IanK, I wish it was just a few leaves.

Top left is less than 2 years before we discovered it had taken over the garden bed. (She knew about the issue at this stage from the other neighbours)
Both garden beds were relined and new dirt added in late 2010.
The sand pit was less than a year old
The yellow circle shows it suckering from a root that had been cut and poisoned 2 months after being cut and poisoned.
Bottom panorama is what happens when it suckers from 1 tree that was removed...






Yeah... pretty wound up, cause its been pretty much every weekend (plus a couple of weeks off) for 9 months and I'm 6 grand out of pocket!



If it was a 200 yr old tree, it was there l o n g before I got there.... You know what your in for.
The tree in this case was less than the age of the house <8 years. It was planted long after the development was clear felled and largely reclaimed land. It wasn't a native tree, it comes from North America.


As for scope for ecosystem, there are 5 parks with 3 blocks from my house, about 10 with 1km. 1 right out the front. RAMSAR listed sanctuary at the end of the street. We don't suffer from lack of trees. (I have one in my front yard)


A few lifted pavers and leaves is easy enough to deal with. My other neighbours plants hang over my fence and drop leaves all the time. They get cleaned up when I do the lawns. Due to where our block is, I get all the leaves from the whole street blown into my bin area (knee deep after a storm was the record so far ). Again you deal with it.

What I cant deal with is the death of the lawn, not being able to grow things in my own garden and the retic and paving being damaged.




The tree coming out was the result of the independent determination of the Arborculturist - not my decision.
In his words - "it is a totally unsuitable tree for close urban development and should have never been planted."





Does any of the above pictures seem like something you would be happy to live with in your yard?
Do you think you'd be happy knowing it was entirely avoidable - but your neighbour couldn't be arsed?

Galina said..
She bought this block 8 years ago, shopped all vegetation on the land, covered with tiles, lifted her level by 60cm, damaged the fence, built the ugly wall retention on my side. Than she built extension of her house to 1m from the fence with two big windows. She does not live there, she has two sets of tenants. Young men are walking around with their heads above our fence. I never complained. This part of her house is new, so the pipes should be new, made of PVC.

Each has their own responsibility. If they are your roots, you have to deal with it. But you can of course ensure that are definitely your roots first.

As for building a retaining wall on your property...plainly that is her problem, and you can have it removed if you are so inclined....?? Retaining walls typically have to be wholly contained on one property, and that is the property changing the natural level....

Frankly, the fact that you never complained is irrelevant, and gives you no special privileges now. Get rid of any emotion, understand your rights and responsibilities and document everything in writing.

rod_bunny said..




In his words - "it is a totally unsuitable tree for close urban development and should have never been planted."

How close is close urban development? This is the view from my backdoor, our block is only 500 sq m, this tree is ~ 25 metres away, beyond our immediate neighbours and in a townhouse complex, it's ~ 26 metres tall, if it fell this way I'd be done for. If it was in WA, sandy soil, low rainfall, I wouldn't be able to keep a lawn green either. You can't have it both ways over there, it's either shade or a green lawn. I'd go for a shady tree and kookaburras in the morning any day.

Take the noxious weed approach, it's displacing native species. Don't bring the up the ground distorting/asset damage argument. All trees do that. Offer to buy a local euc seedling as a replacement.

Paradox said..

Each has their own responsibility. If they are your roots, you have to deal with it. But you can of course ensure that are definitely your roots first.

Oh who owns a tree? Try and chop it down without permission and see if you own it. About time average Joe recognises trees as having a layer of tenancy on a parcel of land. Along with mining rights, grazing rights, native title etc. If a tree spans a residential boundary so what? All you've got is the right to build an approved house on a separate division of the landscape.

Ian K said..

Paradox said..

Each has their own responsibility. If they are your roots, you have to deal with it. But you can of course ensure that are definitely your roots first.

Oh who owns a tree? Try and chop it down without permission and see if you own it. About time average Joe recognises trees as having a layer of tenancy on a parcel of land. Along with mining rights, grazing rights, native title etc. If a tree spans a residential boundary so what? All you've got is the right to build an approved house on a separate division of the landscape.

Trees already have a layer of tenancy on a parcel of land.

If its on your land, you are responsible for it, but Responsible <> Ownership.

If the tree was there first or had been there a long time, you would have to go through the same process of "proving unacceptable risk to person or property" to the Council before you could cut it down - on your own property!


