Neighbor killing plants ✂

We have a backyard with a garden that is pretty nice. Also a neighbor (old couple) whose house is falling apart, they aren’t doing any repairs but that is not really my business. Between our property is a high fence. The top half is made of vertical wood planks with small spaces between them to let the light go through.
Apparently they did not like some of the plants growing on our fence on our side of the property! They reached through the gaps in the fence and cut the stems with scissors. Killing the top of the plant.

I don’t really care about the plant. But the act in itself is outrageous.

How should I deal with it? Talk was not really helpful in previous disputes. The old lady is very ignorant and influences her husband. I suspect her having done that.

I don’t really want to waste my time on that bullshit. So a permanent solution would be good.

I am thinking about adding large plastic sheets to the fence on the other side. This will cover the gaps and block their view into our garden.
And add some fence spikes on top as a special f**k you.

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They probably have some stupid reason like plants attract insects…

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But then they’ll cut the plastic…

My mum has a neighbour who does this. Count yourself lucky they only use scissors. He sprays who-knows-what everywhere, including along the fence line, and of course it drifts. He just loves killing stuff with chemicals; his garden looks like a radioactive wasteland.

I agree with the bear that it’s probably some bizarre superstition, and I’ve noticed Taiwanese people in general don’t like nature much. They think it’s “untidy”. Some busybody used to come onto my land to hack down specific trees because they were “too big”. It didn’t seem to be of any import that they were my trees on my land.

Anyway, you either need to go full-bore mental so they’re afraid of you, or go passive aggressive. It’s the Taiwan Way. Walk into their garden with a pair of scissors and snip off specific bits of their plants and tell them in Western tradition, those plants attract ghosts.

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I will keep the receipts. If they damage our property, then we can actually file a report and file for damages. There is no other way to get to that place besides going through their house, so nobody else could do it. It is just in the corner of our current security camera so I might add another one to monitor them.

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So why don’t you do that about the tree already?
I mean, it is also your property, right?
Have you checked if the security camera had taped them?

It wasn’t a tree. Just some Ivy type plants growing on the fence. They ware rather small.
You would not see them doing it since the gaps in the fence are quite small.
Damaged plants were quite worthless, but like I said the act in itself pisses me off.

It is the same shitty attitude in Taiwan like scratching a car if it is parked where you don’t like it.

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TL;DR
Neighbor cut stems of some plants through the fence on our side to get ‘more light’.

Update:
Finally had time to tackle the issue.
We solved it by covering the gaps in the fence with small planks. No drawbacks for us. It looks good. We have more privacy as neighbor can not look through the fence. They now have way less light on their side.

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Reading this gave me schadenfreude!

(I’m not sure if that’s how it should be said. I just learned this word with @Hanna today…)

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What you need are some neighbor-killing plants. Like a durian tree, or maybe a corpse flower plant.

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F1y4XI4-4

Made some pictures last week.

How it looks now:

orig
The smaller planks are new and will darken over time.

This is an illustration where the neighbor cut the plants:
orig_mod

Neighbor’s asshole status: confirmed

You should put the small planks on every single gap.

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I would tell you to put the small planks up your neighbor’s ass, but it would seem they already have a stick jammed up there.

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Some update.

Their side of the property is just a small space behind their house facing our tall fence. They have their toilet in the corner there outside of the house for some reason. So it is like a corridor to their toilet.

Now they decided to close that space completely and build brick walls with small roof. Now they don’t have to step out in the open when they want to take a dump and there is no way to bother us.

The only thing that is concerning is the state of their dwelling. Their added roof on top of the 3F house is already old and the paint is flaking off, falling all over the place. The 1m high wall on the roof has serious cracks with water seeping through after the rain. A more stronger earthquake could make it fall down.

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It that the hope? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

As for the cutting the stems on your side, this is law in NY…not to compare. I cut a neighbors oak branch at the trunk, on his side of the fence, because the previous owners had let the thing grow twenty feet on my side and it was resting on the electric line.

You know, you could have cut a big hole in the fence next to their shitter and installed a two-way mirror. :smirk_cat:

Not long after waking up, I read: Neighbor killing parents (with scissors).

I hesitated before openening this thread.

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Not at all. A concern that brick wall would fall over into our property from 3F, damaging our garden and fence. Neighbor is not concerned.
At least it is a bit out of the way where our kids play at times.

Document everything. Even ask them to fix their stuff and record that so that if something does happen, you can prove that they were asked to do it. Perhaps there’s even some government agency that could look into it (although I have little doubt that they would go out of their way not to). Again, making it official puts you in a much better place should something serious happen.

Was hoping to see this when reading the thread title:

image

Would have entertained the idea of planting a few.

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