On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:21:15 +0000, Paul C wrote
(in article ):

'Baz[_3_ Wrote: ;915543']Paul C wrote in

news:Paul.C.7fa75b6
@gardenbanter.co.uk:
-

Hi, I wonder if any one can offer guidance on a problem that I have with
a neighbour. A number of years ago we bought our house of a lady who
moved into the cottage next door. What we hadn't appreciated was that
she would (in our opinion) struggle to watch someone else do things
differently in her former property. We have a shared boundary and in the
past few years have experienced any number of issues with her apparent
disregard for that boundary.
On one part of the boundary fence we have a very well established
ceanothus which does not extend over fence into her garden but has grown
to about 18ins above the height of the fence. It also extends about 3 or
4 feet back into our garden. A couple of days ago I discovered that our
neighbour had used a power tool with a long handled extension to lean
over into our garden and cut away the shrub so that no part of it is
above the line of the fence. When I challenged her about it she said it
had been annoying her, when I pointed out that she had no right to do
that and would she please stop interfering with us and our garden she
simply said " what are you going to do about it" and "get a life".
Bearing in mind that this lady has a laurel hedge on the same boundary
fence that is at least 3 feet above the fence line and we have
absolutely no issue with it, we are struggling to understand why she
feels the need to do these things, but more importantly we just want her
to stop. It is only a hedge, and we don't want to " lose the plot" but
this is just one of a series of incidents and is beginning to get us
down. We have no interest in " tit for tat" activities but we do need to
do something to make this stop.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Paul



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You could try befriending her. She might be lonely and seeking attention.
Cut some flowers that you might have, invite her over for drinks or a
meal.
You might enjoy her company.
Of course she might be a stubborn and spiteful old bat, but I have found a
little bit of friendliness can soften the hardest heart.

Baz


Thank you to everyone for taking the time to post comments. We'veactually
been in this situation for several years, ( and to the personwho mentioned
that "its just a few twigs" there have been a series ofincidents). We've
tried befriending her, a bottle of wine at Xmas etc,as a family we helped her

when she had intruders in a field that sheowns and my son in particular spent

quite alot of time helping to clearup. She runs a successful antiques
business and I honestly don't believethat she has dementia, she is just used
to getting her own way anddoesn't have time for people who disagree with her.

In the greater scheme of things it isn't massively important, its justnot
very pleasant to have someone damage parts of your property and thenlook you
in the eye and say " so what are you going to do about it".
I'll sleep on it for a few days and then decide what to do.

Many thanks


Not been on here for a while and have only just seen this, but we had a
similar situation with a neighbour cutting our mixed hedge (during the
nesting season too) well over the boundary.

What we actually did was to put in a 2 metre high fence on the boundary. I
appreciate that you already have a fence, but it might be worth replacing it
with a higher one that she cannot reach over.

That way you have solved the problem without any nastiness.

--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
Posted through uk.rec.gardening