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Japanese Knotweed - would you buy a house with this problem?

92 replies

vez123 · 20/03/2012 20:34

Have seen a lovely house within in our budget in perfect location near good school, quiet road, great size. But one major problem: Japanese Knotweed! The vendor is aware and is putting a legally binding (for them) treatment plan in place. I am aware that this issue could have an impact on home insurance and getting a mortgage. Are we crazy to even consider the place? So far we have not put forward an offer, just researching the issue. Has anyone got any experience with this?

Cheers

OP posts:
pushmepullyou · 22/03/2012 07:07

Sorry, Wildlife and Countryside Act

sevenbubbles · 22/03/2012 07:29

We have exactly this issue at the moment. My solicitor told us to avoid. Who knows what environment obligations may apply in the future. He also said that we should be seeking a significant reduction in price if we did go ahead.

It can lie dormant for years and then come back with avengance.

We are going to get a specialist in to have a look as it has apparently been eradicated but I am not sure whether the fact you have had it blights the property forever.

blackteaplease · 22/03/2012 08:29

Pushmepullyou I'm also an ecologist! snap. Good advice given there.

sevenbubbles · 22/03/2012 10:30

Black tea / pushme, sorry to hijack but can either of you recommend a specialist. There seem to be loads on google!

I presume the problem is worse if it is on a boundary (as is my case) as you can't treat your neighbours property and it just reinvades?

Does anyone have an opinion on the impact on property valuation for a patch about 15m from house, but crossing the boundary?

Tia

HintofBream · 22/03/2012 10:40

sevenbubbles, in my son's case, as I mentioned above, the JKW was not even within the boundary, which itself was about 20 metres from the house, but on adjoining property, and that was enough for the mortgage to be refused.

sevenbubbles · 22/03/2012 11:05

Thanks hintofbream. We have been told by HSBC that provided it has been eradicated it is mortgageable. But they are going to want to see the treatment plan yet.....

blackteaplease · 22/03/2012 11:07

Sevenbubbles I linked to one earlier that I found from randomly googling. I don't know if I am allowed to give recommendations. I will send you a PM

sevenbubbles · 22/03/2012 13:57

Thank you black tea!

Think I have answered my own question on value - consultations.rics.org/gf2.ti/f/275138/6179845.1/pdf/-/Japanese%20Knotweed%20and%20residential%20property.pdf

It's only consultation but looks likely to be the way things go I suspect......

Sorry on iPhone and can't work out how to do links. Blush

picnicbasketcase · 22/03/2012 14:02

We had some in our garden a while back. I assume it couldn't have been that bad a case because DP went out every day and dug it out whenever he saw any growing and eventually got rid of it all. That was about eight years ago and it hasn't come back. Fingers crossed...

Thinkingof4 · 22/03/2012 15:10

We also had some in our garden, dh treated every year with roundup and it's gone now.(4 years)
We'll keep checking and if any more appears we'll treat it. It's not close to house. Not been a big problem for us because there wasn't much to start with and we kept on top of it

libelulle · 22/03/2012 17:20

glad to see a few more professionals on the thread giving useful and non-alarmist advice. That RICS document was also very helpful and balanced about the usual extent of and damage caused by knotweed in a domestic situation. Hopefully in time mortgage and insurance companies will start to be a bit more reasonable about it all - sounds like HSBC already is. After all, I read somewhere that in the south of England there is knotweed in pretty much every square kilometre of urban environment. Which means it is 'near' many hundreds of thousands of properties!

12fishwife · 09/06/2012 08:11

cant believe the hype. jkw as you seem to have fondly termed it is a plant, pure and simple, it is of course a rather robust and persistant little bugger but it does not as far as i am aware have super powers and unlike some of my previous acquaintances will not spend years trying to enter my house uninvited. If cast out and left to defend for itself in the wild it will of course attempt to to establish deep roots in any uncontrolled area where it remains unchallenged. However a determined and persistant desire to rid this minor irritation will almost certainly see a total and completely satisfying demise in its attempts to encroach on your personal and private areas. No building foundations have been fundamentally undermined by this plant where it has occurred after construction. However it is imperative that no new development should be allowed to occur on any land that this weed has corrupted in recent history. Please take note that there are many other invasive weeds that your insurers and mortgage lenders are not yet aware of but may pose a future threat to your security and feeling of wellbeing. Creeping willy and ivy nuff but to name but two. So watch your backs ladies you never know whats creeping up on ya.

