Did you happen to catch this story in the New York Post here?
It is the story of a rich Maine couple who purchased a waterfront home that had an obstructed view of the ocean. The home apparently sits above the town’s beach as well.
Unfortunately for this couple with the obstructed view, the tree that obstructed their view was on the neighbor’s property. There you are with a multi-million dollar residence, and you can’t have morning coffee staring at the beautiful expansive ocean and town beach because the next door neighbor’s giant Oak Tree is in the way.
What to do, what to do, what to do.
Hey, I’ve got it, you buy a supply of the herbicide Tebuthiruon and kill the tree. Then you offer the neighbor to pay half the bill to take the tree down.
Voila!
Your multi-million dollar home now has a multi-million dollar view to go along with the location, location, location.
Now here is where it gets even more interesting. This couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Bond, transplants to Maine from Missouri where they got rich, used too much Tebuthiruon. One never knows the exact dose that will actually fell a huge Oak I guess. Unless of course you are a botanist, or horticulturist, or perhaps an arborist. I know I might find myself getting a bit heavy handed with the Tebuthiruon in trying to take down a mighty Oak. I always use too much Tide in the laundry.
So in using too much poison to just kill one mighty Oak, some leached down to the town beach below the residence, poisoning the soil and damaging the beach. I mean a substance toxic enough to fell a mighty Oak probably isn’t too good for the humans sitting on the beach where the soil now has trace amounts. And of course there is the ocean water, now fouled with a toxic substance, the ocean water people wish to swim in, though God knows anyone going into water that cold might be helped mentally by the insertion of a few parts per billion of Tebuthiruon.
Apparently this “wonderful” couple that poisoned the tree has had to pay the next door neighbor on whose property the tree sat a million-five, and the town “thousands” as the article says. Pocket change to the Bonds. There are no other fines, or laws on the books apparently that might cause real legal trouble to the couple.
And isn’t that a shame.
People like the Bonds should be under the jail, not in it. And not just for poisoning a tree, but for thinking they had some right to meddle in other people’s personal property.
Perhaps I am overly sensitive to this story.
Because the same thing happened to me, albeit on a much, much, smaller scale.
When we lived in Maryland, in the area surrounding the declining, decrepit, and sliding into third world Baltimore, of “The Wire” fame, I found myself moving into the far suburbs to escape crime, filth, and degradation.
We lived a good twenty miles north of the actual city line, and a good thirty from the downtown area, or even West Baltimore of “The Wire” fame.
The children attended a lovely country school, a small, private, wonderful little school whose feature was actually horses of all things, being centered in “horse country” that wonderful leafy area in northern Baltimore County, where farms breed the thoroughbreds that race at local Pimlico, and other fine tracks.
When lo and behold what did the fine leaders of Baltimore County decide to do?
Oh my, they came up with the bright idea to put “light rail” from the airport below the city by twenty miles, and run the thing all the way to “Hunt Valley” as the area just below where we lived was located. So people could get into the city from way, way out in the suburbs more easily, and get to their city job without having to drive.
Save the planet and all, you know.
Except there is a thing about running a light rail. It runs both ways. You can live in “Hunt Valley”, beautiful, leafy, the wonderfully expensive suburbs of “Hunt Valley”, even the name sounds as if this would be a nice place, and you can park on the expansive parking lot of the mall there. And take light rail to work, and then back.
How wonderful.
But denizens of “The Wire” can also decide they want to take the light rail north, and into “Hunt Valley”, where the money is. And they can pick up a few things, and take them back into “The Wire” neighborhoods.
Crime started going up in our nice suburban neighborhood when they opened light rail, and I was walking the dog one morning and ran into a neighbor who was a cop. And he told me a funny story. He said his favorite thing to do was to sit on a Saturday night, into Sunday morning around 2AM on I 83 just to the side of the road in “Hunt Valley”. And watch a really, really nice car, say one of those big old Mercedes 600 speed by in a rush. He’d punch in the license and get the name and address of the owner. Then he’d call them and wake them up. And he would say “excuse me Mr. Smith, did you authorize a group of youth to use your car”? And Mr. Smith would say, “No, no I did not, my car is in the driveway”.
And the policeman would say, “No sir, Mr. Smith, it isn’t, I just saw it heading for West Baltimore doing about eighty-five headed down I 83”.
So with the advent of light rail it was time for the Herman family to move. Again.
