Returned home to find neighbour in my garden

[OyO]

I don’t know what to think about this.

I’m supposed to be at work all day, as normal. Came home early with some kind of sickness bug to find my neighbour standing in my garden chopping away at a hedge.

I was completely startled and said ‘hello? Can I help you?’ To which she responded: ‘well you were never going to cut it’ and brazenly carried on. I asked her to get out of my garden, she took her time and then climbed a ladder to go over the fence and back to her side. She’s now leaning over the hedge into my garden and still trimming it.

I’m at a loss. She’s so brazen I’m not sure if I’m being unreasonable in thinking she’s cheeky or not.

We have a 6ft fence separating us half way then a 5ft hedge. The hedge belongs to her and sits on her boundary. It’s an unruly hedge which overhangs into our garden and has done for the last 3 years (since we moved in). Our cat lounges under the overhang as it offers shelter and we have a family of dunnocks that live in the actual hedge. They’ve been there for years and we feed them daily plus have a bird bath for them.

The cat is now terrified hiding indoors right now and the dunnock nest has clearly been disturbed due to how far back she’s cut the hedge.

It’s a private garden. She’s in her 70s and doesn’t speak to anyone except to police their gardens. She once collected up all of the blossom from her front garden that had fallen from someone’s tree and dumped it on their drive (it blew back again ).

She’s right, I was never going to cut it back because I didn’t want it cutting back. Is she allowed to do this?

I’m also worried that she may pop into the garden whenever she feels like because she really didn’t seem to fussed about me catching her.

She better not have cut any of those birds or baby birds with those sheers.

Do something OP

Stop being so bloody British!

Get out there now! Hose pipe, etc. Guns blazing.

Write her a letter saying that she has trespasses on your property and caused damage to it, and if this happens again, you will have no hesitation in taking legal action. That should be enough to stop most people from trying that stunt again

I have no idea over hedge etticate.
I do know though that when I lived at my previous house, the next door neighbour was an absolute nightmare!

I trimmed my side of the hedge, only for him to lay into me saying "You do NOT cut my hedge!!" (even though I'd only done my side of it as it was getting overgrown).
He read me the riot act and apparently unknown to me I had done wrong. It was up to him to come into my garden to cut the entire lot.
I never touched his hedge again after that!

I always think these people who stress over hedges must have very uneventful lives.

FFS grow yourself a backbone!! Get out there, tell her that you are reporting her for the criminal offence of disturbing a nesting bird, and tell her that if you ever find her on (which includes leaning into) your property again, you'll have her for trespassing.

What people put up with is beyond me, it really is!

I really want to check on the birds but I’m not going out while she’s chopping away, she might take my head off.

Please go and talk to her. I'm timid and hate confrontation but when someone is clearly been a CF and I know I am in the right, I find my voice and stand my ground. Keep calm and tell her about the birds' nest. Calmly ask her to stop leaning over and cutting the hedge that overhangs your garden as that is not permitted by law. The law is on your side.

Aprilshouldhavebeenmyname

I was thinking the same thing.

If the roots of the hedge are on her side, throw all of the cuttings that she left on your side back in to her garden. It's her property and you don't want her trespassing again in your garden.

She's on your property without your consent - that's trespassing. She's cutting back your hedge (damaging your property) while trespassing – that's criminal damage. I know this because I've had legal advice on trespass to my property causing criminal damage. She's actually committing a crime. I know with the pressure the police are under the chances of them saying anything to her are zero, and probably not desirable with an elderly neighbour anyway, but you might consider sending her a note telling her she's actually breaking the law and you expect her not to do it again, and she doesn't have your permission to come onto your property.

roseblossom if you are in England, that is absolute bollocks - you are totally within your rights to cut your side of a hedge, or any tree/hedge/plant that is overhanging/intruding through your boundary. You do, however, have to offer the cuttings back to the owner of the plant/tree.

Wow, this is unbelievable! She's in her seventies and she climbed up a ladder over a six foot fence? How did she get down into your garden OP?

I came home one day to find my arsehole next door neighbour in my garden measuring pulling up the climbing roses that I’d staked against my fence. I let the dogs out and watched him try to scale the colourbond fence with a pit bull jumping all over him.

Oddly enough he never came on my property again but he did complain on a weekly basis about the stakes tapping on the fence - I bought 4 windchimes after a few weeks :)

Hahahahahaha @MaitlandGirl thank you for that I have a hilarious image in my head!!!

I'm astonished that you let her continue to chop away. I would go nuts if I came home and found somebody chopping away at the plants in my garden.

Turns out she hadn’t finished. She began trimming her side and then was throwing the trimmings over the hedge into my garden as I went out to check the bird situation.

I was baffled and feeling like I was going to hurl so I shouted over ‘what are you doing? This isn’t my hedge, they’re your trimmings’. She ignored it. I then said I’d appreciate it if she didn’t enter my garden again and I’d report her for trespassing if she did. She ignored it.

I then found the area where the birds normally sit and it was unrecognisable so I shouted over about how it’s illegal to disturb birds between March and August to which she replied ‘it’s my hedge’.

I then gathered up all of the trimmings and carefully laid them all against the hedge sticking up so they’re more bothersome for her than they were before. I then realised I was acting like a 5 year old but carried on regardless.

Now I’m sitting at the window waiting for her next move whilst trying not to vomit.

Report her for disturbing the birds!!! Do it now so they can come visit her asap. What an absolute cow.

Just did a quick google and found this form: www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/wild-bird-crime-report-form/

Tell her that under the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981 she is breaking the law if she cuts a hedge which has nesting birds in it!

Report to the RSPB Wildlife Crimes number and they will call the police...and they WILL attend! It is taken seriously.

She sounds like my mums neighbour..

Please report her, it doesn't matter if its her hedge, its still illegal to disturb a nest!

If she's disturbing nesting birds she's breaking the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which is a crime.

She can cut the hedge ON HER SIDE if she wants to after the nesting season is over.

Feel free to report her.

What an absolute nightmare. Well done for shouting her down.

Just read your updates and yes, absolutely report her.

@Aprilshouldhavebeenmyname Lovely photo - what a beauty.

Get some evidence - film or photographs of her doing it if you can and certainly photos of the finished result, especially the bit around the birds' nest, and photos of the trimmings to show the scale of the "trim". If you happen to have photos of before (in the background of other garden pictures) that may be useful too. Then report her. And get the hose ready for next time.