Unless you live in the suburbs, you’d be surprised at how passive aggressive yard maintenance can get.
Like the comments from neighbors about how long the grass has gotten or the mowing right onto your property line and not an inch past it.
And if a tree on your property is hanging over even a CENTIMETER of their property, well you might as well just get ready for war!
Was she wrong to make it his problem? See for yourself!
AITA for telling my neighbor if he wants a tree on our property gone HE needs to pay for it?
My hubby (35M) and I (31F) have had our house for about 7 years now.
It’s on a quiet residential street and even though we have a few neighbors, we don’t often talk much and are just friendly to one another.
One of my neighbors, we’ll call him Jack, has a garden. He shares a fence line with us and on our side of the fence against it is a small tree.
I don’t know what kind it is (dogwood maybe??), but it’s a pretty full tree with lots of leaves.
And Jack seemed to have quite the problem with OP’s tree…
We’re getting some work done on the house (painting) and while the contractors were there, Jack was talking to my husband and I about what we had planned for the house and yard, etc.
He asked us if we were planning to take any more trees down because we had to take a dead one down not long ago and have gotten rid of some brush.
He asked specifically about the tree on the fence line.
Now, we don’t care one way or other about the tree so we were like “Oh yeah well maybe if it starts being an issue for the fence (chain link) we can relocate it or something.” etc.
But apparently, this tree was the hill Jack wanted to die on!
But he kept pushing, insisting that relocation was expensive and young trees die and all that. He was a bit condescending.
This was not the first time he’s asked us about this tree.
He’s made other backhanded comments to our contractors about us and gotten them to try and take down the tree behind our backs.
Not sure what his deal is, but our other neighbor has complained about him before too.
So OP finally said if he had such a problem with the tree then he could be the one to pay to take it down!
Finally I said “Well if you want the tree gone so bad you’ll have to pay for it.” I meant for it to sound joking but I think it came off harsher than I meant.
My hubby laughed with me at the joke, but the neighbor got mad and kinda excused himself from the conversation after that.
I asked my hubby if I had overstepped and his agreed with me. If HE wants the tree gone HE can pay for it.
My hubby thinks the reason he wants the tree gone so bad is because it blocks sunlight to his garden. Jack could just TELL US that, but he didn’t.
He didn’t even offer to go 50/50 on relocation with us or anything. He was just making passive-aggressive comments like he knew better than us.
But after the argument was over OP was left wondering if the tree was worth all the drama!
My hubby says what I did was fine but I’m not so sure.
I want to be on at least decent terms with our neighbors, and picking a fight over a tree just isn’t worth it.
I’ll absolutely not be doing anything to the tree, but I do feel bad for the tone of my words.
So, AITA?
Honestly, going 50/50 would probably be the most fair option, if OP and her husband actually wanted the tree gone! But if they don’t care, why would they pay to get it removed?
Reddit said that OP was by no means required to remove the tree, and even said OP should watch out for sabotage!
This person thought OP definitely needed to put her neighbor in his place.
And this user even suggested OP consult “tree law”, I didn’t even know that was a thing!
But finally not everyone was on her side, and this user thought it was her responsibility to make sure the tree didn’t cross onto his property.
I think I missed my calling as a tree lawyer.
If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.