Neighbor’s trees are starting to fall down!

Yvonne Smith

Yvonne Smith

Greeter
Staff member
The yard next to us has some 150 foot tall pine trees that have been there for years, and we always got bunches of pine needles falling into that part of our yard that we had to try and clean up. However, last year , some of the trees started dying for some reason, and now there are about 8-9 of them just over the fence from us that are completely dead.

We always have branches come off of trees when there are thunderstorms, and bad wind, but now, the branches are just crashing down from these trees and into our yard, and Bobby said it is not safe for me to even be out in that part of the yard in case one should crash down on me. They just come down for no reason, not because of wind or weather, so we are concerned that a whole tree might fall down, and if it falls our direction, like the branches have been doing, it is going to take out a lot of the roof, and especially over our bedroom, which is at that end of the house.

Bobby has been talking with our neighbor and he said he will try and get someone who can come and take the trees down that are dead, but I am concerned that if they try to climb up the tree to cut off the top, the extra weight on one side might topple the tree over right on top of the person trying to climb it.
We have storms coming in again this weekend, which makes it even more likely that the wind might blow some of the trees over. They are right up to our fence and to the road, so any direction they fall, they will probably hit someone’s house.
This picture is from the street in front of our house and looking down the road at the pine trees, and you can see how tall they are and how dead they look.

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The neighbor said that the first estimate he had was for about $12,000, and he said he could not afford that, so he has been calling around to find the best deal he can get.
He said he has someone who is supposed to come out first thing in the morning and start cutting trees, so by tomorrow night, the dead ones closest to our house should hopefully be taken down.

Once they start in the morning, we will see how it is going to go, and I can update everyone on how things are going, and hopefully, they won’t have any accidents.
With the trees down, we will get more sunlight into that side of the front yard, too.
 
No sign of the tree trimmer people yet, so they might be coming after they finish another job. We just have to watch and see what happens. The neighbor has several cars parked in his yard, and I am thinking that he might have to move those before they can fell the trees, becasue they are right near our fence, just like the trees are.
If the tree guys just looked from our road into the trees, they might not have been able to see the cars parked just beyond the trees.
 
Hubby had some pines set out along the edge of our yard not long after we moved in. I told him not to do it, but he did anyway. There is something falling from a pine tree all year long. If you step on a pinecone with your bare feet, it sticks spines in your feet.

Fast forward until he retired and was cutting the grass. He had to go around and pick up limbs and pinecones before he cut the grass. He soon realized what I was talking about. He had them cut down then.
 
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The tree trimmers arrived, and they sawed down several of the trees near the fence by the street. There are still 2-3 more there, but they are leaning, so they can’t just fall those like they did with the ones they cut down today. Then the wind came up, and they all left, so I think that is the drama of tree falling for today.
They might have to climb the ones that are leaning becasue one is leaning towards the street, and the other two are kind of tangled up together and maybe leaning toward the house that is south of us and the neighbor with the trees.

All of the ones that are next to our fence are still there, so they will be working on those tomorrow maybe. It is amazing that we can see though there now, so we should get more light and sunshine in that part of the yard.
 
We had an "epidemic" of spruce bark beetles a few years ago. Foresters told us that it happens every 50 years of so when the trees get too thick. It kills all the trees over 4 inches in diameter and leaves the younger trees to replace them. We cut down most of the trees that are a danger on our property, but the newly-arrived neighbor had a tree fall on him shortly after moving in, and he is afraid to cut the dead trees and cannot afford to hire anyone. The neighbors don't really talk to us, so I have nothing to offer, and one of their trees fell onto our fence and an outbuilding near the fence. We had a friend's son come over to clear that tree since he does that for a living. My wife thought it was too dangerous for an old man like me to tackle. I still have some standing trees to take down, but they are not near any buildings and endanger nobody, so there is no rush except along the driveway. The electric utility cut 34 trees that endangered their lines, and there is still some of that mess to clean up.
 
Shirley Martin said:
Hubby had some pines set out along the edge of our yard not long after we moved in. I told him not to do it, but he did anyway. There is something falling from a pine tree all year long. If you step on a pinecone with your bare feet, it sticks spines in your feet.

