Entitled resident plants trees on neighbor's property, refuses to move them to his side even after receiving legal notice, leading neighbor to cut them down: 'I hope your child doesn’t follow in your footsteps'

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
May 15, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

Sometimes, and sadly, more often than not, a feud between two people drags bystanders and innocent beings into the dramatic mix. How many of us found ourselves as kids in the middle of a feud between our parents, often even demanded to choose sides? How many times have we been subjected to listening to a fight between two passengers on the bus, even though we have nothing to do with either of them?

Every time a feud like that happens, there are always going to be those who are affected by it, but shouldn't be. It could be children, helpless bystanders, or, in the case of the story below, trees.

A dispute between two neighbors often means that others are going to get involved, whether they like it or not. Usually, the involvement is of other neighbors, sometimes law enforcement, and in the cases of the stories we share here, strangers online. So when the two neighbors in this story decided to use innocent trees as the subject of their disagreement, people had a thing or two to say about that…

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  • It all started with the foolish decision of these two neighbors to agree on their property lines with a handshake, and not a formal document. When one side decided to break the verbal agreement, things got ugly, and 22 trees that were planted between the two properties were unfortunately affected by it.

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    Cheezburger Image 10504395008
    via Alin Andersen

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    AITA for cutting down trees my neighbors planted in my yard.

    Over a year ago, our new neighbors, we'll call them Mr. and Mrs. Short, planted trees in what I thought might be my yard. I wasn't totally sure where the property line was, but we
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    shook hands and agreed that if the trees ended up being on my side, they'd sign them over to us. No big deal—I really didn't care much at the time. Also since they were mid way
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    through planting 22 trees they made me feel like moving them wasn't an option anyways. Over the next months, they started mowing what was
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    defiantly my yard, between my house and the trees. Then one Saturday, they even mowed in front of my house and along the sidewalk—leaving me with a half-mowed yard. It kinda felt
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    like they were forcing me to finish it, even though I had other plans that day. I was tired of them encroaching on my property.
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    That Sunday morning, I knocked on their door and asked if we could get something in writing about the trees, or they'd need to move them. Instead of working with
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    me, I got hit with straight hostility, unwillingness, and even threats. So later that week, I put up a temporary fence around the trees to stop them from crossing onto my property.
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    (Skipping some of the threats, police involvement, and interactions from them here.) We ended up spending $350 on a survey—not easy for us
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    financially, especially with a 6- 7-month-old baby at the time. The surveyor showed us that the property line runs between the trees and the fence. So to clarify: the 22 trees are about
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    2.5 feet into my yard, and my temp fence is actually 6-8 inches into theirs. We sent them a certified legal document giving them 30 days to either move the trees or
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    officially sign them over. On day 29, we got a certified letter back saying the trees are ours and that the fence didn't need to be moved. Fast forward six month or so to May-my wife wants the trees
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    gone as a Mother's Day gift because they're just an ugly reminder of all the drama. We take down two trees, and suddenly Mr. Short is at the fence, demanding that I move.
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    my it by Sunday, it's Friday afternoon. He starts pulling on the fence, getting heated, and being completely unreasonable. I got a video of this, it's not enough to count as a crime but proof of his temper and outrage.
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    Cheezburger Image 10504399104
    via Getty Images

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Mr. Short constantly makes threats then follows it with "THAT'S THAT LAW," and insists we call the cops. At this point both of them are belittling not just me and my wife but also our now almost 18-month-old
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    child. While we are waiting for the cops. Things I can mention them saying are "how do you sleep at night" and "I hope your child doesn't follow in your footsteps" or something along those lines.
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    Police come up with the resolution for me to move my fence in 30 days. Totally fine, I should have done it before but the bushy trees made moving the wire fence even more of a pain. They are all gone now though. :)
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    Edit: These trees were planted under ginormous Indian bean trees that kept the 2-3ft evergreen shrubs/trees shaded all day. Most of them were dg from little sun and either some kind of mite or disease.
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    They were not planted in a straight line either. Transferring them would likely k I them, also leave me with holes in my yard as Mr. Short took all the dirt from the holes. I don't hate
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    trees just dumb people who don't know what they're doing. They kept acting like it was my job to tell them before they planted trees on my property. But in my opinion, it's their responsibility to know their own property boundaries—not mine.
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    -w1tch NTA, but like again, is that not obvious? Your Property -> Tree on your property>Crossed all of your T's dotted the i's on paperwork - > got rid of the trees. How could you possibly be the a hole here?
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    robbietreehorn Personally, I wouldn't have started cutting down trees until I got my fence off their property. That was pretty dumb and you should have seen their reaction coming
    via robbietreehorn
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    Lazy_Crocodile ESH. Who has time for this?
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  • 25
    doshdi ESH your neighbor sounds awful but you're here gloating about cutting down 22 trees, who does that? We should be planting more trees not cutting them down just to be petty
    via doshdi
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    Aware_Welcome_8866 Never, ever, ever shake on sharing property lines. Your 2 families are unlikely to live there forever, setting up a dispute for the next owner, says the woman who planted a pine on a shared property line.
    via Aware_Welcome_8866
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    Thediciplematt ΝΤΑ They need to know where their property ends and begins.
    via Thediciplematt

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aita neighbors trees drama neighborhood neighborhood-drama reddit story tree property Bad Neighbor Reddit payback property line entitled people
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