Dost thou love thy neighbour?

there is, not their is.

I have lived in my small block of 8 flats very happily since it was built 32 years ago. A couple of flats have changed owners over this time but we have always worked together until my next door neighbour had a new strong minded girlfriend who although her name is not on any official paper has upset everyone.
This was topped last summer by, over socially distanced aperitifs in flat’s garden, her saying that everyone has to die sometime, so there should be no lockdown. We are nearly all 60-80. She also wanted to sack our gardener of 15 years among other things and complained about me but I have everyone else supporting me. She has caused so much discord that we didn’t want to hold our annual barbecue this year but we did finally while they were away.

I do think that being a good neighbour works both ways - we had quite large conifer trees in the back garden, dividing our semi from the attached semi. Over they years, as they got taller, I worried that they were putting next door's garden in shade. They never complained, but (as sun worshippers ourselves) we decided it wasn't fair; we completely removed the trees and planted a hedge instead. Once the hedge got to a foot above the fence, we kept it at that height. I think if the neighbour in the OP had complained to me that the tree was causing problems, then I would have removed it and planted something more suitable. It's all a matter of give and take; if I was doing something that was upsetting someone, I would try my hardest to sort it out.

I dont know what I would do without mine. Since dh died they have been marvellous, checking in if they dont see or hear me, helping with jobs in the house and garden that I cant manage alone. Count myself very lucky to have them.

We've lived here for 40 years with the same lovely neighbours. Last year our one neighbour went into a home and the house was sold. The new owners are completely refurbishing the house.
For 9 months now on most days we have had drilling, banging, hammering, skips, various workmen coming and going. I'm sure they'll finish one day. We also now have a dog two doors up which yaps constantly. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

That poor tree! It can’t have been done by a reputable tree surgeon can it?
Where I live we all have quite a few trees in our gardens and fairly regularly we have, shall I say, ‘characters’ knocking offering to trim branches or remove whole trees.

Over the years I have read some extraordinary neighbour dispute tales in the paper which frequently get completely out of hand, resulting in one, or both, neighbour facing legal fees running into sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds over a tiny piece of land.

While I think the chopping of the tree looks awful, it does illustrate one of my pet hates, the planting of trees very near to boundaries. I really wish it was law that the whole of the canopy of a tree had to be contained within your own property. Why should your neighbour have to share in your choice of planting, especially as it can affect what they can grow their side of the fence.
My neighbours are fine, we get along.

Lucca

FannyCornforth

How can you object to bird song?
How soulless and sad

I think there was also a lot of bird poo on their manicured driveway

I can sympathise about the bird poo on the cars.

However, that is from the birds who sit in the tree in our own garden. I think if we chopped it down at least one neighbour would have a hissy fit and report us to the authorities.
(The rest are fine.)

I do hope they did the right thing and offered the chopped half of the tree back to Mr Mistry.

It did look like a perfectly pruned and managed tree before it had the chop, unlike some round here.

Oh dear! We were sitting in the garden yesterday afternoon remarking how lucky we are with our neighbours. We are either on nodding terms or on a half an hour chat while out the front terms. No in and out of houses, just friendly and there if you need each other. No great noise either, apart from one dog which is prone to an extended yapping session if left unchecked, funnily enough it seems to annoy our dog who goes into the garden, barks gruffly a couple of times and the other one shuts up! We have had a bit of friendly discussion about a massive and very old tree in our back garden which overhangs both sides, but it was there when both of us bought our houses so no intentional or bad planting. Last year we both paid half of the tree surgeons charges to trim it back.

Years ago new neighbours planted an olive tree directly adjacent to our main drain. Without any fuss we pointed out the inevitable outcome as the tree grew and the problems it would cause. They had no idea to be fair and removed it at their own expense.
That is a good neighbour in my view.

my next doors are lovely both sides but I had bad trouble with another set of nearbys who made complaints to the council about my dogs barking and that they were dangerous. Fortunately I have got webcams around the house and could prove that the complaints had no basis in truth but it had to get to the point where I took police advice because the bloke came to my door shouting and threatening me, and I had to tell the council (who were stuck in the middle and eventually very helpful so far as they could be) that I would take legal action to get sight of their confidential records if I needed to involve the police again to protect myself.

