? Small birds will appreciate clematis and ivy for nesting and roosting.

Hi
Who owns the fence at the bottom of your garden?
I have an idea

What awful people.

I suggest bamboo.