Fast forward until he retired and was cutting the grass. He had to go around and pick up limbs and pinecones before he cut the grass. He soon realized what I was talking about. He had them cut down then.
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You are so right about pine trees! They are always dropping needles, pines, and limbs. We had two HUGE pine trees in our back yard that were 60-70 feet tall. They came with house when we bought it. :DI have hated those damn things for 30 plus years. Every time it stormed with high winds, there would be limbs to pick up. Heavy snow or ice, more limbs to pick up. The trees were beautiful with a light snow settling on them, and the cardinals sitting on the snow covered limbs looked like ornaments. That was the only good thing about those pines. We finally had them cut down last year. I don’t miss them one bit!
 
Don Alaska said:
We had an "epidemic" of spruce bark beetles a few years ago. Foresters told us that it happens every 50 years of so when the trees get too thick. It kills all the trees over 4 inches in diameter and leaves the younger trees to replace them. We cut down most of the trees that are a danger on our property, but the newly-arrived neighbor had a tree fall on him shortly after moving in, and he is afraid to cut the dead trees and cannot afford to hire anyone. The neighbors don't really talk to us, so I have nothing to offer, and one of their trees fell onto our fence and an outbuilding near the fence. We had a friend's son come over to clear that tree since he does that for a living. My wife thought it was too dangerous for an old man like me to tackle. I still have some standing trees to take down, but they are not near any buildings and endanger nobody, so there is no rush except along the driveway. The electric utility cut 34 trees that endangered their lines, and there is still some of that mess to clean up.
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Krystal Shay said:
You are so right about pine trees! They are always dropping needles, pines, and limbs. We had two HUGE pine trees in our back yard that were 60-70 feet tall. They came with house when we bought it. :DI have hated those damn things for 30 plus years. Every time it stormed with high winds, there would be limbs to pick up. Heavy snow or ice, more limbs to pick up. The trees were beautiful with a light snow settling on them, and the cardinals sitting on the snow covered limbs looked like ornaments. That was the only good thing about those pines. We finally had them cut down last year. I don’t miss them one bit!
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About twenty years ago we sold the pine trees. Except two little areas, so we still have two little pine forest.
 
The tree guys are all done for the day, but they will be back tomorrow, weather permitting, and thus far, the weather looks okay. This is the same street view as the first picture I posted, and you can see that most of the front trees near the street are now down. Everything went well, lots of big crashes, but all right where they were supposed to land, so that is a good thing. The power pole is right at the corner of our yard and the neighbors lot. You could barely see it in the first picture becasue of all the trees around it.



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No more tree work today. The neighbor has some older vehicles parked up close to the fence, and he needs to move them before it is safe to fell the trees that are close to the cars. He is getting that done today, so either tomorrow or Monday, they should be finishing up with the tree removal. It is amazing my blueberry bush still has any berries left on it, since they were dragging out the brush that fell into our yard, and going right next to the blueberry bush, I will check tomorrow and see if there are any more ready to pick, but we are almost done with blueberries for now.
 
Living in a town that can be a problem, I guess, because, as I understand it, it's not cheap to have trees removed. My yard came with several Norway Maple trees of various sizes, the most common tree in Millinocket, because they produce a billion seed helicopters, which they spread from late spring to late fall. I've cut a few of them that I could get to without taking out my house, a fence, or a neighbor's house.

I dropped two of them, on different days, across the railroad tracks back when the trains were still running to the Great Northern Paper Mill, and then had to cut them into removable sections before a train came along. That was actually kind of fun, but I don't suppose it would have been if a train had come along.

I waited years on another one because, while I thought it would clear our house if I could get it to fall in the right direction, I wasn't entirely certain about the height of the tree versus the space available between the tree and the house. I cut a few trees down on our land up north, strictly because they looked to be the same size as the one I wanted to be rid of at home, and measured them. It was a scary process, but, aided by the fact that if it did hit our house, it would be the library section, which was an add-on and not structurally a part of the main house, given that it had its own foundation. So, I waited until one day when my wife wasn't home and did the deed. It was close.

I now have my eye on another one. If I can get it to fall the right way, I know that the main part of the tree will clear both our house and the fence, but the clear space is narrow, so there wouldn't be a large margin for error; plus, I'd have to cut the larger branches first to clear. I might not do that one. The tree isn't hurting anything except that I'd like a little less shade in my yard.
 
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When we first moved into this house, Yvonne wanted the cedars in front of the house removed. Okay.

Now, just to get a basic framework of how things are done where Yvonne is from; in Idaho, if one wants to get rid of some trees on their property, he or she calls the local mill, they come out and fell the trees, load ‘em up and hand the property owner a check commensurate with the type of trees they took. From what I viewed on Yvonne’s property, they aren’t particularly good about cleaning up the mess and might leave a couple of slash piles but still, the trees are gone and the owner gets a little jingle in their pocket.