Responsibility for the tree doesn't just extend to the liability for damage to others. Its also being responsible for not putting the tree in a position to be damaged itself in the first place.

Ian K said..
Over here you can legally plant anything anywhere, there's just a recommendation not to plant within 1.5 metres of a boundary or 3.0 metres from a house. Either way, once it gets to 3.0 metres (unless it's a declared weed) council owns it. You still pay to maintain it, they have a bit both ways there I think.

http://www.wollongong.nsw.gov.au/services/household/trees/Pages/treesonprivateland.aspx

From that page they have an excellent guide for what I'm talking about. (I don't think we have anything like that on our council site, wish we did )

www.wollongong.nsw.gov.au/factsheets/Tree%20Selection.pdf

The right tree in the right place
With good planning and consideration, a tree planted in the right place can be an asset. However a tree planted without adequate planning and consideration for space required by it when fully grown or poor species selection can become a costly liability.

Responsibilities for planting a tree
It is responsible to plant the right tree in the right place. Trees should always be planted so that at maturing no branches overhang other properties. Consider that some species of trees are long lived and during the life of these trees ownership of neighbouring properties may change several times. Often overhanging branches may be of no concern to some neighbours however to some they are a source of annoyance and frustration resulting in neighbouring conflict.
Depending upon species selection and soil type, trees should never be planted too close to a house and other buildings. As a general rule a tree should not be planted within three (3) metres of any property boundary, or within five (5) metres of any building, or further away, depending on the species selected to allow for sufficient canopy and root development.


(Italics added for emphasis of my issue)

"it is a totally unsuitable tree for close urban development and should have never been planted." would be a valid statement in my case. (It was planted within 0.5m of the boundary with 2 other properties. Theoretically, It wouldn't be possible to plant any tree in her yard given the general rules constraints on space)




The process for removal over your side of the country is much the same, in that a person qualified in arboriculture must submit a report proving an immediate and obvious risk of injury to persons or damage to property. (The immediate bit being the only difference in wording)




My biggest beef is that not with the tree, its that a neighbour knowingly allowed damage to happen on my property and did nothing stop it or to reduce the impact.
It could have been leaking water or noise or anything else.




My posts to the OP was to show that sometimes the person on the other side of the fence may have a legitimate issue that needs resolving, ignoring or fobbing it off as "a few leaves and couple of roots" can end up being costly.

sn said..

Ian K said..
I'd go for a shady tree and kookaburras in the morning any day.

it's displacing native species.

Hey, Ian......

you do know that kookaburras are an introduced species that has wreaked havoc upon local species, don't you?

========================

as for the wrong tree in the wrong location,

Back when I was in the game of maintaining rental properties around South Perth / Kensington, the landlord of a subdivided [shoebox] block found a cute little tree to plant in the spacious 3m x 2.5m yard.

She couldn't understand why I insisted they remove their cute little NORFORK BLOODY PINE


stephen

Kookaburras are an introduced species? From where? I thought there are heaps of varieties of kingfisher in Australia.

I find it amazing that blocks of land are so small now. When blocks were bigger, it didn't matter as much when it comes to how close trees are. Now they seem to as small as 300m, and everyone wants to use as much as they can.

I am amazed that WA has so much land but developments have such small block sizes.

kookaburras were imported to W.A. from t'otherside, when some dopey git decided we needed the extra noise.

IIRC, local [W.A.] kingfishers are smaller and less aggressive than the imports, and have either been pushed out or are battling.

Most West Aussies wouldn't have a clue - I only found out from one of my girlfriends wot had propa uni learnin' about animal/birdy stuff.

Dunno about controlling them - they don't taste good enough or have enough meat for a decent feed to make it worthwhile [intentionally] shooting them.


stephen

Mark _australia said..
Does the dishwasher or whatever u call her know about these other girlfrends, all hoity toity types nonetheless

well before the awesome and beloved Sandwichmaker came along and hobbled me, there were a few lasses of the "bunch of letters on their business cards" types,

the archaeologist redhead [nearly married her]

the constitutional law lass

the zoo-ological fruitcake,

the confused greenie,

and a whole mess of others [without the letters]

Sandwichmaker pretends she doesn't know about this stuff

I try not to upset the applecart by getting her name right most of the time


stephen

Thank you! This is very helpful! I've got hope