Man living next to parish drainage canal says he'll cut grass but draws the line at trees, says parish should do it
BATON ROUGE - A man living next to a parish drainage canal says he's had it with the trees encroaching onto his property.
The canal runs under Chevelle Drive in Baton Rouge and Barry Kalt lives next door. He says that the trees along the canal are hanging over his property and uprooting his fence.
"It's unsightly, it just doesn't look nice, it doesn't look right," Kalt said.
On the other side of Kalt's fence is not his property. Even so, for some time Kalt has paid his lawn service to tend to the grass along the canal. He doesn't want it growing out of control and attracting unwanted critters.
Kalt says he's cleaned up the overgrowth before, but contacted 2 On Your Side because he says he shouldn't have to do it again.
"Those trees had grown all the way out, almost to the edge where that dirt is there and I cleaned all of that out myself," he said. "I just don't think it's right that I should have to pay thousands of dollars to trim trees that are not on my property."
Kalt says the overgrowth is causing damage to his property and uprooting his fence. The trees are also dropping limbs.
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"You can just look up and see all this here, there's a lot of dead plant material," he said. "I mean, that thing is out of control."
Kalt says he's contacted the parish about the trees before and said he was told the trees were his responsibility. Kalt says, not this time.
"I'm not paying for that," he said.