Branches blew into neighbors yard...

[NickPDX]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oregon

Portland, OR (Multnomah County)

I have read through the forums and found a few cases that were very similar to what I am dealing with but the differences made me want to post my story too. I own a house that has two large Douglas fir trees in the front yard. In the area that I live, when we get wind gusts they generally blow from the east to the west and my house faces the west. This setup makes it so that when we get wind gusts of any real significance it blows branches into my neighbor’s yard across the street.

There have been a few instances where larger branches (5'-20' in length) blew down into their yard. Those branches "magically" ended up back in my yard after I returned from work. We are currently in the middle of a very strong wind storm and just had a pretty good snow storm. The winds have caused a large amount of smaller branches and a couple large branches to fall into the neighbor’s yard. I just got home from running some errands and all of the smaller branches and the two larger branches have been thrown in my yard.

My neighbors have never talked to me about this and it is really making me mad. I wouldn't take the massive amount of needles from the Ponderosa pine that blow into my yard or the Maple leaves from the other side into their owner’s yards. I take responsibility and clean it up on my own.

I am a relatively new home owner, 2.5 years. What is the general practice in these situations? Also are there any legal implications with this? I would hope that I could handle this civilly with my neighbors but they have never been very friendly and don't have high hopes.

Thank you all for any advice you can offer.

Nick

PS Only once has any of the branches caused any damage. Last year one knocked off their mail box from the post and he fixed the mailbox on his own, but threw the branch into my yard.

 

[TheGeekess]

Did you offer to replace the mailbox? It would have been the neighborly thing to do....

 

[NickPDX]

I did not offer to replace it ... from my knowledge it was simply a matter of nailing the box back on the top. Also to be honest they are not neighborly at all. They have never been very friendly and have for sure never talked to me about the "clean up" of any of these branches.

Thanks for your input but the mailbox was not the intended point of my message though.

 

[TheGeekess]

I did not offer to replace it ... from my knowledge it was simply a matter of nailing the box back on the top. Also to be honest they are not neighborly at all. They have never been very friendly and have for sure never talked to me about the "clean up" of any of these branches.

Thanks for your input but the mailbox was not the intended point of my message though.

That's not the point. Sometimes you have to make the first move to being a neighbor. Then you can approach them about the branches/leaves/etc. If that doesn't get you anywhere, then you can escalate.

 

[Cedrus]

You need to break the ice and go across the street with a gift like a box of candy/fudge and make small talk and thence go into the subject at hand. Actually, the neighbor bringing the branches back to your yard is not a bad thing. Chat up the wife, also.

Lighten up. If you don't want a face-to-face chat, mail them a letter thanking them for returning the branches. Do they have a gardener? You could pay him $10 a month extra to keep an eye out on windy days and come by to pick up the branches?

Have you seen ANY gardeners in your neighborhood? See if you can cut a deal with them to pick up branches on a windy day.

 

[NickPDX]

So am I being irrational by equating this to me raking all the leaves that fell from the neighbors trees onto my yard and throwing them back in his yard? I would never do that because in my mind if the leaves fell by natural ways into my yard then they have become my responsibility.

In some ways I understand dragging the big branches that require a chainsaw into my yard, I can use that for firewood anyway. But the smaller branches (scraps), the needles and cones that fall into other yards should be treated like leaves off a tree.

As I said, maybe I am being irrational with all of this. I think that my neighbors see this as something that they shouldn't be doing as well, this is the only reason I can think that they wait until my house is vacant to "throw" the scraps back in my yard. As I said before they have never said a word about it to me and are generally very unfriendly and unneighborly. I wave hello and say hi when I see them but it is ignored 99% of the time. Throughout the summer months the man of the house works on his "race car" and revs the engine so loud that it shakes stuff in my house. They consistently park a very large car trailer directly across from my driveway, on a narrow street, making it very difficult to pull in and out of my driveway. These are just some examples of the un-neighborly actions that I deal with.

I appreciate the input, and I understand that my view may not be the same of other people out there. I put this on here so that I could see how other people might handle the situation.

Thanks