28 April 2008

Poisoned Tree

| benneh
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An old tree in my backyard died recently, which at the time I thought nothing of. It wasn’t until my friend helping me cut it out with a chainsaw, we noticed a section of the tree had what appears to be a hole drilled in the side, and a plastic bag stuffed inside it.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect foul play, especially considering:

A) It was in a section of the tree my neighbours could reach by leaning over the fence

B) These neighbours have on other occassions chopped branches off my other trees, and which were not overhanging on their property, and

C) They have a monster veggie patch over the fence (which they break all the water restriction rules watering too, but that’s irrelevant)

I’m wondering if they used some kind of poison to kill my tree off, probably because they thought it was absorbing too much water for their precious vegie patch. I’m especially miffed/worried as I have young kids who play around that part of the yard all the time.

Does anyone know if I can have it tested to see if/what they poisoned it with? Do I have any recourse if I can prove they did something to it?

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Thoroughly Smashed10:37 am 12 Apr 10

padragph said :

Plant a hop vine along the fence they will never reach over again hops contain a natural iodine in the leaves one scratch will burn like hell and take 3 months for the brown mark to wear off

Wtf?

By the way, nice work resurrecting a long buried thread.

colourful sydney racing identity9:48 am 12 Apr 10

Mysterious said :

pretty pathetic responses in all, surprised youse can deem yourselves human !

BTW is there a second side to the story ?

maybe the neighbours have had enough of your poorly maintained tree littering thier yard.

some people dont realise that if you wanted that tree that you would plant it in your own yard !

Having excess yard work can be annoying when neighbours allow there trees to grow over in to other peoples yards…

smacks of someinside knowledge…

Plant a hop vine along the fence they will never reach over again hops contain a natural iodine in the leaves one scratch will burn like hell and take 3 months for the brown mark to wear off

pretty pathetic responses in all, surprised youse can deem yourselves human !

BTW is there a second side to the story ?

maybe the neighbours have had enough of your poorly maintained tree littering thier yard.

some people dont realise that if you wanted that tree that you would plant it in your own yard !

Having excess yard work can be annoying when neighbours allow there trees to grow over in to other peoples yards…

AS I said before It is not worth the agro. If these people are as nasty as you think they are they will not give a toss as to how you feel. Escalating the situation is not advisable. You kill their cat, they kill your dog etc. Sooner than later you end up like that man in Kingston who despatched his neighbour.

Sort of reminds me when I was a child the next door neighbours pigs dug up our potatoes. My father retaliated by throwing some baited (arsinic) apples across the fence. Pigs got sick and the ag dept mis-diagnosed swine fever. Six year quarantine was placed on the property and pigs destroyed. Pigs were never a problem again.

This sort of thing can get out of hand very quickly and the local council and police are not very happy with people that do this sort of thing.

Growing veggies is laudable, but no one has the right to kill someone else’s tree. Trees take years to grow and perform some useful environmental services themselves. Imagine having a tree you’d grown up with, and someone decides the tree is inconvenient and taking it upon themselves to kill it. This is happening a lot in Sydney, where they are obsessed with being able to see the water (adds a few extra thousand to that all-important selling price).

I’ve planted several hundred assorted trees on my place, they’re all irrigated at huge expense because it’s so rocky and windy here. There’s a lot of huge, ossified stumps around the place, where some vandal farmer destroyed many very old trees here. I guess we’re the next wave, trying to roll back some of the damage.

For the rioters:
Flatten their cat with a shovel and push it under the front door at midnight or dissolve a couple of bags of pool salt in a 44 gallon drum of hot water and pump it over the fence onto the garden soil rendering it useless forever – that will learn the f*rkers…

Seriously tho Benneh, consider that it may be far better to be actively growing vegetables than passive ornamental trees away from your your dwelling that offer no real utility. There may be a question of the (tap?)water being utilised for the production of home grown, but think of the resources required to assemble and package ‘fresh’ foods at the store that is patronised by car on a regular basis. It is also worth mentioning the additional mental and physical health benefits of maintaining a garden and the value fixing carbon through improving the soil. I am certainly not suggesting that criminal acts such as the wonton destruction or vandalisation of established trees should take place and go unrecognised however, you only have speculation on your side. Have a cuppa with your neighbours and get inspired to make a difference.

if they have a cat nail gun it to their front door by its paws.

