Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York

Re: Neighbor's complaining

If your plants, trees, vegitation, etc. encroach on your neighbor's property it is your responsibility to trim or cut-back or remove the offending material.

Re: Neighbor's complaining

Bamboo is a highly invasive weed, and has been known to be so for years. Growing bamboo on your property is a violation of the law of nuisance. It sounds impressive in Latin: sic utere tuo ut non alienum: use your property and not someone else's. Unless you start your bamboo patch on your own very large parcel of land, it is substantially certain to spread onto the neighbor's land. There is still relatively little practical law on nuisance plants, but it is changing, and yes, you have liability. So, I would get out the Round-up and kill all of the bamboo I could find. And recognize that you are very much at risk for a nasty messy lawsuit that you have essentially no chance of winning. So my advice is to do what it takes to exterminate the bamboo (this is NOT easy) and placate the neighbors, because you are simply in the wrong here. You might have a suit over against the nursery that sold you the bamboo, for failure to warn you about the characteristics of this weed, but that is not a defense if the neighbor sues.