My sister came over today to help me gather up the leaves that had inundated the gardens. It was a huge job and she brought her husband's husqvarna backpack blower. I operated the backpack blower and it did a number on me; however, it sure does blow some leaves. I piled some of the leaves on a tarp and dragged it behind the back veggie garden to use as mulch next year. I noticed that my neighbour was working on his wood pile and had dropped a tree and bucked most of it. There was just one little problem, he dropped it across the property line onto my property without asking me. I surveyed for damage and outside of some slightly skinned bark I didn't see any of my trees down. I don't know what the law is on this but I think that the wood that is down on my side is mine and I should haul it to the house. However, I am not as these are new neighbours and I don't want to be on the wrong foot with them. I do plan on having a nice conversation about wanting to be good neighbours and that one should ask first before dropping a tree onto the neighbour's property. I am also going to stress that all the brush is removed; and I do mean all.
He has already bucked most of it and most of the tree is on my side of the property line. He must have dropped it Sunday when I was gone all day helping to make the 15 gallons of soup. I just noticed it today when I dragged the leaves down. If he had done it when I was here, I would have heard the saw and also my office window looks into the back garden.
There are a few trees near the property line I would like to drop but don't because they will probably go onto the neighbour's property. I guess I should not have worried; what is property rights?
New neighbors? I'd have offered to help them stack it, and educate them on the correct neighborly protocols that were in play. Sent from my SM-T280 using Tapatalk
In the State of Maine at least, it is against the law to have branches accumulate with 25 feet of the property line, yes even on your side, so technically he is in violation of the law if he was to live here. Myself, I drop trees across the property line all the time...I did it today twice on two different neighbors to be perfectly honest with you. Once today I even had my skidder across the line when I was picking up a top that I had lobbed off over the line. I would never cut any trees on the other side, that is stealing and I have never done that, NEVER. Most of the time I drag the tree back across the property line before I buck it up and limb it, but not always. But here is the thing, I live in a very rural setting and cut wood miles out in the woods. One neighbor has 400 acres of woods and the other has 3200...both have logged their woods and could care less about limbs that will rot in 2 years time. But I would never do any of this if I was within 1/4 mile of a person's house. Or ever leave branches across an ATV trail of theirs, or something like that. A few limbs knocked off with a chainsaw way out in the woods...no big deal, BUT NOT NEXT TO SOMEONE'S HOME, and it sounds like that is the case here.
Funny story: My neighbor a LONG time ago...the one with 3200 acres...asked my Grandfather if he would show him where the lines were, so my Grandfather did. A few weeks later the neighbor sends him half the bill for the surveying, which of course my Grandfather never paid (nor was he required too). Today the lines are VERY accurate on the ends, but every time the surveyor for my neighbor hit a good stand of wood, the line had a little "arch to it" so as to capture that good wood. Today, I am clearing the land to field so that arched line is super apparent because it should be dead-arrow-straight. It never did them any good though because they never cut it, and what was really good wood 30 years ago, is all rotted now.
Good start! I would try to keep it neighborly for now. Maybe he just doesn't know....or assumed you don't know. Backpack blowers are awesome eh? We use a couple of Stihl BR 600's to clean about 5-6 acres at the cottage every spring. We also use the tarps. Blow into piles/rows, use snow scrapper shovels to push into tarp (don't laugh till you try it), lift into tarp lined 5'x8' wagon with 6' sides then haul away. Easily unloaded by just grabbing the front of the liner tarp and roll over the top and off the back.
I have an old plastic bed liner with a rope across the tailgate end. Blow/rake the leaves into the liner, grab the rope and drag to the pile, dump leaves, repeat
Seriously, he dropped a tree and some of it fell on your side of the property line, and you think that wood is yours?! Wow, glad you’re not my neighbor! Go out there with a 12 pack and a saw and give him Hand. Sheesh
possession is 9/10 of the law. Yes, there is a huge oak tree on top of the hill that fell across on my side. the wood on my side is mine now. I will cut up to the property line and leave it. And I guess you didn't see that post because you would be claiming that I should cut and buck the wood and throw it back on their side. There is always one I guess.
Read Robert Frost. Good fences makes good neighbours. It is call respecting the rights of others and that includes not throwing brush across the property line or dropping tress that have the potential to bust up other trees that it may fall on across the property line. I guess you wouldn't mind me throwing my empty paint buckets on your property then since you don't think that boundary lines means anything.
Should have asked first, I'm sure you would have been fine with it. Communication with one's neighbors seems to be a lost art nowadays. Upsets me, too. Any chance he has a mistaken perception of where the property line is, being new to the property?
So now you have to deal with the tops/branches too? In order to get along with neighbors, work with him. The short term gain (a few pieces of firewood) is not worth the life long aggravation of poor neighbors! He may not have intended to drop the tree onto your land; how many times does a tree fall differently than where you plan?
Yes, it is the doing without asking that is the important thing. I could have looked to make sure that it could be a safe drop and also would not hang. I visited next door and talked with the lady of the house; her husband was not home. I told her that I hoped we could be good neighbours and I mentioned the tree. She told me that she told her husband that it would fall across to my side and he cut it anyway. I was not home at the time. She also told me that he really doesn't know about cutting trees. She mentioned that it was cut for firewood so I told her that it would be too wet to burn this year. I told her about the dead pine that would want to fall across to their side and that if they were interested we could drop it and divide the wood. That pine is probably dry enough to burn this year as it has been dead for a long time. I do want to be good neighbours but at the same time people will take advantage of you if you let them. I had one neighbour on the other side that piled up brush blocking a road and I had to get strong worded with him before he would move it. After that, he did not want to talk with me even though I took his post to him instead of taking it to the PO and letting him wait.
I like that you subtly showed them how it's done by offering to get together on the pine and split the profit.
