It’s just heartbreaking when someone cuts down an ancient tree.
In this case, someone who lost two giant sequoias to a jealous neighbor caught everything on video and was able to make them pay (a lot) for what they did.
Let’s enjoy the story!
EK chops down my tree costs her £500,000 ($700,000)
Background information: we live in an old and big manor that has been split into 3 attached houses.
The houses are about 150 years old and were built around 5 huge giant sequoias which were about 200 years old.
This is awesome.
In the UK giant sequoias are very rare and the 2 in our garden up the house price by about £60,000.
We lived next to 2 really nice neighbors one young couple and one old couple.
The story: unfortunately, our old neighbors passed away, so their child and her family moved in (let’s call her Joe).
Joe was instantly a pain. We had been sharing chickens with the previous neighbors and Joe agreed to keep sharing them however on her nights she would constantly forget to put them away so we would have to check them every night anyway.
One night her little brats thought it would be funny to open our personal duck pen in the night which led to a mass slaughter, later the chickens went the same way.
It’s like she was letting this happen on purpose…
About 2 years ago there was a storm and one of her sequoias somehow fell over and died they were distraught (understandably) but from then on, the jealousy started.
She would constantly complain about how lucky we were to have 2 sequoias in our garden and how our sequoia was making too much shade in their garden (it wasn’t).
Anyway we just thought it was Joe being a pain, there was a few dry threats like they will chop it down or maybe the next storm will blow it down.
She complimented and complained at the same time?
Until we came back from a holiday to France to find a huge 6-meter stump and nothing else!
I mean how do you get rid of a 100ft tree in like 2 weeks. 2 of our old British oak trees had been crushed as well.
My mum and sisters were crying my dad was red in the face and we had no evidence Joe had done it.
I can truly feel their pain. This is horrible.
She claimed that there had been a storm and she had to get rid of it. We had a security camera at the front of the house, but you can get in the back if you go through a few fields.
We then were given an £8000 bill for damages to her property and to have the tree chopped up and removed the wood alone would have been worth a small fortune.
We had lost all hope and 2 weeks had passed when my dad came running in from the garden.
We had put up a wildlife camera a few months ago and had caught everything, we got a lawyer on the phone and started our revenge.
Yes, please!
We got a tree surgeon out who said it was an original specimen brought into the UK in 1860 along with the 2 that were in Elvaston Castle Country Park there were 218 around the UK but only 60 now
He also told us to call out an engineer because the roots might be in the foundation so when they rot it could damage the house, turns out we would need to redo the foundations.
Then we took Joe to court and sued them for damage to property, trespassing and lots of other smaller claims.
The tree would cost 250K to have another sequoia that was 200 years put in and looked after (it’s basically impossible) plus the damage to the foundation which was 200K and the 2 oaks which were another 25k. so with the smaller claims,
It went to about £500,000 ($700,000). They had to move out.
Wow!
We have now paid off the mortgage done a lovely loft and kitchen conversion and have basically done up the house and garden as well as plant a 60-year-old sequoia tree in the back garden.
We also had our kitchen counter and table made from the old sequoia.
We now have a new lovely family living next to us who we share chickens, ducks, and pygmy goats with (they are very nice and I make a fortune babysitting their kids),
This was simply PERFECT.
Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this beautiful and rightful revenge.
A reader shares their thoughts.
Another reader has strong feelings about what happened.
Good one.
Another commenter chimes in.
I agree.
Those trees were properly avenged and that’s really satisfying.
How could anyone think that was ok?
If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.