For the past year, our next door neighbors, consisting of three generations, have been whining, complaining, and cajoling us to cut down the seventy year old tree in our front yard. Everything from how haaaaard it is for poor old grandma to sweep the yard of leaves, as if our tree is the only one in the area or even of its type that drops leaves on the ground. How it blocks light into the house, as if they're blind or have never heard of the electric light. The only legitimate complaint that they had was that the roots were tearing up their yard.

My sisters and I begged our parents not to give into them, as this tree has been growing our whole lives and honestly felt more like a beloved family pet then just a simple tree, but rather then take them to small claims court, my parents decided to be "good Christian neighbors" and cut it down. Then today, the day after the tree comes down, they have a realtor put a fucking open house sign in front of their house. Turns out all that whining was bullshit.

They just didn't want a tree almost as old as their own elderly mother apparently blocking the view of their house. They must've thought it drew their property value down or something. My mother was in tears when she saw it and my father furious. They lied to our faces about why they wanted it down. If they had just TOLD US they were selling their house, we would've worked with them. Cut the roots out of their yard, cut back the branches leaning into their property, shaped the tree. Whatever. But they were manipulative assholes who didn't have the common decency to tell us the real reason they wanted it gone, had us cut it down under false pretenses, and then had the gall to rub it in our faces. We're now out $7,000 that could've gone to our own house repair or my mom's surgery.

Oh, that's the other thing. They bitched and complained and pressured us to do this the same month my mother is going through breast cancer surgery, which they knew was going to happen. This is just in a long line of things that has happened to us recently, but having our neighbors prove to be two-faced assholes who apparently never gave a damn about our own feelings takes the cake.

My dad wants to talk to them in a "nice manner" and discuss this calmly and tell them they need to repay us $7,000 out of what their house is worth. We want to go in there armed as fully prepared as possible. I know we cut the tree down voluntarily, but we did so in a manner because we were deceived into thinking they would still be our neighbors, not immediately try to vacate their property by selling the house. Is there anything we can do?