You people are freakin sick.

The Cat Did It’s suggestions are perfect! Recipe for dead garden, feuds begun with other neighbours, mayhem, misery. I love it.

But Meconium killing them first and then raping them means you can use their blood as lubricant. So says the bunny rabbit from Sotuh Park

Sorry guys… I didn’t mean that!

I forgot to say you’re supposed to torture them first.

Buutt… if you’re too much of a pussy to go through with all this, buy yourself a copy of GTA IV and do it all in-game. It just got released fifteen minutes ago!!!

(my copy’s in the post)

Kill them and rape their corpses, and repeat this practice to their extended families and friends.

Then get an assessment from Parks and Gardens saying that the tree’s death had nothing to do with them.

You might feel bad about it, but at least you got some action.

The cat did it10:41 pm 28 Apr 08

Don’t use a spray-bottle of glyphosate, use a long range soaker-style water gun, so you can target plants away from your fence, even as far away as the other side of their yard. Then they can get themselves totally offside with the other neighbors and make idiots of themselves with baseless accusations. Oh, and does their front lawn have enough bindi-eye weeds?

Ooh, I have a nasty horticultural revenge! Plant bamboo up against the fence! You might need to put a barrier in the ground on your side. Watch it invade their veggie patch, garden, and ultimately house. that stuff can push through concrete.

Hehe some good ideas here. I have neighbours who keep trying to grow roses up the fence and *so far* I have restrained my response to cutting off anything that comes thru the palings – in particular I have resisted temptation to reach over while spraying roundup :).

You are all nasty nasty people.

On topic- Salt or motor oil will kill the ground and make it fairly useless for planting anything in the future. Game, set match for nasty neighbour vege patch killing goes to Special G.

Place a horses head in their bed.

LOL. Best. Thread. Ever!

I second the crapping on the vegie patch suggestion. Even if they don’t get dysentery, you’ll know that at some point they’ve ingested your turd.

Hint…your gonna need some proof or it wont go anywhere. Being in such close proximity with plenty of opportunity to do it without incriminating themselves will mean that your gonna struggle to find proof(if indeed they did it)

Plant a new tree, one thats already mature, if that one gets killed off, you may well be onto a winner and establish that the first one was definitely not a fluke …. lol Maybe a good fence vine would do the trick ?

One question …. had they ever complained about the tree before, or anything else for that matter?

My neighbours blatantly killed a massive shade tree last year (nearly five times the height of their house) – ACT Govt did nothing. The culprits are ACT Government employees but claimed they ‘didn’t know about the tree protection legislation’. Neither the arborist nor my neighbours were investigated other than cursorily. The tree was deciduous, so didn’t shade them in winter.

If you need proof of the tree’s height, get a higher-res satellite image than the google ones. The shadows should indicate the height of your tree. Do pursue it – if the ACT Govt doesn’t start acting on this vandalism, people will continue to kill trees with impunity.

Sunflower seed will attract cockies, they are horrible! I feed them on my deck, and lately they’ve taken to snipping off my chili plants if the seed isn’t provided on time. So they’ll probably shred this veggie garden.

how i LOLed at the parrot seed suggestion – crap now my colleagues will know i’m not doing work 🙂

I second that comment!

la mente torbida3:22 pm 28 Apr 08

Nasty words written on their lawn, with petrol, will let them know how you feel

poison their pet in retaliation.

how i LOLed at the parrot seed suggestion – crap now my colleagues will know i’m not doing work 🙂

Re Thumpers advice, the birds will also tear into the vege patch trying to get the seed and ruin the garden. Double whammy.

Bastards. Spray cyanide onto their vege patch.

Or get some cabbage moth. If they’re growing stuff now, it’ll be caulis, broccoli etc. crucifers, winter stuff. Cabbage moth (from those green caterpillers) does a lot of damage to those things (easily detered with dust though).
Go the roundup, that’s fitting.

