re: Trees and neighbors

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water oak

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Cut that bitch down

Water oaks are weak and prone to breaking easily. As said above, short lifespan of about 50 years.

I had to cut one down that someone planted in my yard when they built the neighborhood. They planted water oak and Bartlett pear, both fast growing but weak AF.

LSU AgCenter says do not have them in residential areas. LINK

If shade is that important to you, vaya con Dios. It seems like it is about once a week I see on the news where a storm blew a tree down onto a house, and I think "what an idiot." But hey, you do you.

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Get an arborist to give them a clean bill of health. Then give her a copy.

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Wrong. The neighbor is the one concerned. Tell the neighbor to pay for the arborist to inspect and if your tree is unhealthy, you will deal with it.

I had some borer beetles infesting oak trees around us. My neighbor to one side lost a 150+ year-old post oak. Mine were starting to show a little stress. I was worried. Mine are all 100-140+ years old. Hired an arborist to treat them. He wrote a report on all trees, and my other neighbor had one leaning towards my house. I was worried about that tree and told my neighbor. He thought it was fine and didn't want to do anything about it. This was a neighbor that was a real a-hole and we did not get along. I had the arborist look at it. He said it wouldn't last another year alive and that rot was set in at the roots already. He put it in a report and I gave a copy to my other neighbor and told him that if that tree fell and damaged my home that I would hold him responsible and sue for negligence since he knew the tree is certain to die and root structure rotting out.

He had a service come take it down within a month.

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You must live in one of those subdivisions where the first thing they do is cut/bulldoze everything.

Not a mature tree in sight.

That's....sad.

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Not correct. The smart people around here have nice, mature trees, just not any that can fall on their house.
Start paying attention after thunderstorms, hurricanes, etc., and notice how many homes now have a tree in the house.
That is dumb as a bag of hammers. But hey, I look at the bright side, guys like you create jobs for carpenters, roofers, and others.

These are healthy trees. I hired an arborist now who confirmed it.
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Plan on letting Karen know?

How much did arborist charge for the report? My sister paid $150 in a similar situation.

I need to see a copy of neighbors arborist report now and will be asking Her for it.
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I must of missed that. So she got a report too?

Keep us posted.

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one of the water oaks split during a storm and hit the house the left, sparked an electrical fire, and it burned.

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So sorry to hear that. All of that great shade lost. Luckily the only down side was a tree landing on a house and causing a fire.

Sorry, none of that was directed at you. Earlier in this thread some people were saying that having a tree hanging over a house is worth the risk because it gives shade to a house. Shade is nice, but having a tree that can end up in your living room is beyond stupid to some of us.

Insurance companies will pretty much go with act of god every time and most arborists will say it's savable
I sent a letter to my neighbors about a tree. Couple of years later, I big limb totaled my truck. Their insurance said act of god. My insurance said act of god and wrote me a check less $500 deductible. Wrote another letter.
Couple of years after that, limb fell on another car. Their insurance said act of God, my insurance said act of God and gave me a list of authorized repair shops. My neighbor paid deductible and cut tree down.
3ft of the center had rotted out. Arborist was trying to save it for years.