Back to when we first moved here. After Yvonne told me what she wanted, I called around to a couple of the mills and pretty much got laughed outta Dodge so to speak. They not only don’t send a crew out to fell the trees, the crew that does fell the trees charge a pretty hefty price to do the job and, in order to glean a cheaper price from them, they only fell the trees and leave them for the owner to break down and disperse in whatever fashion the laws allow.

Lest I forget, the policies regarding the removal of trees and parts thereof is part of the Catch 22 here.
If I cut a tree down, I can cut it up in segments not extending over 24” for each segment and neatly stack the segments in a 24” x 9’ x 3’ high parcel and each Thursday the city will pick the parcel up using the “debris” truck with the clamshells they send around. Obviously, a lot of Thursdays go by before the entire tree is gone by truck or by firewood seekers.
If a Contractor fells the tree, the city won’t have anything to do with taking “parcels”. Either an owner pays the tree service that felled the tree to get rid of it or figures out a way to do it himself that is more cost effective like putting up a sign that says “Free Firewood” or outright lies to the city and say, I did it and hope nobody from the city saw the tree service do it.

Note: The 2 cedars Yvonne wanted felled nearly 20 years ago are still there sans all the lower limbs I could get to.
 
In town, I think it is illegal to take down a large tree yourself. Tree services around here have to have insurance so the prices can be prohibitive. Out of town the price can be prohibitive so a lot of dead trees are still standing after Dutch Elm disease, Ash borer disease, Oak wilt disease...Eventually they come down on their own. If they are a danger, this is not allowed for long. In the country, you can burn them and the leavings when there is not fire danger. And you can heat your house with the logs.

My pond is surrounded by weeping willows that were lovely when we bought the property. Now huge limbs are breaking off and falling, sometimes into the pond. But the area around the pond is narrow for some of the larger equipment to get into and I was turned down by a less expensive company who did not want to deal with water removal. The wood is quick burning and good for bon fires and people at the camp grounds. But there is a LOT of it.

God sent me a wonderful young man needing work. He is a good mechanic and a do it all handyman who said he likes to take down trees. With his skills I wondered about his problems holding a job. As we got to know each other, he is a vet on drugs for PTSD. He told me the other day he had to go home because he hadn't taken his meds for a couple of days. But even though his work can be erratic, he has plenty to do at the farm. It is pricier than a couple of farm boys of old but he is worth it.
 
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Even though their gigundus tree shearing equipment, Really unnerved my horses, I am still grateful for my power company’s sub contractor trimming all the trees back along the power lines.

I live fairly rural on a narrow/wooded road, some people call Deliverance land. My new farrier said he can see why some people think that, but he is retired military so I highly doubt there’s much of anything that unnerves him..

All that to say, I am happy for the power company’s tree trimmers and even more happy what neighbors I do have are farmers and forgiving/helpful🤠😇🤠😇
 
We were notified that the electric utility would be clearing right-of-ways in our area this summer, but they haven't arrived yet. There isn't too much to do as I requested they come and clear some trees that I felt were endangering their lines a few years ago. I had a tree from the neighbor's land fall onto one of our outbuildings last winter, and we hire da professional to remove it as my wife thought it was too much for me to do, It certainly would have been too much for me to do the way he did it as he climbed nearby trees and tied the tree trunk and hoisted it off the building before he started cutting. My tree climbing days are long over. I still have some trees to cut to remove shade from garden areas that weren't shady decades ago when we put the gardens in.
 
Don Alaska said:
We were notified that the electric utility would be clearing right-of-ways in our area this summer, but they haven't arrived yet. There isn't too much to do as I requested they come and clear some trees that I felt were endangering their lines a few years ago. I had a tree from o neighbor's land fall onto one of our outbuildings last winter, and we hire da professional to remove it as my wife thought it was too much for me to do, It certainly would have been too much for me to do the way he did it as he climbed nearby trees and tied the tree trunk and hoisted it off the building before he started cutting. My tree climbing days are long over. I still have some trees to cut to remove shade from garden areas that weren't shady decades ago when we put the gardens in.
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The greenery keeps on growing past what we want! I went back to check on what was a camping area in the piney woods a few years ago. Now I can't find a way in! And my huge fenceline is surrounded by treelings that need to come out. Our french drain is full of that tall marsh grass that gets fuzzy seeds that are fun for flower arranging. not good for foundations and getting through ditches.
 
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