The tree was probably there first. It's a huge maple and was full grown when we moved in 18 years ago. It might be close to 100 years old. We don't live in a subdivision. I'd rather be kicked in the nuts repeatedly than do that.

Our "town" is a little unincorporated community that was the first white settlement in our county back in the very early 1800s. It sits right where a major river begins at the outflow of one of the larger natural lakes in our state, so it was a trading post with the natives before there were any roads. It probably would have ended up as the county seat, but the railroad came through about 6 miles south later on, and a town down that way got the honor. They can keep it.


Our house dates to somewhere between 1900 and 1905 depending upon which records you look at, with a number of updates and additions added on since then. I'm not sure if the trees are as old as the house, but they've definitely been there a long time. Our lot is half an acre, and the house sits at the back of it. The trees are all the way down front, so they're no threat to the house, or the neighbors. Worst case it would fall in the road, but it would have to fall west to do that, and that's pretty unlikely because our winds are predominantly from the west, plus past trimmings had left most of the weight on the east side of the tree.

The lines run along the west side of our property right by the tree, so it's understandable that they'd want to keep the limbs clear. We have a big Hackberry tree directly to the south of it that the lines run right through the middle of, and they barely trimmed that one at all.

The power company isn’t a landscaping company. If you let your trees fall into what is deemed dangerous to the power lines they aren’t going to trim it back a little they are going to wack it so they don’t have to come back over and over. Probably intentionally making it look like garbage hoping you cut it down the rest of the way so they don’t ever have to come back for that tree.

Con Ed left a big maple on in front of a house I owned in NY looking just like OP’s and ignored my calls for months until I came across their Facebook page where they claimed highly skilled arborists supervised all their trimming. I posted a photo of their handiwork in comments and heard nothing from them but within a week the eyesore was gone, including the stump.