  My neighbor, the man from whom we bought our house, has been complaining about a certain tree for some time. It's a gorgeous tree, it shades our sideyard perfectly, even though it's actually rooted on the neighbor's land. We only have a sideyard, so we use it like a backyard. I just bought pretty twinkly lights to hang from said tree so we could entertain guests at our newly acquired picnic table in the sideyard. In Houston, vines like to live on trees and this tree was no exception. I like the vines hanging down from it, and climbing its trunk. They add to the wooded feeling of the corner of our property. But neighborboy killed them. He said they made the tree dangerously weighted toward our house. In a way, I was relieved he killed the vines because I mistakenly thought it would make him stop eyeing the tree with his saw-happy eyes.
A little background: our home is on a corner, and he owns both empty lots that surround our property. He's no normal neighbor, he doesn't work 9-5, then come home and occasionally mow the lawn. He bought up all sorts of property in this neighborhood during the 80s bust and now he just makes his living selling a piece off now and then. Which leaves him with idle time on his hands during the days, time he fills micromanaging empty pieces of land. Neighborboy says he can tell the tree is dangerous because he banged on it and it sounded hollow. Bullshit. Let's get Dr. Randall of Urban Harvest over here to look at it. This tree is healthy, it has beautiful green leaves. Neighborboy says its a wonder it hasn't fallen already and if we get a good storm, it'll fall on our home. Bullshit. John says neighborboy is afraid we'll sue him if it ever falls. And that's a likely explanation since we all see ourselves in the world and neighborboy likes any excuse to bring legal action upon someone.
I know my views about trees are a little unusual here. I'm from Santa Fe, where you need a permit from the city and the county to cut down _any_ tree, of _any_ size and condition. People have been fined and sued for cutting trees there. Santa Fe is a place where people value a tree for its life, and for its life-giving contribution to the Earth.
A tree is not something a mere human, who came around long after the tree grew there, and will be gone long before the tree dies, can kill. But neighborboy is killing the trees on his lot, just cutting them down because they bother his view or he's afraid they'll be more expensive to remove after they fall. Oh, the humanity. 
