Ask Adam #1: Nuisance neighbours…

I’ve been contacted by a reader in distress!

Hi I have flower boxes hanging on my deck and I have a neighbor who is so jealous of my flowers that she sprays them with oil .  the soil is so heavy and the flowers get burnt and die.   what kind of covering can I make to put over each individual flower box so yet the the plants gets sunlight but yet it’s covered so she can’t spray my plants.   this is been going on 4 several years iam tired of buying plants & having them get burnt from oil and overdoses of fertilizer. I can’t catch her in act.

I have 7 cameras and can’t catch her. She lives 2 doors away In a townhouse and uses either a squirt gun or some kind of air gun with ice pellets.

Notice the burnt leaves (pic 1 and 2). After all the oil that was sprayed on this planned it died and never came back and if you noticed all the flowers are dead at the same time.

This is what I’m dealing with every single day every single summer for the past 4 years and the police even talk to her

This woman goes through a lot of experimenting so she doesn’t get caught. And the only reason I know about ice pellets is I did research online and in stores and I went to a certain sight and somebody there told me exactly what it was (pic 3). 

And the only reason I know about ice pellets is I did research online and in stores and I went to a certain sight and somebody there told me exactly what it was.

And I went online and some website actually sells molds to make ice pellets.

Anonymous – UK

I’m sorry to hear about this and it’s such a shame all of your hard work over the last 4 years is being tarnished. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a problem like this before.

Having cameras set up is definitely the right and first thing I would do.

I would look to rule out anything in the surrounding environment that could be causing this to your plants – just to be doubly sure that it is the neighbour carrying out these attacks.

I guess I would then try and establish a pattern of when these attacks occur, by putting out fresh plants as some kind of bait, then you would know what to look for. It would be a slow process – but there would be certain traits that you can then capitalise on that will lead to a successful capture.

I would also look to install a security light to deter any activity that might happening around where your plants might be.

I hope the above is useful and I hope you get to the bottom of the problem!

Have you spoken to the neighbours about this at all? Have they also experienced the same happening?

Can you relate to this problem? If yes, I and the reader above would love to read your comments below.