The giant silver maple in front of my house had been haunting the three prior homeowners for over 30 years. The tree was located about 18 inches from the property line in the middle of the 20-foot wide street in front of the house. The road, however, only serves four houses and was thus, neglected and only about nine feet wide. For all intents and purposes, the tree looked like it was growing in my front yard. The silver maple had two huge branches (which I later found out were called leaders or scaffold limbs) directly over both sides of the house. Three weeks before we purchased the home, a leader broke off and did about $10,000 damage to a neighbor's house.
I had received a phone call from my insurance agent alerting me that I had to do something with the giant tree or I risked losing my homeowners coverage. I proceeded to solicit bids for the removal of the tree, which all came in around $3000—not a fee I was anticipating when I purchased my new home.
I was in contact with the electrical company because there were eight wires tangled up in the tree. The wires were all at about 45 degree angles due to being caught up in the branches. I thought that maybe the electrical company would remove the tree due to the wires, but they were unwilling to deal with the tree until a problem with their wires actually occurred. The city wasn't going to take on the removal of the tree because they believed the tree was on my property.
As the tree became an increasing headache, I was about ready to write a check for $3000 to have it removed when I met an ASCA Consulting Arborist at a community function. I had never heard of a Consulting Arborist, but once we started talking about what I had been facing with the silver maple in front of my home, I realized that a Consulting Arborist was exactly what I needed. He quickly recommended several items that I could research at the courthouse, and also suggested that he should take a look at the tree.
After looking up documents at the courthouse and ascertaining that indeed, the tree was located on city property, I had the ASCA Consulting Arborist perform a hazard evaluation on the tree. It turned out to be in even worse shape than I could ever have imagined. He ended up rating it at an 11 out of 12 on the hazard scale. He then prepared a professional booklet report that clearly and thoroughly explained his findings, methods of analysis, conclusions, and his recommendations. I now had solid information that I could take back to the city.
I was connected to the city's attorney who was impressed by the research I had done and the findings of the Consulting Arborist, and ultimately agreed that the problematic tree was, in fact, on city property—and a big liability.
Eight weeks later the nightmare silver maple was removed by the city. The Consulting Arborist's concern that the leader directly over our house was of immediate danger was confirmed when that leader was removed-it was full of rot and black ants! He had seen something that indicated to him that there was rot in the leader and he had included it in his report. The company that removed the tree said we were lucky the branch had never fallen due to the amount of rot and weight that leader was carrying. The tree removal company also commented that if the municipality had addressed the tree 30 years earlier, it would have been a lot easier to remove and at half the cost.