'I cut down the tree': Neighbor challenges guy to cut down his tree, gets left with debris

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Aug 5, 2023 12:00 PM EDT

Now I'm not saying that cutting down your neighbor's tree based on a verbal agreement is a bad idea (it is), but if you've ever gone down the internet rabbit hole of "tree law," you'll know that it's serious business with potentially astronomical consequences. Cutting down your neighbor's tree is no small thing, especially when you intend to do it out of spite and unexpectedly leave them with the job of clearing the downed tree out of their yard.

Still, when this neighbor found themselves repeatedly faced with the frustrating task of clearing leaves and downed branches that were ending up in their yard from their neighbor's tree, they decided to cut the limbs that were sprawling over their side of the fence. While they were out sawing off the limbs, their neighbors came out and suggested that they cut down the entire tree instead—so they did.

The original poster of this story wasn't very popular with readers, which is a pretty uncommon thing to happen on these Reddit threads; usually, readers enthusiastically buy into the poster's narrative of events, no matter what. But the original poster's general hostility didn't enthuse readers of this thread, and they deemed their reaction to "a few leaves" to be an overreaction—they weren't happy about the fate of the poor tree either.

Read on to see the original story and the reactions from the comments of the original thread.