I went outside this morning to get the paper, only to find that the worst possible thing had happened: At some point yesterday, someone had planted a tree on the city-owned strip of land in front of my house, directly on the property line between my neighbor and me.
Some people might take this tree’s appearance as a good thing. In fact, most people would probably think it a good thing. I am not one of those people. I hate having trees near my house. Over my house. In my yard. They drop leaves in gutters. Block the sun. Buckle a brand-new sidewalk (which ours is, by the way). One of the best features of our house is how much light it gets. Until it gets dark outside, you don’t even need to turn on a light, including in the basement, which only has those little, weird basement ground-level windows. It’s bright and airy and happy in here. And do you know why? Because there aren’t many damn trees surrounding the house, and the ones that are aren’t that big.
We only have two trees on our property: a medium-sized one all the way at the end of the backyard and a young, city-owned one at the edge of the street in the front. They’re large enough to provide visual appeal but small enough that they don’t reach the house or block much light. One of the things I loved about this house when we looked at it was that the trees near it weren’t large and that the neighbor on one side didn’t have any trees at all in his yard, front and back.
Since most of the houses in my area have trees—and big ones, at that—there was always this fear in the back of my mind that the city would notice the treeless gap on our side of the street. I just kept hoping they had better things to worry about and wouldn’t get around to fixing it for a while. I guess not.
My wife tried to calm me down by explaining that it’s not a big deal. Trees take a while to get big enough to where it’ll bother you, she said. It won’t get tall enough to drop leaves in our gutters for years and years and years. For now, it’s small enough that all it does is help the curb appeal of our house, which we’re always trying to improve, anyway. All good points. None of them working.
It’s not a raking issue. I don’t mind doing yardwork. But what if when this tree grows, no one maintains its branches, and they’re left to hang low and in the way, forcing me to duck under spider-filled foliage every time I cut my grass? It’s in that awkward spot between the houses where you can’t really tell whose property it’s on, so I don’t know if I’m even allowed to trim it.
There are no leaves on the branches, so I can’t tell what kind of tree it is. What if it’s one of those trees without purpose that doesn’t even turn pretty colors in the fall? What if it ends up being one that drops those damn propellers in my gutters?
Who’s going to have to pay to fix my sidewalk when it eventually buckles and cracks it? Probably me.
I’m all about planting trees to keep our world pretty, give back to the environment, make sure our air’s full of oxygen, blah, blah, blah. But can we all agree to keep them away from my house?
The Procrastinating Writer 