A Reddit post about a neighbor problem highlighted the hazards of dealing with invasive species and inattentive landlords.
"When it snows, my neighbor's bamboo leans over and damages all my things," the user wrote last month in r/pics, sharing a photo.
The poster later revealed they were a renter and that their landlord was not interested in helping.
The safety issues — plus damage to an internet line, a shade house, and an organic garden — showed the power of invasive species.
Bamboo is a nuisance in the United States because of "extremely vigorous growth and resilience despite control efforts," according to the University of Maryland Extension, which noted the wood-like grass "degrades natural areas and displaces native plants."
Its culms, or canes, don't grow in thickness but can climb 30 feet in their first year. It's easier to remove the plant than to contain it since the latter requires more long-term work, but bamboo can be corralled by removing new culms in spring — before they harden in summer.
Removal requires cutting the plant before it grows leaves to starve it, or excavating its rhizomes, which grow horizontally underground and can stretch more than 100 feet, per the Extension. Either way, the bamboo can continue to grow or resprout, so new shoots must be chopped down at ground level.
One Redditor touted this solution, saying: "The leaves are the primary way for the bamboo plant to make food, it takes quite a few resources to send up shoots and if you starve the rhizome, it can take multiple seasons, but you only need a machete."
Others offered different solutions. A good first step in such a situation is to talk politely with your neighbor. You can circumvent a stubborn landlord or homeowners association in other ways as well.
"If that's on the power lines, you shouldn't touch it," one user advised. "Call the electric company and/or fire dept and let them deal with it. Hopefully they'll advise the neighbor their vegetation is a hazard.
"If it's not on power lines (just communication) then I would take a chain saw (or sawz all with pruning blade) and first cut it near the lines to free the lines, then cut it back to the property line, which you have the right to cut anything over your property."
Another commenter provided novel thoughts after they had dealt with bamboo that ran wild.
"You could almost see it grow," they wrote. "It came out of the ground like asparagus.
"Some instances it seems like the best idea is to get a Panda. Where I'm at now it's poison ivy left to grow unchecked for years. The vines clinging to a shed and on some of the trees are monstrous. I've considered renting goats."
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