A woman on TikTok is going viral after detailing how a neighbor’s backyard makeover ended with dozens of trees on her property getting bulldozed.

Linz DeFranco (@linzdefranco), based in Georgia, explained that her neighbor approached her last year about extending his backyard farther out. That plan, she said, involved removing trees that sat on both of their lots.

DeFranco made it clear that she wanted to protect her privacy and didn’t want a full clear-cut. According to her, the neighbor agreed to mark which trees would go before any work started. Then nothing happened for a year. No updates. No heads-up.

That is, until she woke up one morning and realized most of her trees were gone. As she put it in her video, which has already racked up more than 2.3 million views as of Friday, the project she thought would be coordinated turned into a total wipeout of her backyard privacy.

What happened next?

DeFranco says the only communication she eventually received was a notice asking whether crews had “approval” to start cutting. She hadn’t signed anything. And, she said, her neighbor had promised to let her know if any of her trees were going to be affected.

She showed viewers what her yard used to look like, full of trees and completely private. Then she cut to the present.

“Imagine my surprise when I woke up one day to see this,” she said. “Complete and total destruction.”

According to DeFranco, her home’s previous owners bought the lot next door specifically for privacy, yet “the privacy is all [expletive] gone.” She said she was devastated and immediately emailed her neighbor to say he had no right to remove the trees and that the remaining ones were off-limits.

Her neighbor, she says, responded that the city required those trees to come down for his renovation plans. DeFranco pushed back. “Those aren’t your trees to cut down,” she told viewers.

@linzdefranco Any advice? I don’t know exactly how many trees were cut down because they’ve removed all the stumps, but I can tell you it is over 100. #treegate #treelaw ♬ original sound – LinzDefranco

She’s now trying to figure out how this was allowed in the first place. DeFranco says she has reached out to her HOA and told her neighbor not to “touch foot” on her property again until she gets answers.

“I truly just feel so violated and taken advantage of,” she said.

How something called ‘tree law’ might save her

In the comments under DeFranco’s video, many people urged her to look into something called tree law. It sounds dramatic, but it’s really just the set of rules that spell out who owns what when it comes to trees and what happens when someone cuts one down without permission.

At its core, tree law is about property rights. A tree belongs to whoever owns the land where its trunk sits. If that trunk straddles a property line, both neighbors own it, and both have to sign off before it comes down. People are allowed to trim branches or roots that cross onto their side, but only up to the line. If they overdo it and damage the tree, they can be held responsible.

Liability comes into play when a tree causes damage. If it falls in a storm and is healthy, it’s often chalked up to an unavoidable act of nature. But if a neighbor ignored a dead or dangerous tree, they may be on the hook for the repairs.

To avoid a mess like DeFranco’s, homeowners are urged to double-check their property lines, talk things through before cutting anything major, and bring in an arborist when a tree looks risky or complicated.

Commenters say woman’s neighbor made a big mistake

People who watched DeFranco’s video didn’t mince words. They immediately zeroed in on one thing: Tree law can get very real, very fast, and her neighbor may have opened himself up to a costly legal mess by cutting down trees he didn’t own.

“You’re about to be rich, rich,” one woman quipped. “Tree law is serious.”

“That was an expensive mistake for him to do,” another viewer said.

“Girl, sue not just for tree law, but there’s no way the new view doesn’t change the property value,” a third person added. “Sue for the changes, too.”

“You need to go get yourself an arbor lawyer, and you need to go get yourself paid,” someone else urged. “They’re gonna have to replant large trees, and it’s going to cost them a fortune, and you guys are gonna get money.”

“That guy is now on the hook for millions in damages,” another commenter warned. “Tree law is insane.”

Others couldn’t believe the destruction and were furious on her behalf.

“I would be DEVASTATED,” one person wrote. “Your neighbor is unbelievable.”

“I audibly gasped at the after picture,” another said.

“Ugh, this pissed me off, those trees were GORGEOUS,” a third person added.

“I would go scorched earth,” someone else said.

The Daily Dot has reached out to DeFranco via TikTok for more information.

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The post “I truly just feel so violated”: Woman’s neighbors bulldoze all of her trees, sparking a discussion about tree law appeared first on The Daily Dot.

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