Moving into a new home brings a host of new issues and challenges.

One family discovers that the neighbor’s tree roots have become a safety hazard for their young children, but the homeowner’s attempt to solve the problem ended up creating a much bigger one.

Read on for the full story!

AITA For removing tree roots from my yard

My family and I moved into a new home this spring.

We had previously lived in apartments and we now have our first yard for our kids to play in.

The homeowner describes the lay of the land.

The neighborhood we moved into has a lot of mature trees, and this being the first time I’ve had to do my own yard work, there has been a learning curve.

One of my neighbor’s yard is separated from ours by a chain link fence.

There is a large tree just on their side of the fence.

Some roots from the tree spread into my yard and some of them are growing on the surface of the ground.

This is where the homeowners run into trouble.

They are visible and are above the ground quite a bit.

About a month ago, my kids were running around and playing and my daughter tripped on one of the roots, fell, and ended up breaking her wrist trying to catch herself.

Of course, this was very upsetting to my wife and I and she pretty much told me to do something about the roots so this didn’t happen again.

The homeowner didn’t exactly take a subtle approach.

So, I bought some tools and started tearing the roots up as best I could.

I got them out to a point that nothing is sticking above the ground anymore and filled the top in with fresh soil and grass seed.

It didn’t take long for the neighbor to notice.

My neighbor must have noticed the work I did because he made a comment about the fresh soil.

I told him I had to remove some roots since my daughter tripped on one.

He asked what I meant by “remove” and I told him I dug a bunch out and cut them out as best I could.

He didn’t take this well.

He got ticked and told me I probably killed his tree.

I told him that removing a few roots isn’t going to hurt a tree that big and they were creating a tripping hazard.

The homeowner tried to defend himself, but the neighbor is still livid.

And since they were in my yard, I did what I needed to do to remove them.

He told me there are other ways to deal with roots like that instead of cutting them out and causing stress to the tree and he would have gladly helped if I had asked.

The solution to the problem was going to be costly, and the neighbor made it clear he wasn’t paying.

He said that tree is probably going to die which means it is probably going to have to be removed and said that a tree that large is going to cost thousands of dollars to take out.

I told him that sounds ridiculously expensive.

He said if the tree dies and he has to have it cut down, he’s going to ask me to pay for some of it because of what I did to the roots.

But the homeowner won’t go down without a fight.

I told him good luck with that and that I’m not paying anything for his tree.

He called me an AH and told me the previous neighbors at least had the decency to ask for help when they didn’t know what they were doing instead of causing damage to other people’s property.

At least the homeowner’s wife is on his side.

I told my wife about it and she thinks the guy is just being a jerk and agrees with me that taking a few roots from the top of the ground isn’t going to hurt a tree that big.

She also agrees that there is no way we are going to pay for anything for this guy’s tree.

We were just making sure our yard is safe for our kids to play in, it’s not our fault his tree grew roots into our yard.

AITA?

This problem could have largely been avoided with better communication.

What did Reddit think?

This user really doesn’t think the homeowner did his due diligence here.

If the root-hacker is playing dumb, this redditor isn’t falling for it.

Sometimes being neighborly means not always getting your way.

Doesn’t look like the law is going to be on this homeowner’s side.

With this shortsighted mistake, the seeds for a deep rooted feud have been planted.

The fate of the tree – and their neighborly relationship – hangs in the balance.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.