Registered User
It's actual a council "law". They're in their right to do it.
As someone who has half a jungle that grows over our fence from our neighbours, into our carport and all over our damn car, I hate the fact i have to prune a tree thing that isn't mine. If I wanted to prune an out of control plant I'd plant my own. (ok, vent over XD) I think it's unfair to expect them to take the branches away.
It would have been nice of them to give you the heads up tho, I think.
Registered User
Actually, they'd be in legal trouble if they didn't give you the branches back - you can charge them with theft if they don't.
You can ask them to give you a warning though, but they don't have to.
Registered User
seriously?? that gave me a bit of a chuckle!! lol
Registered User
I would speak to them, and let them know you are happy to trim them if they let you know or if they want to do it can they let you know or agree somewhere where more convenient for them to leave the branches. Without speaking to them they have no way to know that they are not doing you a favor, and you have no way of knowing whether they are annoyed or not about having to do it. Personally I think so many misunderstandings in life these days are caused by people not communicating because they are concerned about what people might be thinking, much better to know what they are actually thinking and I think people are in general more reasonable than many people expect (also when they are unreasonable at least you can be justified in seeing them as unreasonable :-)).
Registered User
this is what i'd be doing
as has been mentioned, they are legally allowed to (and there are a few people that would turn around and have a go about theft if they weren't returned their branches) - we used to just get rid of overhanging branches until our neighbour turned narky and tried to forbid us trimming any of her tree hanging over the fence. she was asked three times to clean it up, then we did it (was hanging on our garage and preventing us opening the door properly) and put it back over the fence. we did make sure it didn't land on anything important. we would have continued getting rid of it (we had our own garden waste so no drama) but she became a cow lol
have a quick chat - let them know you weren't aware it was hanging over so badly, and next time, could they drop you a note if it's becoming a problem so that you can arrange the gardener to come in and clean it up, and get rid of the mess all at the same time rather than them having to do it. mention you're a bit worried about the kids safety as your primary reason if you need to
Registered User
You girls are probably right that both parties are possibly misunderstanding each other. It's certainly possible that they think they are helping us. At the end of the day it actually is helpful, but I just want to know when they are going to do it. I would never expect them to dispose of the branches because I know the trees are our responsibility. Our side neighbor is a perfect example though, because a few days ago he let us know that a tree on his fence was starting to grow over. So we were already getting the gardener out shortly lol.
I think I'll just pop around to our back neighbors and let them know that if they let us know when they are overhanging we'll take care of them. Or if they prefer to do it themselves to just let us know so I can remove the debris before DS goes out to play.
This is the first time I've had a real garden and while it's very pretty it can certainly be hard work lol
Registered User
yup. DF works for a tree company, if the branches they are paid to remove is growing from the neighbours tree, they cut it and "return" the cut branches. works out cheeper for the person paying for the removal of them to.
Registered User
I think your neighbours are obviously p!ssed with you about the trees or they would have handled it better kwim. You could choose to take them over a bottle of wine and some chocies and thank them for pruning your trees that are overhanging into their yard and say something about your concerns of the branches in your yard due to little ones and ask how you can all sort something out for the future that everyone is happy with
Registered User
Or you could just get your Gardiner to come out on a some what regular occurrence to stop this from occurring?~?~?~
Registered User
I wish it were that simple. Our gardener costs us $300-400 each time they come out. When we moved into this house we thought the garden was lovely (and it is!), but never realised quite how much work it would be.
If the trees were the type that branch right out and hang I'd be quicker to notice they need a trim, but they are the type of tree that mainly just grows up, and they are pretty skinny too. So even when they start to go over the fence line it's not like they would ever actually hang down and get in the way. They would literally just be in the neighbours airspace above their heads.
But anyway, I'm not worried at all that the cut them, or even that they don't want to dispose of the branches themselves. I was just surprised that they wouldn't either just ask us to do it for them, or let us know that they were doing it and leaving us the branches. I know that they have kids as well so I would have thought that they would realise that throwing branches on the ground is a potential danger. Maybe because their kids are older they just didn't think about it...
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks