Continuing saga of the neighbour and my conifer…..

Poor you .
That is very cheeky of your neighbour.
I would install cameras as suggested .
I certainly would tell them that they've committed an offence .

I've gone from living next door to living with Mr Ever Decreasing Circles (though Richard Briers was a nice person in this role) to living next to Mr Recluse who thinks that no one likes him because he 's been in prison and he won't answer the
door .
I booked in the tree surgeon to reduce the height of some conifers which my father planted for two reasons-my mother felt spied on (and she was) the garden of the next door has never been tended and is an overgrown tangle of weeds.
The tree surgeon needed access to my reclusive neighbour's garden to retrieve the cut off branches and he refused access .
I still had to pay him as I'd booked him for the day.
I managed to speak to my neighbour a week ago about the trees and the broken fencing .
He's now claiming that he's sold his house and that any problems that I have are no longer his .
He's resorted to this excuse for six months .

I wish you lots of luck in resolving this situation.

Neighbours indeed! They can sure be a blight if they act up.

Famous last words from one of mine was "If you wanted a garden- then why didnt you buy a house with one?".

Errrm...that's precisely what I did do. What she really meant was "Why can't I keep parking my car in your front garden? Previous owner of your house let me walk over her and do so".

The rollcall of how different my house would be if I'd let neighbours walk over me would be:
- there'd always be a neighbours car or two parked in my front garden
- I wouldnt dare put a thing in my own side garden (don't even know why last next-door neighbour kept shoving around anything I put there)
- I'd have a neighbours fence sitting there blocking my view in MY own front flowerbed
- I wouldnt have a garden shed
- I wouldnt have any of the raised beds I've got
- I wouldnt be able to plant anything in half of my back garden "beds" (another set of neighbours thinking they could come in and repair their wall from my side if they choose to and I have to hope I won't find them trampling all over my plants there doing so at some point)
- I'd frequently have neighbours trespassing in my garden whenever they think they will (still wishes I'd got a photo of the look on the face of the worst offender when she tried to do so again and caught sight of my security cameras focused straight on her....it was an absolute picture LOL).

I've turned my garden into a "proper garden" now - but boy it took some doing....

That's terrifying CariadAgain you must be made of strong stuff.

At present I don't really have neighbours at least no-one who concern me. I probably concern them! On one side is the Town Hall and there's a block of flats too. Other gardens meet my garden and sometimes my trees threaten to fall into theirs - one actually did just before Christmas. This proved very costly.

I am about to sell my house and all
these stories make me wonder how important it is to establish clear boundaries in my next house/flat.

silverlining48
How did they get planning permission for that extension?

They sound like a neighbour's nightmare.
😡

I don’t know Allira, but it’s a fair bit bigger and more intrusive than they led us to believe .

having moved a great deal over the years, I always think that the things that you either dont own, or have no control over, yet have a big influence on your new life are 1. the view 2. the neighbours and 3. the public transport around you.

You dont own the view and so I always check up on things like possible new buildings being able to be built nearby, the public transport you can check on as it is now, but I try to think how I would be affected if x no longer worked. But the big stumbling block is definitely the neighbours. You have no knowledge or say in who moves in, or when, Peoples lives change and even the really pleasant neighbour can change if their lives change.

I have no answers , just take what precautions I can. So my usual ,taking local papers, checking in things like gardeners clubs before I move. They can often tell you quite a lot about the type of soil and what they do locally, and may also know the area you are looking at, or have lived in that area before, so can often give good advice.

My personal thing that to some people might seem over the top, is I go to the area, and to the specific road if I am interested in a particular house. Take my drawn out sheet showing times and types of vehicles, and sit at the end for a day, and have my coffee and sandwiches etc with me. It has always paid dividends, good and bad, to see how the street works over a day and has alerted me to different things.

Once I have bought somewhere, I think it is very worthwhile taking photos of the garden from all angles. If unfortunately you land up with the neighbour from hell, you have clear proof of what is yours and how it looked when you arrived, so any disagreement re boundaries is squashed before they begin. It is also very nice for you, as over the years as you change your garden, you may open it for charity at some point in the future and then it is good to show how it was at the beginning. Also helps you to see where the sun is at various times of day.

With regard to this particular person, I am sorry that you have had her inflicted upon you. Her behaviour indicates that she is going to be a troublemaker whatever you do. That being so, I would be looking out pictures to show how it was before she wrecked your tree, making a copy of your land boundaries, for any future hassle from her. Then the choice seems to be either go to the solicitor to send her a letter warning her about any further incursions she might think of, or alternatively "bringing up the drawbridge" so just dealing with your own garden, having it how you like and ignoring her. She will obviously always find something to want or to complain about. Looking straight through her and not having any conversation with her, would seem less stressful to me. She will moan about whatever you do and seems to have the idea that buying a property gives her some sort of right over other people.

I hope that GN's will give you a chance to vent your feelings over time and know that we are all on your side. Oh one more thing, concentrate on the borders that do not face her so that you can sit out with your back to her side and enjoy the rest of your garden in peace. If you are working near her side, suggest you wear headphones!! (you dont have to have anything playing on them!) For now I think look around for some work to do with loppers or secateurs, It can be very satisfying as you snip, and no one can tell what you are thinking !!

Conifers are gigantic antisocial weeds and people should be fined for allowing them to over grow, I'd be trimming the smaller one back too.

A neighbour who back garden runs parallel albeit there are other gardens between ours and theirs, asked us to reduce the height of some conifers which ran along the boundary. They gave my DH a business card of a local company. She did point out she worked with one of our DS friends mum. We contacted the company, but didn’t feel comfortable using them, so the trees remained untouched until one day my DH met an old school friend who was working in a garden near by. We agreed a price and had the trees removed. The consequence is we know have to put up with this particular woman’s children’s football bring battered against a wall at the end of their garden and the ball inevitably lands in our garden.

One evening when I was home alone I noticed two boys acting very sheepishly at the fence into our garden, as I didn’t know them from Adam, I chased them away. I was then summoned out of my house by a man claiming to be their father and that I had frightened his son because I shouted No at them and refused to let them into our garden. I pointed out if the boys had been taught better manners and came and explained the situation and asked for permission to get said ball, I would have agreed. That really infuriated him. I never found the ball so can only assume they came and got whilst I was out. I couldn’t go and check the garden or look for their ball as I was using crutches at the time and our garden is on a slope. I only wish now we’d left the conifers in place.

Allsorts

Leylandi should be banned as hedging in a garden.
I don't agree with a lot if your comments. Overhanging and large trees and hedging ruin neighbours enjoyment of their homes.

Personally, I wouldn't plant Leylandii but replace the hedge with Photina Red Robin or Laurel. Both can be trimmed to size and will not grow to ridiculous sizes.

Oh dear,we had a very good solicitor friend who said he could make a fortune just dealing with boundary disputes and overgrown hedges and trees. We lived in a house that had a huge 10ft conifer hedge. It just kept growing. Thr neighbours refused to cut it to a reasonable height. Nothing grew close ,no shrubs ,no flowers, not even grass it was horrible. The shade worried me so much I became ill. It became the one topic of conversation, in the end the neighbours moved and new neighbours cut the hedge to a very reasonable 5ft. Please don't cause this woman to be obsessed, it's only a tree.

Delene100

Allsorts

Leylandi should be banned as hedging in a garden.
I don't agree with a lot if your comments. Overhanging and large trees and hedging ruin neighbours enjoyment of their homes.

Personally, I wouldn't plant Leylandii but replace the hedge with Photina Red Robin or Laurel. Both can be trimmed to size and will not grow to ridiculous sizes.

Our neighbours have a laurel and it thinks it is blooming Triffid! I wouldn't ever plant one of these as I hate it. As we get older it gets harder and harder to keep it at a reasonable level. I'd love to get rid of it and grow something tidier.

Ditto

I’m afraid I’m from the other side of the fence having 3 conifers approx 30 ft in height blocking afternoon son from my garden, maybe it’s a matter of they didn’t want another tall tree invading their space. People should think before planting trees on borders.

silverlining48

Our newish neighbours are doing the same. Didn’t ask, I happened to spot the ladder over our fence.

They have ripped out a well established hedge which provided us with privacy but left a mess our side. . We are now overlooked by the houses in the road adjacent and their new extension is huge, much larger than they said it was supposed to be and is right now the boundary with a cigarette paper width between us and them. It takes out light from 3 of our rooms…

She also wants us to dig up our pretty wigelia in the front garden ( theirs is now concreted over) which isn’t doing any harm, isn’t big but noticed she has still sliced off the side of it…

I don’t want a row and am sure she has issues, but what do we say if they ask what we think about what they have done? I can’t say great because it’s affecting us and not in a good way.

There may be trouble ahead. 🎵

Get onto planning, they should have left at least a meters gap.

When my neighbours first moved in they seemed friendly and despite language barrier we managed to communicate. Our 5 ft high hedge ensured privacy and they had a fence too. Until I came home from work to find they had cut my privet hedge down to ground level ! Because he doesn't like trees ! They have since put conifer hedging around their front garden .

Grammaretto

I don't want neighbours! 😒

There’s a lot to be said for living in an 8th floor flat!

Moii

Conifers are gigantic antisocial weeds and people should be fined for allowing them to over grow, I'd be trimming the smaller one back too.

But presumably not being so rude as to do it from your neighbour's side - and only to the legal boundary!

How rude this neighbour is.

Crasymum1561

When my neighbours first moved in they seemed friendly and despite language barrier we managed to communicate. Our 5 ft high hedge ensured privacy and they had a fence too. Until I came home from work to find they had cut my privet hedge down to ground level ! Because he doesn't like trees ! They have since put conifer hedging around their front garden .

Wow

icanhandthemback

Delene100

Allsorts

Leylandi should be banned as hedging in a garden.
I don't agree with a lot if your comments. Overhanging and large trees and hedging ruin neighbours enjoyment of their homes.

Personally, I wouldn't plant Leylandii but replace the hedge with Photina Red Robin or Laurel. Both can be trimmed to size and will not grow to ridiculous sizes.

Our neighbours have a laurel and it thinks it is blooming Triffid! I wouldn't ever plant one of these as I hate it. As we get older it gets harder and harder to keep it at a reasonable level. I'd love to get rid of it and grow something tidier.

When I moved into my bungalow my Laurel was so big, around one and a half to two meters deep that my little car wouldn't fit on the drive!! i just hacked away at it until i could see the trunks and sat on a stool and sawed though them all, it took forever!! But it was worth the effort, every time the stumps sprouted I just chopped the bits off and it eventually gave up the ghost, lots of lovely violets then grew where it had been.

Grammaretto

That's terrifying CariadAgain you must be made of strong stuff.

At present I don't really have neighbours at least no-one who concern me. I probably concern them! On one side is the Town Hall and there's a block of flats too. Other gardens meet my garden and sometimes my trees threaten to fall into theirs - one actually did just before Christmas. This proved very costly.

I am about to sell my house and all
these stories make me wonder how important it is to establish clear boundaries in my next house/flat.

I'd say it's very important to be clear on the boundaries. All the more so if you're moving to a different part of the country to your own - ie I was moving from south-west England to North Wales or West Wales (and not Pembrokeshire part of it). What I got, in amongst it all I think, was a few people being "The land is Ours" - and therefore seemed to regard it as theirs - even though I'd bought and paid for it and am using the house as a home (not a second home). The plus side now is that I was just 60 when I moved here and apparently my appearance and voice come over as about 10 years younger than I am. But now they can easily figure it out that I'm in my 70's now = I get this "respect just for being elderly" thing that astonishes me - but tends to happen in this part of the country and that gives me a degree of "safety" (which I find thoroughly amusing personally - as I'm from an area where you get respect if you deserve it and not just for the age you are).

I hadn't paid too much heed when the solicitor (who turned out to be a legal executive instead) said to me "The boundaries are a bit unclear". I had visited the property and could see my side fence on one side, my (not all the way down) wall on my other side and knew both fence and wall had been put there by previous owners of my house and obviously belonged there. My front garden in front of my house and I thought it was perfectly clear - having seen the property in person. Then it all started up and I kept finding neighbours in my garden. It's been dealt with now - but it did take a LOT of willpower and years of time and some solicitors letters going to and fro before it got resolved.

I think the most alarming incident was when one of the neighbours set a fire going on land which doesn't belong to any of us (ie therefore it's communal and belongs equally to all of us then - but they kept making out it was theirs alone!). So he set the fire, put some plastic in amongst the stuff being burnt too (!) and then just drove off and left it burning! Cue for the second his carwheels had gone out of our road I was over there putting it out before it set fire to anything and removing the bits of plastic.

The one practical bit of advice I would give - wherever one is moving to (but especially if it's a different area of the country) is "Take photographs". I've never had a smartphone or camera or anything. But, if you have the means to take photos = take photos. Especially of the boundaries and especially of any part of the boundaries that don't have a wall or fence on part of said boundary. That way - you can take those photos in with you when you see your solicitor or legal executive and show them to him/her and compare them with the title plan - in case of any discrepancies/uncertainties.

yes ideed

I sometimes raised the issue of a huge and bedraggled cherry tree with our old neighbours. It had dark red leaves and shaded a large area of our garden, as well as dropping mushy non-edible fruit and enormous quantities of leaves in the autumn. A lot of the branches ended in tufts of dead twigs which dropped all the time.
The neighbour was very attached to it as she had planted it herself, so neither I nor the neighbour on the other side managed to get through to her. We had a new neighbour some years later and she wasn't responsive either. However a month after I moved from the house she cut the bl**dy tree down, completely transforming the light in my old garden.
As Victor Meldrew would have said, "I don't believe it"!