Woman Wants to Cut Down a Tree in Neighbor’s Neglected Yard

A green-thumbed woman is itching to overhaul her neighbor’s garden.

The woman penned a Mumsnet post explaining that since her neighbor died “a few years ago,” the house has stood empty until it was recently resold. She hasn’t met the new owners yet, but has seen different companies going in and out to redecorate.

“The garden has been left to grow, it hasn’t been touched since it was sold,” the woman said. “There is a tree that’s started to grow a few inches away from our fence on their side, about 1ft away from our wall.”

“It’s about 7ft tall now,” she continued. “As we don’t know when/if the owners are going to come in and get the garden fixed up, will I be unreasonable to go and cut it down before it causes any damage to our property?”

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In a poll underneath the post, a whopping 93% of Mumsnet users voted that the woman was being unreasonable.

Many were quick to share their reason for voting in the comment section as they urged her to leave the tree alone.

“You’ve got absolutely no right to go into their property to destroy the tree,” one person wrote.  “Why don’t you post a letter through the door asking the owner to contact you, ask a workman who the owner is, or wait until they move in and politely knock on their door.”

“You could even contact the estate agent to see if they’ll pass a message to the buyer. Most trees grow very slowly. It can wait,” the same person continued. “I’d be raging if a neighbor thought they could chop at my garden just because I hadn’t moved in yet.”

Another commenter said, “There seems to be quite a trend these days for people, and businesses, going round and indiscriminately destroying healthy trees, either just for the fun of it or because they perceive them to be a nuisance or inconvenience. It’s a horrible attitude. And also generally illegal.”

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A third response to the post reminded the woman of two men who recently went viral for cutting down a tree without permission. 

“No, it’s illegal. The men who cut the Sycamore Gap tree down quite rightly got jailed,” they said. “You are allowed to trim any branches on your side of the fence as long as that won’t endanger the life of the tree.”

Chiming in that the woman would likely get caught, another wrote, “An unoccupied house probably has cameras up. Not to mention ring doorbells. A house near me is being renovated and a couple of nosy parkers went up to have a look in the window. They got posted on Facebook from several angles by the angry owners. It was entertaining for us, very embarrassing for the nosy people.”