Getting Along With Neighbors -

[glegolo]

Hello!!

I would be grateful to have this forums opinion on how I shall act in this situation. It is quite common

all over the world, but with a little bit of normal reasoning, this can be solved without too big irritation.

But no!!

let me explain, My family moved in into a new house, with a new garden beg. may this year. The first

thing I did outside in my garden was to "take away" two of the 3 trees the seller had landscaped for me....

I hate to have big trees which eventuelly will dominate both mine and other gardens. So I replaced these

ones with smaller bushes and all was fine. Now since 1 month back my neighbours f-ng tree grows like hel_l

and is now inside my garden with at least 1,5 meter and the amount of leafs it drops is enormous!!

I have now been out and taking away the leafs 4-5 times and yesterday I was sick and tired of it. The neighbour

was obiously not going to do anything about it. So I went out, cut of 4 small bransches and throw them over to

their side of the wall.

Today this morning response came quickly.... they were very angry saying that I could have told them... they were

not sorry at all that they have seen me taking up their leafs 4-5 times, that didn´t bother them at all!! Than the usual

came, and even tough I do not understand Thai, I could "hear" words like ,- "this is Thailand".

meaning of course that I do not know the way of how Thai is doing stuff. And they maybe are right.

I am now looking for your "wisdom" on this forum.. how shall I behave. I am the bad one here???? And the thai shall as

usual do as they please without any consideration????

Glegolo

Edited August 11, 2009 by glegolo

[Mosha]

I assume your significant other is Thai? Probably my first action would have been to ask ask her to speak to him, it looks as though you may have declared war.

[mauGR1]

I assume your significant other is Thai? Probably my first action would have been to ask ask her to speak to him, it looks as though you may have declared war.

I agree on this one.Even in Western countries it would be unpolite to throw the branches you cut across the fence

In general it seems that a normal relation with neighbours is worth picking up a few leaves that fall in your garden

[eek]

I have to agree..that even in the west it would be polite to have a quick chat with your neighbour regarding your wishes to trim/prune back the tree. It would be seen by most i think as being quite rude to throw the branches back into their garden. I dont know what the best approach is in Thailand to smooth over a situation, but maybe pleading ignorance is your best move, or if you have a Thai wife or friend, even them doing that for you. Then have some word with the neighbours saying that you apologise and that you didnt realise they would be offended. Im sure others have experience of smoothing over tensions with the neighbours, so can give you a better approach than i. But for me, i would apologise and say I did not think it would offend..but then again, i personally wouldnt have done it in the first place..so i dont know!

[glegolo]

hello Guys!!

Thanks all for your replies.... you seemed to agree, so I understand that I have to apolgize. In fact I did that already round noon today.

But if they accept it or not I do not know!!! Maybe good to use this situation in order NOT to care for cutting branches that goes over to me!!

Anyhow, I was suggested to use a friends wife who is a teacher (thai) and maybe she can help me smoth things over and also inform them what I want from them... There is not a couple of leafs, there are some hundreds every dam_n day!!

But anyhow I understand from your posts that it was stupid to throw the branches back over to them. But in my mind I just thought that the tree belonged to them not to me!!!

OK we have to see what comes from this.... the problem in the bpottom is that Thai just dont care about if their garden is being

littered by leafs, not as a falang anyhow. But lets hope for the best...

Glegolo

[bina]

a few points:

1.should have spoken with them first, along the lines of: your trees branches are shading my flowers, can i prune a small amount or will u do it for me so as not to ruin the tree..

2. thais see leaves as organic fertizer and most dont go for the european style flower garden (if they are from upcountry then veggies in rows, and flowers/potted flowers in a collection near the house-- this from what i coould see, but i could be wrong) so the leaves wouldnt bother them (hubby put all my pots together in one area; the rest is for food stuffs...

3. in the age of global warming too bad u got rid of trees that hold soil, contain and use moisture , and put in a garden which needs maintenance and watering when even in thailand the amount of rainfall seems to be reducing itself

of course its your problem to rake the leaves. they bother u, not him. i would just move my garden. (thai huband chopped back my neighbors quamkwat tree that overhung our garden so i had to do the smoothing over, and she just asked that we get her to prune next time. and he just rakes up all the tree and flower stuff that falls from her side to mine -hers is higher up then ours)and spreads it in one area as 'fertilizer'.

trees provide shade too, so maybe some reorganzing /landscaping could be beneficial to both side?

bina

israel

[kikoman]

I Never forget that ,I am but a visitor in their country. They were right "This is Thailand", If you want to get along you need to be diplomatic with your neighbors.

I have had that problem, my wife went over to ask the neighbor what could be done to alleviate the problem.

The neighbor came out and cleared all the over hanging limbs her self and gave us permission to do it in the future as we agreed with her if any of our actions offended her to talk to us and we will remedy our actions.

That was 3 years ago and no further problems in that area.

Cheers: