A TikToker has gone viral after a neighbor’s home extension project severely interfered with their home. A furious Lindsay DeFranco (@linzdefranco), the wife of YouTuber Phillip DeFranco, shared her frustration in a TikTok. It ended up amassing a huge 2.9 million views.
It all started with a simple request: DeFranco’s neighbor wanted to cut down a number of trees bordering her property. They wanted to fill up a retention pond in order to extend their backyard. At the time, Lindsay agreed with this. However, she stressed that she didn’t want all of the trees to be cut down in order to maintain her family’s privacy.
In response, this neighbor assured DeFranco that it would only be a couple of trees that would be cut down. He reportedly said he will mark them before getting them cut.
Then, DeFranco said she heard nothing until a year later. Then, she got sent a document about filling in the retention pond and having work done in her backyard. She didn’t sign anything and assumed her neighbor would let her know if any work commenced.
However, they did not. And one day, DeFranco woke up to a very different view. She shared a ‘before’ image of her property, which is essentially fenced in by opaque trees. However, in the ‘after’ footage, almost every tree is cut down. The horizon is largely visible in the gaps between the trees.
DeFranco refers to it as “complete and total destruction.”
@linzdefranco Any advice? I don’t know exactly how many trees were cut down because they’ve removed all the stumps, but I can tell you it is over 100. #treegate #treelaw ♬ original sound – LinzDefranco
Commenters told her to lawyer up
According to commenters, the next step was litigation.
“As the wife of an attorney… Tree law is no joke,” one wrote. “You need to go get yourself an arbor lawyer, and you need to go get yourself paid. They’re gonna have to replant large trees and it’s going to cost them a fortune and you guys are gonna get money.”
“Oooooooh you’re about to be rich rich,” another said. “Tree law is serious.” Similarly, a third commenter wrote that “TikTok has taught me that tree law is serious,” while a fourth remarked: “That was an expensive mistake for him to do.”
A fifth predicted, “I could see this paying out over 100,000$ easily.”
The TikToker issued two follow-ups
In a follow-up video, DeFranco reiterated that she was “devastated” by this and took action. She said she sent an email to the neighbor and put up a sign in her yard requesting that they not cut any more trees. In response, the neighbor says the city told them that, to get this work done, all the trees had to be cut down.
In turn, DeFranco shared that she requested the contact details of those who approved the work. She contacted the Homeowner Association, which had previously approached her with some documents that she didn’t sign.
She said she also asked for a land surveyor to stake out the boundary line. DeFranco insists that she doesn’t want the neighbors to work near her property until the boundary is properly set and until she gets a written agreement from the neighbors to fix what they’ve done.
DeFranco added that suing doesn’t fix the problem: she and her family remain “completely exposed,” and decades/centuries of tree growth have now been destroyed. “I just feel icky about it,” she complained.
In a final update, DeFranco shared that the HOA held a meeting about the issue and found that the permit the neighbor got from their city doesn’t include their property. The TikTok user also seemed to change her decision on suing, as she shared that she plans to hire her own attorney.
DeFranco didn’t immediately respond to The Mary Sue’s request for comment via TikTok comment and contact form.
Tree law violations are widespread
DeFranco isn’t the only person to experience this issue. The r/treelaw subreddit is full of aggrieved netizens whose neighbors cut down their trees without their permission.
One Redditor shared how a neighbor didn’t just cut down their walnut tree, which was a memorial tree for their daughter, but they also hired the only tree lawyer in town on retainer. Another complained that a neighbor cut down a tree despite “fully knowing it was on our property.”
Similarly, a third posted how a neighbor cut a tree “way up [their] property line,” while a fourth emphasised that their neighbor didn’t get permission from anyone living at their condo to cut down multiple trees.
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