Geez, glad I don’t live next to some of you guys!! Them’s some nasty retaliation suggestions for what is an unproven theory! 🙂 At best it’d be an eye for an eye, I think slowly poisoning them, or throwing my poo over the fence might be a tad overzealous!

I love the idea of a pandanus though.

Perhaps I should collect a couple of hundred snails, and dump them over the fence one night, let em go to town on the vegies.

Is pandanus the pine that grows those humungous pine cones? I scored one of those cones when a kid, and I still treasure it. Pine cone the size of a very large football!

As for something harmful when eaten, you may not be gross enough to do this, but human pooh used to fertilise salad vegetables is why why a lot of people get dysentry in 3rd world countries.

Or you could fling handfuls of weed seeds on their garden (although you’d better hurry up if you want to harvest weed seeds, might be too late).

Or all of the above!

if you want a tree that hurts things try a Pandanus. Anything with a 5-10kg kilo that drops once a year is a ripper.

Young (NSW) has a bunch of them on a main road, next to a school car park. At least once a year one of those nuts falls onto a car creating sweet havoc.

Bless em.

Plant a pine, once it grows the falling foliage will kill anything growing under it. Also I love the Roundup idea.

Snahons_scv6_berlina1:01 pm 28 Apr 08

Don’t kill their vege’s. Spray a chemcical (not sure what) that will get absorbed by the veges but is detrimetal to a persons health after consumption. If you continue to do this long term it is you who will have the last laugh.

Spray their veges with Roundup.

That’s really rough. I’d follow the advice here and get it investigated. Was the tree shading their vegetable garden? If so, that might be why they did such a rotten thing. Well, two can play that game! bit of roundup in a spray bottle at 3am…

and the worst part is, it used to provide a good cover between the houses, now there is a big gap where we can see into each others backyards 🙁

It’s off to bunnings to buy some privacy screen fencing I think.

If they are the only ones that suffer any detriment as a result of the tree, then i’d say it’s odds-on that they poisoned it.

My condolences for having such shitehouse neighbours.

smokey4 said: “Remember they are your neighbours and you will have to live next to them well into the future. IS PURSURING THIS WORTH THE AGRO?”

Do you reckon they thought about that when they allegedly poisioned my trees? if i find out for sure it was poisoned, damn right i’ll be persuing it.

Unless I can confirm it, it’s just heresay and I won’t bring it up with them, but I did place the piece of tree up on the wall next to the fence with the hole and bag facing over the fence, so if they are guilty they will damn well know I know what they’ve done!

Remember they are your neighbours and you will have to live next to them well into the future. IS PURSURING THIS WORTH THE AGRO?

It is very easy to make enemies of your neighbours and then almost impossible to repair the damage.

Now for confessional time. Recently the neighbour over the back from my property pumped/stole several kltrs of water from my rear dam and someone else has been stealing my fire wood however I am also guilty of the same crimes. My neighbour to the North persists with growing Prickly pear cactus on the fence line. But he is Southern Italian and has a fantastic restaurant. So by ignoring the nigglely things I am ahead on points.

It also likely that the plastic bag was just there to fill the hole. The best way to kill a tree is with copper. Although drilling a hole is a waste of time. I have killed the vines in my yard using just a copper nail, and i killed the tree in my front yard with a nail as well.

Call APrks and Gardens, there is a bunch of folk whose sole job it is to adjudicate on tree health. damaging neighbours trees is an issue that they deal with on a daily basis. Ultimate result (if proven that neighbours were the culprits), costs to remove and replace with sensible shrubbery is theirs to bear.

Post it to the AFP HQ. If they close their mail centre, then it contained nasty stuff. Remember to put your neighbour down as the person who posted it, and await the report via the media release.

If the tree was big enough to be significant its an offense to damage it, – of course proof is going to be a bugger.

I dont know about testing, but I’d be considering dobbing them in re water restrictions… but only if my name wasn’t used at all, otherwise there could be an A Current Affair – worthy neighbourhood war on my hands.

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