Popcornia · 11/06/2012 11:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cantspel · 11/06/2012 12:06

You should not touch the JKW until the end of august/september or you just sisk spreeding it. It can be got rid off with a bit of patience and knowledge.

Copy and paste from another site on how to deal with it.

irst things first - wait until the end of August up north, early September down south. You need cheap glysophate - may be try an agricultural supplier - a mixing container and a syringe (no needle). You can get the latter at the chemist for about 30p although it can take a bit of explaining. A bit of food dye is useful too and protect yuorselves with gloves.

The mix is glysophate at 5 times the normal concentration (whatever is on the container) with water an a bit of food dye in a container you never want to use again.

Cut the stems above the first node (leaving some stem above to contain the herbicide). Inject 5ml of the mix into the end of each stem, the food dye makes it easier to see which stems you have treated. The syringe is marked, so it is easy to pull up a measured quantity from the container and inject the right amount. The plant draws the herbicide down into the roots as it prepares for winter.

The stems have to be left on the ground (on plastic sheet) to dry out. Burn them later (we go for Bonfire weekend as that caused least objection).

The next spring you will get a small amount of distorted growth, which you can treat with normal strength glysophate - we painted it on because it was in an area where food grew. You do need to wiat until teh growth turn green though - not much use treating it until there is chlorophyll to distrupt.

There will also be a small number of strong shoots, particularly from areas that are between nodes that have died off; the herbicide has just not travelled far enough to kill the root between the two nodes. Leave them to grow strong and then tackle them in the early autumn by injection.

The next year we had very very little growth and most of the nodes had rotted loose and we burned them.

There is one small bit to tackle away from the main area. The pillock there kept pulling up the shoots and consequently there has never been enough growth to effectively treat! So two years after the main area was turned over to cultivation, we are still trying to deal with that little area.

Just a note on the problems of digging it up; the original small problem area became much more widespread the year after the fence was replaced, all along the fenceline. We suspect that the contractors transported tiny bits of the broken root on tools as they moved along the fence line replacing uprights.

And when we had out first bonfire, we added one or two nodes that had broken away during the injection process. The following spring one which was very very charred and partly carbonised started to sprout!

So it is tough.

The major problem we found was that we had very wet Septembers when the regrowth was doing well and we did not have two consecutive dry days to treat the plants. Had those months been dry, I think we would have cleared it completely by the third year.

tricot39 · 11/06/2012 18:43

my first thought in response to op's question was "no thanks!" but if it is an isolated patch within the property might be tempted for the right property and a large discount! patches outside my direct control would be less appealling as i couldnt guarantee that they would be eradicated so i could be left with problems.

i dont remember seeing anyone else explaining that jkw comes from the upper slopes of volcanoes in japan. this explains why fire doesnt bother the stuff and it has no known predator in this country - yet. i believe that there are trials at the moment on some sort of genetically modified creation which will be released to control it..... horrible thought and based on past disasters the cure could be worse than the disease but we will see.

as said above the plant has to be tackled seasonally and with a management plan. options are injection (but the hollow stems are divided/sectional so not suitable for large patches), painting/spraying, excavation for licensed disposal offsite or excavation for encapsulation on site (normally buried). the latter 2 are the only option for developers wanting to get on with construction as the first 2 take 2-3 years of meticulous work. attack from another site can be limited by installing a root barrier but this is impractical for most domestic settings.

the plant which is in the uk is only one sex (cant remember - maybe female?) so cannot be propogated by airborne pollen. if the other half turns up we are all in big trouble as this pest has managed to be widespread as it will sprout from the tiniest of rhyzomes (fragment of root) or by growing sidwways underground.

many make the mistake of overspraying thinking they will blast it but this burns the foliage back without affecting the troublesome roots. so follow the instructions and stick to dilutions and timings suggested!

the plant can bust up concrete and break into buildings despite what someone else posted. i have seen photos of it growing up the cavity of an external wall and poking out the parapet so it is a bu**er but possible to get rid of if tackled correctly!

hth

libelulle · 11/06/2012 23:43

calling the jkw experts please!

