I’ve asked my neighbour to trim her bush, and I’m afraid it hasn’t gone down well: she is point blank refusing. Her bush backs on to our garden, so she is our backside neighbour.
Her bush has grown so massive that it’s blocking out the light from half our garden. Because the houses are built on a slope her garden is about 30ft (however big a house is?) above ours. Her bush hangs over her back fence and reaches the bottom of our garden! I’ve managed to trim about 8ft of bush, but it keeps growing back and it can only properly be trimmed from her side.
She’s under the impression that because it has grown so big that it’s technically ours, as it has grown over her property. The roots are on her side and we can’t actually reach to cut it because of the 30ft drop. Also, even if we did trim her bush ourselves, it would just grow back.
It’s not only blocking out our light but it’s stopping wildlife from visiting our garden - because the birds can’t see the artfully placed birdtables and because our cats are now hiding in the bush to pounce on birds if they do try. When we did cut a massive slice of the bush off a load of birds descended down.
We’ve called in two tree surgeons who have said not only is it a massive bush, it’s in danger of pulling down the wall and toppling everything down in to our garden. We’ve presented her with four quotes - £350 from a specialist bush trimmer, £250 from a guy who just likes to trim bushes, £100 from a bloke who won’t do the most perfect job but can scalp it - but she is ignoring us. She says she prefers the natural look (she won’t even cut it herself).
One of the tree surgeons is trying to get a council order (or something) to make her trim her bush - so she’ll have to pay £350-£400 if this goes through. I can’t afford to pay, also, it will make a mess dragging all the rubbish through the house. Last time I trimmed it herself I had to pay for someone to take away the rubbish. Also, also - it’s her damned bush. It’s her responsibility to make sure her foliage doesn’t inflict itself on her neighbours!
Going to go round there again tonight and speak to her boyfriend to see if he will be more reasonable. Going to argue that if he trims it the birds will love it, and if nothing else, it’ll make his deck look bigger.
Anything else I can say to make my neighbour trim her bush?