I didn't hire Eric, but my neighbour did. And when he was done, the natural privacy dynamic that separated me from my neighbour was ruined. We have a line of tall pine trees that run along the back edge of our property that nestle up against a fieldstone wall. There are, I guess I should say was, a beautiful aray of low hanging branches on my neighbours side of my trees that afforded us just the right amount of natural privacy. Limbs that have been there for decades. My neighbour, I'll call him Jay, hired Eric to trim some of his trees and clean up the yard. Jay pointed out the trees that needed to be addressed and Eric got to work. When I got home from work later that day and walked out into my backyard, my sanctuary, I was appalled to see that all of the low hanging branches had been cut off and now my beautiful row of pines had been converted into a picture window looking at Jay's driveway. Some branches as high up as 7 feet had been cut. When I knocked on Jay's door to ask WTF happened, and showed him all of my tree limbs that were gone, he was just as freaked out as I was. He apologised profusely and explained that he never instructed Eric to touch my trees. My other neighbor, Sam, just had his property surveyed and the survey stick, with its fluorescent pink ribbon, sat right beyond the end of my pines, in plain sight. It marks the point where Sam's property, my property and j's property meet. Something a landscaper should always be aware of is property lines. He should know what a survey stick is and what it represents. He should be aware of the boundaries in which he can operate. If anyone with a modicum of common sense were to look at my pines and the property surveyor stick, it would be quite obvious that my trees were not on Jay's property. If I were a landscaper and I was about to start cutting limbs off trees that clearly weren't on my client's property, I would check with my client first. "Are you sure you want me to cut limbs off these trees that are not on your property? " Eric also took out a young maple tree, the whole tree, that was clearly 2 feet inside my property line. Clearly, the man has little respect for boundaries. If I had the time and the energy to take him to court and sue him for damages, I would. But that won't bring back my tree limbs. When I called Eric to to ask him how he could have possibly thought that trimming my trees fell within the scope of his work he said it was a "misunderstanding" between him and Jay. He also said "I already apologized 10 times, what do you want me to do?" And then he hung up on me. What do I want you to do? I want you to know where your boundaries are and respect property lines. I don't think that's too much to ask. Ask questions if there's any doubt about what the scope of your work is. That's your business. Eric cut a dozen limbs off my trees that will never grow back. And now I've had to muster time, money and energy to fix the problem he created. Our private, cozy, backyard sanctuary has been forever altered because of one man's "misunderstanding". read more