We undertook a determined assault on our knotweed last year and this year it is a seriously ailing plant (muahahaha). Instead of strong single shoots, there are multiple tiny little weedy bunches of distorted shoots (a couple of cm high). Thing is, they haven't grown at all since appearing in about April/May, in fact some of them look pretty withered and dead. I don't doubt the buggers have life left in them yet though.

So: wan we expect growth spurt later in the year, at which point we pounce with the glyphosate, or are they just gathering strength for next year?! Do we really just sit tight until there are leaves, or is there anything we can do in the meantime?!

Of course, we've barred all the doors and windows just in case it makes an assault on the house Grin.

cantspel · 12/06/2012 00:12

Leave them alone and wait until the autumn and then treat again with the glyphosate.

libelulle · 12/06/2012 06:58

Thanks cantspel. It's counterintuitive to leave it to grow but I completely see the logic; I fear we probably did overdose on the roundup last year. Luckily we are not selling our house any decade soon!

tricot39 · 12/06/2012 10:52

libel your description sounds like the chemical burning of foliage i mentioned earlier. Don't over-do it on the attack! it just takes longer to get rid of it if you have sprayed too much or too strong. Good luck!

tricot39 · 12/06/2012 11:15

The flowchart on page 12 is pretty good for explaining what treatment plan options are:
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/japnkot_1_a_1463028.pdf

bacon · 12/06/2012 12:39

Remember you are not allowed to throw it in normal skips/bins. The plant needs to be taken to specialist tips and for us its 30-40 miles away. We run a groundworks company and people have to realise if they want the plant removed for clearance and sprayed then you have to pay extra to take it to a specialist tip. We have a problem here on our land as its travelling down through the water course.

libelulle · 12/06/2012 13:40

Yes tricot I fear it might have been:( Though compared to last year it does look much diminished all the same, so maybe we got away with it. It isn't a very well established patch, just the odd stem here and there, which might help? Still, we know now what to do! Quite like the idea of lulling the thing into a false sense of security before launching our attack:)

Blu · 12/06/2012 14:01

ve123 - I have lived in 2 properties which had it - one backing on to the railway line which goes through Herne Hill - the track was lined with the stuff, one in a back garden in Brixton.

It didn't spread into my yard from the railway line, thank goodness. It did come under the fence from a Lambeth owned property, and I got nowhere with Lambeth trying to get it dealt with. But I didn't know the all facts at the time, and just kept spraying glyphosphate on my side of the fence, and leaning over the fence and spraying theirs, too. It didn't spread. And, in all innocence, I sold the house without trouble. Blush

Is the infestation coming from another property? Could the vendors take out one of those indemnity policies in case it becomes a problem after the treatment? Could you ask that the treatment guarantee be transferrred to you?

LaCerbiatta · 12/06/2012 14:21

Apologies for the hijack, but how can I know for sure that what we have in our garden (rented property) is jkw?

It doesn't grow 10cm a day I don't think and I dont remember ever seeing those white flowers on the pics. Also it doesn't grow that tall - maybe thigh high. Otherwise it does look like the pics and it has the longest most intricate roots I've ever seen. It covers the whole extension of our garden, not just a patch and I absolutely hate it! It's impossible to have a lawn or plant anything else. But being a rented house we sure won't invest any time or money in getting rid of if....

Does the landlord have any obligations? We often trim it so that the dcs can still play in the garden and pull out or attempt to some of the roots and put them in our green bin, which maybe we shouldn't but what else can we do?

Thanks and apologies again for the hijack and long post!

cantspel · 12/06/2012 14:39

If the canes are hollow with purple speckles then it is JKW.

By trimming it and pulling it up you are just spreading the roots. Dont put it in your compost or green bin as again you will spread it and it is a crimminal offence to knowingly spead it.

You cant force the landlord to deal with it so if you want to remain there long term and use the garden then you are going to have to treat it yourself. It is not expensive to treat but it does take time. You would need to leave it to grow during the summer and treat in at the end of august/september and if you have alot it will probably take at least 2 years before you will begin to see the end of it.