A man has been left baffled after receiving a vicious letter from his neighbour ordering him to stop his tree leaves from blowing over into his garden. He explained that he has chestnut trees at the bottom of his yard - but makes a conscious effort to clear up any fallen leaves throughout the year.
But because he didn't clean them up quick enough, he was sent a "rude" letter in the mail from an 'anonymous' neighbour threatening to cut his trees down if he didn't put a stop to it. Taking to Reddit, he said: "My crazy neighbour left a threatening letter in our mailbox - no sender address. We have an idea of who it was (he's been a problem neighbour before), but can't say for sure since there isn't a return address.
"We have chestnut trees in our backyard. Apparently, he is angry that the leaves from those trees are blowing into his yard." The man, who lives in Pennsylvania, America, went on to explain how his neighbour started up with the threats before even speaking to him about it.
"If he had talked to us nicely about it, we would've raked the leaves up a bit- no harm no foul. We're reasonable people," he added.
"However, the letter was ridiculously sarcastic, rude, and he threatened to cut down our trees.
"He has never spoke to us about this before this letter, and has automatically escalated it to a threat to destroy our property, which we don't take lightly.
"The branches from our trees do not extend off our property, and they're actually fairly small still."
Taking the threat seriously, the man is now logging a police report and has installed security cameras around his property.
He asked Reddit users: "If he does try to damage our trees, I'm wondering what my legal options are? [Is there] anything else I should do to protect myself? Maybe put up a no trespassing sign somewhere?"
In response, one user said: "Legally, you can let your leaves blow for your neighbour to clean up.
"Ethically and morally, it's a suck a*** thing to do. Ignore the letter, keep your leaves raked so they don't cause more work for your neighbour."
Another user added: "Trees, depending on age and breed of course, can be extremely high value.
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"Have them appraised, then if they are damaged, you'll know exactly how much to sue for with documentation to prove value.
"You'd be surprised at how much they're worth. I was when a tree I didn't care about was appraised at over $15,000."
A third user said: "No trespassing signs are a good idea and you can find decorative ones if you don't like the regular ones that the hardware stores sell. Just make sure they're not so fancy that they're hard to read."
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