We found the loveliest property you can imagine, and at a great price, because it was so far from the actual town of Baltimore, in Baldwin. The house sat at the back of a cul de sac, in a very nice staid older neighborhood, so by the time we moved in the trees around the homes were all grown, it was a great find. And a bit closer to the little country school, the school of “horses and divorces” the kids attended.
The neighborhood itself was centered on two large ponds. Big beautiful ponds. Separated by an earthen divider. Private ponds you couldn’t really get to unless you lived on one.
And guess what? We did.
We somehow managed to buy a triangular lot that sat dead center of both ponds. The view was just spectacular. You could look out the big expansive bay window in the back, and feel as if you had waterfront property. One winter a family of deer took up residence in the berm, that separated the ponds.
The scene was idyllic. Situated on an acre-and-a-half, we loved that home.
There was a line of trees down one side of the pie slice shaped property, about six big fir trees pointing away from the house and running down the east side. I got the idea to begin to buy “balled” Christmas trees that first year, and instead of buying a dead cut tree, it might be a good idea to re-plant our Christmas tree and continue the line of trees all the way down the property and gain some added privacy.
So each year I’d lug a very heavy “balled” Christmas tree into the house, then lug it out to the side yard, dig a hole in the half-frozen ground, and plant the tree.
One day while riding the mower the neighbor came over and inquired as to this growing line of trees going down and dividing our properties. I told him that I intended to plant a tree a year at Christmas all the way down to the end of the property line.
That is when he said “but if you do that you’ll block my view of the ponds”.
“Huh”?
“You’ll end up planting trees that grow as big as all these original trees that were here before you moved in, and eventually block our view”.
I ended up explaining to the neighbor that he had a property that he could do anything he wished with it, and I had purchased a property and since we owned it, and he did not, he didn’t have any right to tell me what to do with my lot and property. And that it was more important to me, as owner of said property, to have some added privacy, then to be concerned for his view. I may have added that if the pond view was important to him, perhaps he should have spent more money as a charter member of the neighborhood and purchased the more premium priced lot next to the one he did buy.
He wasn’t happy with my response.
Now you could call me callous, I could have just allowed his view, but I purchased my property, I wanted added privacy, and since I owned the property wasn’t it mine to do with as I wished?
They were trees for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t playing loud music, I wasn’t encroaching on his land.
So for the next two years we planted beautiful fir trees, and watched as previous year trees grew larger.
And then a curious thing happened. Every tree we planted in the next spot, the very spot that began to block the neighbor’s view, died. The first year I gave it no thought. Not all “balled” trees take. Some can perish for any array of reasons. Cold shock being planted in winter, soil problems, health issues.
But the second year the tree went brown almost immediately and died I said “huh” again.
And the third year I was convinced that these trees were not all dying from natural causes. Someone was killing the trees right at the sight line of my next door neighbor.
Now what did I do? Did I confront the neighbor? Did I put up a motion camera to all sides, daring him to put something into the ground or some poison, something that was obviously great at killing the trees that killed his view?
Nah, I’m Alpha, but not confrontational, not at all an Alpha bully big guy type.
The housing market was strong, I was about to hit fifty, and I heard the siren’s song call of Florida, where there was no cold at Christmas, and hopefully no asshole neighbors.
I hammered a “for sale” sign into the ground and moved away over a thousand miles.
The privacy was no longer my concern, the growing, beautiful line of Christmas trees going down the east side of the house ended.
But there should be laws. You shouldn’t be able to poison a tree on the neighbor’s lawn and get away with it. There should be jail time, some punishment. You have no right to infringe on your neighbor.
Some reading this might say I infringed on his view. Or would have, if the trees had lived.
Well listen, if your view is contingent on your neighbor’s decisions, then it isn’t “your view” at all.
I wish there was some really big penalty for the Bond family up in Maine. Something more than the pocket-change to them million-five they paid the neighbor. A descendent of the LL Bean family no less. Just what she needed, no tree and another million plus.
And a pox on my old neighbor in Baldwin, may he suffer in life in some way for being a tree killer.
If it had been reversed I wouldn’t have killed his trees, I’d have moved.
I love nature, I could never kill a tree.
I love trees and hate people. Especially rich, entitled people. Who think they have a right to encroach onto their neighbor’s property.
There is a special place in Hell for the Bond’s. They can meet my old neighbor.