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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I get dh to pull down next doors lelandii when the gales hit

93 replies

Lovenotate · 12/01/2015 09:13

I know Ibu but when the gales hit this week I'm so tempted to get dh to pull down next doors horrible trees that are taking away light, water, views and nutrients from my home and garden.

They are only 4 years old so quite thin and could still be snapped. If I leave it much longer they will be too hard for us to sabotage, easily.

It costs 500 just for the council to cosider talking to them :( they have pretty much told me to get lost with the whole "its my garden I can do what I like" selfish additute.

OP posts:
Royalsighness · 12/01/2015 14:12

What about weakening the trunk to help them along when the storm comes?

Monica101 · 12/01/2015 14:13

Well if he can get away with it undetected.....

I am tempting to try and emulate Hoppinggreen's grandma in law and kill my NDN horrible 12 foot conifer this summer.

RiverTam · 12/01/2015 14:16

have you had a surveyor take a look - you may be able to put forward a case for a Right to Light.

squoosh · 12/01/2015 14:20

YANBU.

Evil imperialist trees always invading land where they have no business being.

squoosh · 12/01/2015 14:24

'If they were baby oaks everybody would be up in arms about the OP wanting to cut them down.'

Huge difference being that leylandii grow three feet a year.

makemearrg · 12/01/2015 20:36

You could be fined thousands for doing this.

Thatsnotmypiglet · 12/01/2015 20:45

Yabu. Their garden, their choice. And as pp said, you've no right to a view but I agree that it is a massive pain in the arse.

'Mon the trees!!!

amispoilt · 13/01/2015 08:02

There was someone in Dorset that chopped down a tree and had to pay about 100k

MythicalKings · 13/01/2015 08:07

Poison them with weed killer one at a time.

grumpyoldgitagain · 13/01/2015 08:12

Copper nails

As low down as possible, ie hammered in at soil level so you can put a little earth over them and a couple of discrete ones a little higher

They will slowly die off as the copper kills them

HellKitty · 13/01/2015 08:12

Our neighbour planted a lot of ivy against our fence which through the summer crept along to our conservatory. Once it gets its suckers into bricks you're fucked. Dp went out to trim (hack to fuck) the over hanging ivy and then clear our patio with weed killer. This may or may not have dribbled under our fence towards her ivy...

cathpip · 13/01/2015 08:13

I do feel for you op, but you know you are being unreasonable. We have just moved house and the previous owners were clearly fans of privacy and lelandii, our neighbours now love us as we have felled 30 10ft lelandii and 3 60ft lelandii (Christ those were an eyesore!) apparently they will now be able to actually grow stuff in their garden :)

sanquhar · 13/01/2015 08:15

I'm pretty sure. 99.9% sure, you can only be fined for cutting down trees with preservation orders or restrictive covenants on them. Seeing as these trees are 4yo I highly doubt they have either on them.

I would go down the poisoned root path.

TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge · 13/01/2015 08:29

No sanqhar this would be destroying somebody else's property -their trees which belong to them.

Tree Protection orders and conservation orders include trimming.

When a neighbour has a tree it is their property. To cut it down/damage it/killing it is criminal damage it it will end up costing you!

You can trim it back to your boundary and that is all.

Why do people think it's acceptable to damage/remove/kill somebody else's tree but know it's wrong to do it to anything else somebody owns?

GnomeDePlume · 13/01/2015 08:29

If they grow into your garden then you can prune the branches which overhang. Leylandii dont like being pruned so will grow away from the pruning. This will both unbalance the tree and making it more vulnerable to wind damage and will also force the problem back into your neighbours' garden.

We did this and when old neighbours moved out new neighbours removed the trees and made their garden 6 feet wider!

amispoilt · 13/01/2015 09:36

I'm very surprised the amount of people who say to poison, no wonder the jails in this country are full.

grumpyoldgitagain · 13/01/2015 09:48

If you have already mentioned there removal to your neighbours dont just snap them in storms as they will know its you and any fued will just escalate from then onwards

Copper nails in the base will work and it will be slow enough to not make them at all suspicious

If you weedkill them use a glyphosate based one on the greenery on a warm day or night, dont do it in wind or any overspray that drifts will kill anything it lands on, it takes a few weeks to take effect as it works down into the root through the greenery

If you are in England (rather than scotland or wales were the legislation may be different) there is legislation relating to high hedges and a formula for calculating the maximum height in relation to neighbouring properties which are getting deprived of light, this is enforceable by the council if they refuse to keep them trimmed low enough to comply

You could also register on arbtalk (a UK tree surgery forum) for more detailed advice regarding this legislation as they have a home owners advice section the web address is www.arbtalk.co.uk and someone should be able to help on there, just watch your language as they ban for swearing which is why i spend more time on mumsnet than on there these days

CuttedUpPear · 13/01/2015 10:10

amispoilt don't be ridiculous.

Riseoftheflarelovers · 13/01/2015 10:15

AIBU

My neighbour has recently put up a new fence, it's 6 ft and blocks all the sun from my bedding plants. Also it looks ugly.

AIBU to ask DP to knock it down during the night and blame it on the gales? Hmm

Tyzer85 · 13/01/2015 10:23

YABU and your DH would be breaking the law.

If I had a neighbour do this to me I'd go into scorched earth mode and make their lives an absolute misery.

It's not your garden and it's not your trees.

JoffreyBaratheon · 13/01/2015 10:26

Tenant before me, here, planted the hideous things and the year I moved in, I had a newborn baby and a toddler (and 3 older kids) and so the things shot up and got away from me. The following year the 'hedge' was too tall for me to trim. Nothing but trouble.

I got the council out and asked them to chop them down but they said they didn't have the budget. Eventually, we just hacked them down as well as we could. It looks like a scene from the Somme. But they annoyed me for years.

Then my council moved in the Neighbours From Hell the following year and now we wish we'd kept the mahoosive Leyllandii 'hedge of doom' as we have to look at chavs and their mates gurning at us from their garden, and deal with their out of control neglected labrador barking and snarling if it sees so much as a leaf move in our garden.

Now they have bestowed Antisocial Neighbours on us, the council have finally agreed to kill the stumps and give us a five foot fence. Apparently they can now afford it as it can come from their 'Antisocial' budget. Joy.

I wouldn't hold out much hope that they will come down in a wind. Things like willow do that. These cockroaches of trees would survive a nuclear winter.

Someone round here (no idea who but I'd like to kiss them) uprooted some leyllandii a drongo planted to keep the public out of an area that has a public right of way. (And where we all walk our dogs and have for years). Several strategically placed baby trees mysteriously vanished one dark night. Tragic. But it kept the footpath open that the weirdo landowner had decided to make impassable.

squoosh · 13/01/2015 10:36

No wonder these horrible trees are the cause of so many disputes between neighbours.

amispoilt · 13/01/2015 10:45

If I had a neighbour do this to me I'd go into scorched earth mode and make their lives an absolute misery.

Exactly, if you distroy someone else's property you as asking for hell!

TheChandler · 13/01/2015 11:31

Does no-one else find them fairly unobjectionable unless they block all light and enclose an entire garden? I have them along one end, they don't block anyone's light but help drain a boggy bit of the garden and provide a lovely shady area in summer which I like to sit in and relax. In other places, they are sometimes the only chink of greenery in an urban, tarmacced wasteland. True, pine trees are nicer, but I don't have a spare lifetime to wait while they grow to the same height.

amispoilt · 13/01/2015 12:02

I agree, all trees should be treasured. I don't find them ugly, I have 2.5m surrounding my whole garden, just so I can have privacy. Fed up of the neighbours moaning, my garden my rules.

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