Invasive roots from neighboring tree

[HiloJulie]

Did you ever consider you were always made more than whole BECAUSE you were an attorney? 

Fair point and that could be true. Although I never had to use my occupation as a threat to settle a claim, but I do agree, if one is having an issue settling a claim, I for sure recommend you tell them "well hey, you know and I hate to go this way, but I got this attorney who says..."

[Obie]

Would you like me to come by and take a look ? I had the same exact thing happen only twice.
I had roots coming out of toilets on both levels of my house and they actually came out the roof vent.
The previous owner planted 2 banyon tress in the 1970's on a lot just behind his own in Vacationland. I started having drain problems soon after purchasing in 2000.
I tore out a lot of the sewer and vent system to get rid of the roots but because of the jungle behind my property I didn't realize the banyon was the cause until years later.
I had started applying copper sulfate through the toilets back after I 1st found the drains plugged and since I had a cess pool I kept checking it. Within a few years the root were gone. Continuous yearly treatments cured my problem.
It took me 3 years to cut the tree down and haul it off.

On my property I bought in 2020 after the eruption after clearing the front third of my property I discovered a banyon in my front yard.
At the time we were just cutting down the invasive trees which was pretty much everything except 5 Ohias, a Hala and a native palm.

My friend started clearing the ground and we found my entire property was Pahoehoe lava covered with about 8 inches of roots mixed with soil.
He used an OO bar and we rolled the roots up like a carpet and hauled it all away.
My entire front third is now bare lava. I pressure wash it a couple of times a year.

When we got to the banyon, when we got to the banyon, my neighbor had a D9 in his front yard leveling it out.
A neighbor behind me heard all the noise and came down to see what was going on. He had just moved from the mainland and had shipped over a 12 inch commercial chipper and a stump grinder and offered to chip the entire tree if we cut it down.
I got together a crew of friends and we cut the thing down in one day and chipped it all up.
The next day I had the D9 come over and he got the stump out and tried to smash it by running over it but was unsuccessful.
Neighbor brought over the stump grinder and I had more mulch.

The important thing is most of the roots from everything growing in there were on top of the lava in that 8 inch layer with the exception of a tap root that was growing straight down.

[knieft]

Thanks Obie. Sounds very familiar. We’ll see how deep the roots are in our case.

FTR, we will be getting the property line rip shanked to break the roots and then treat with salt and lime regularly. We have also given the owner a two month ultimatum to show some evidence of removal before proceeding legally.

Thanks to all responders. Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Kirt