Wednesday 13 June 2012

The ongoing saga

As you know I am not life's biggest gardener. I think it is even fair to say I am a lousy gardener. If I had the money I would hire a gardener to do the work for me, but since I have other plans with my money...

As you also know the housing corporation I rent the house from has some rules according to how my garden is supposed to look. No weeds (what is a weed anyway?), no junk, nothing too overgrown. A few years ago Carolina came and helped me out to clear my garden of some of the weeds and ever since then I have been more or less on top of the work.

Anyway. This year I got a notice saying that I had to get my garden in proper order because they were checking up again. With their kitchen steps to look over the fence and all (it didn't say that in the letter, but my neighbour saw it one year). And then I got another notice to "clear the front yard of weeds (which I knew) and to clear any tree that is too close to the fence. There are about six trees in my small back yard and they were there last year and the year before. I never had to remove any trees before. So, I phoned: how far away do the trees need to be? Turns out it's two meters (just under 7 ft).

I think they are just making it up. Because why didn't I hear about it last year or the year before? The trees were there then! Besides that, how on earth am I going to get rid of a tree that is higher than the house (if it's too close that is, otherwise it's staying!). I sure hope that tree is good, since it's endless fun for cats and I get to see more and more birds in it as well.

Never mind that though: every garden should look the same and certainly not with any trees in!

5 comments:

  1. Volgens mij heeft de gemeente regels voor die bomen, en mag de woningbouw niet zomaar andere regels laten gelden. Ik dacht altijd dat een boom een halve meter van de erfscheiding mocht staan. Moeite waard om even op te zoeken. Zeikerds daar, bah!

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  2. Your cat looks like a Raccoon!

    Belachelijke regels! De gemeente heeft inderdaad regels wat betreft bomen... en kapvergunningen... gewoon de gemeente bellen en ff checken.

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  3. That's homeowners' associations for you. I've heard horror stories.

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  4. It seems a wee bit over the top, but I guess it's better than going in the other direction like our neighbours.

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  5. It would be sad to lose the tree and it can be costly to have them taken down. When we first moved into our home I was furious with our association. You buy a $750,000
    home and they wanted to tell me what I could and couldn't plant in our front and back yard. No Way!!!

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Any weighty (and not so weighty) comments are welcome!