They were nasty people. charming and lovely to all the other neighbours but gradually they fell out with all of them and then moved. Looking back, I think they targetted me from the beginning. We are a friendly lot and all say good morning or wave if we are driving and they never ever looked my way or spoke a word or acknowledged me in any way.

The good that came out of this is that the environmental dept of the council changed their practice. The used to write an official letter to the person complained about as a first step and make the assumtion that the complaint was valid...now before anything is said to the person complained about, the complainant has to keep a noise diary and if that points to a problem, they do their own confidential visit without letting anybody know they are coming and only then if they identify a problem, will they take official action against the person complained about.

They’d hate living here. Seagull poo is far worse than anything that comes out of a songbird

The case of the tree in the article is just plain silly, but it’s surprising how much angst and aggravation can be caused over tree and hedge issues. We always managed to achieve amicable compromise with our neighbours on one side, and did with the one on the other side with regard to a boundary hedge, until she got married again and had a personality transplant. She made our lives such an absolute misery that I actually hated to be out in our garden at all, and we sold a house we loved and had lived in for thirty years, and moved. Our neighbours here could not be nicer. We help each other out when we can but, as someone said, we don’t live in each other’s pockets.

We have been in our current house for about 25 years. One set of neighbours, the wife is lovely but the husband is a bit strange (harmless enough though). On the other side we have a young professional couple who I really like that moved in when the pandemic started, although I’m sure my yapping dogs irritate them so I’ve been trying to train them to be quieter.

My older neighbours have a garden with a number of established trees which I have to prune the overlying branches as they smother my roses but they are happy for me to do this and try not to be too brutal.

My garden is in the English Cottage Garden style so over hanging branches generally add to the look rather than detract.

We have lived here for 37 years with the same neighbour on the right hand side. No problems and now there is just the lady left we try to help out when required.
On the left we have new neighbours who seem very nice. The neighbours before were lovely and were there for 25 years.
I can sympathise to some extent about the tree. The two gardens that back on to ours both have a line of tall conifers. They cut their side but never offer to do the same on ours. We have to do it ourselves and as DH gets older we will have to pay someone to do it. If we had never cut back what over hangs our garden we would loose about 6 / 8 ft of our garden.

I doubt it would make much difference to the birds and bird poo. I'll lend them DGS2 who takes delight in informing me about every single bit of bird poo loudly "Look Granny bird poo - can I touch it?"

Love? Maybe not, but we do like all our neighbours ( only 12 houses here) and send each other Christmas cards and have a New Years get together, all taking plates of food and drink which is lovely and goes on for hours ?
We also had the same thing in our previous house ( in a Devon hamlet) so were pleased to be able to continue much the same.
Thinking about it, we have always had good neighbours and never had a problem, you do need to be careful though and be prepared to compromise rather than fall out with neighbours.

eazybee A klaxon!? ???

That looks so unreal to me. Also, how could the neighbours get away with having a tree cut in such a way by so called professional tree surgeons when it doesn't even grow on their property? I'm sure the owners could have a case against them?
With regard to the question about neighbours, I'm pleased to say ours are all good neighbours to have.
Seems to me we should cherish healthy trees and wildlife as much as possible as long as they pose no danger, given the damage our world is suffering at mainly as a result of human action.
Oh, and bird poo can be cleaned up!

Mapleleaf (appropriate name for the thread!) I think you can cut what hangs over your side of the boundary as long as you offer it back again.

We had neighbours where we lived many years ago, they hated all animals and birds, to the extent that if any birds alighted on the tree in their garden, they threw stones to make them fly off.
As to our present neighbours, the house is rented out in separate rooms, and tenants change fairly regularly, plus they are all non-British and don`t seem to understand English, so we never get to know them. Next door but one are nice though.

Yes, you can, Callistemon, but in this case, well, there's cutting and then there's decimating, and looking at that poor tree, I'm inclined to go with the latter!

I imagine, too, that the tree is going to turn brown on the cut side, and the neighbours might regret their action, having to look at brown, dying branches, which usually happens with conifers - it's unlikely to regrow on that side, anyway.

I know it's not funny but I did laugh when I first saw that poor tree.