Divorced Homeowner Seeks Partner Willing To Take Hedge Disputes Seriously
A 58-year-old divorced homeowner has received fourteen replies to a personal advert specifying that any partner must be willing to take hedge disputes seriously. He has met three of them, and describes one as the first person in eleven years to engage with the evidence.
News Intro
A divorced homeowner has received fourteen replies to a personal advert which, alongside a fondness for country pubs and a good sense of humour, specified that any future partner must be "willing to take hedge disputes seriously".
The advert ran for four weeks in the Companions column of a regional weekly newspaper and was posted in near-identical form to a dating website. The advertiser, 58, a former local authority procurement officer, has so far met three of the respondents. He said the requirement had "done exactly what it was meant to do, which is save everybody time".
The hedge in question is a row of leylandii along the rear boundary of the three-bedroom semi-detached house he retained following his divorce in 2022.
The Advert
Divorced homeowner, 58. Own semi with mature garden. Solvent, tidy, GSOH. Enjoys walks, country pubs, garden centres and a proper Sunday lunch. Seeks warm, loyal lady 50–65 for companionship and possibly more. Must be willing to take hedge disputes seriously. No timewasters.
The Advertiser's Account
I put one honest line in an advert and apparently that makes me the problem
I spent thirty-one years writing specifications for the council. If you don't say what you need at the start, you get what you're given, and then you're stuck with it for the life of the contract. A relationship is no different. So I put it in.
People have taken the hedge line as a joke. It isn't. I'm not asking anyone to agree with me about the hedge. I'm asking them to take it seriously, which is a different thing, and it is the thing I didn't get for eleven years.
The facts are these. The leylandii were planted by the people behind us in 2009. By 2015 they were well over the fence. By 2018 I was losing the sun on the patio from about four o'clock in late summer. I photographed it from the landing window on the first Sunday of every month, same spot, same time, so nobody could say I was going on memory. It's all in a file. I didn't phone the council until 2019 and I only did that when I had to.
My ex-wife's position, for most of that time, was "it's a hedge". She planted a climbing rose against it in 2017, which I thought said a lot. I am not saying the hedge ended our marriage. I am saying that when one person in a marriage raises something every month for seven years and the other one plants a rose on it, that tells you something about listening.
I had fourteen replies. Some were not suitable. I met three.
The first was a retired librarian. We had a coffee at the garden centre near me, which I'd picked because it's a relaxed setting and they sell the same variety, so you can see the growth rate on the labels. Lovely woman. I had the file in the car and she asked to see it, or I offered, I honestly can't remember now. She went through it and said, "That's very thorough." I sent her a message the following week and haven't heard back, which is fine. People are busy.
The second was a walk and a pub lunch. Very pleasant until we got on to the subject and she said, "Have you tried just talking to them?" That is word for word what my ex-wife said in 2016. I paid for lunch and I wished her well. I don't think that's unreasonable. If somebody's first instinct is to skip straight past the evidence, you know where you stand.
The third replied to say she was a retired building surveyor and took "all boundary matters seriously". I'll admit I read that more than once.
She came round on a Saturday. I made tea and we went up to the landing so she could see it from the photograph position. Then she asked if she could go out on the patio, and she took a laser measure out of her handbag. Her own. I hadn't asked her to bring anything.
She measured it at one point nine metres. The council's threshold for a high hedge complaint is two. She said it was, in her words, "frankly well maintained". She also pointed out that the patio faces east, which I knew.
I won't pretend that was easy to hear. But she'd measured it. She'd stood on my patio with her own equipment and done it properly, and she didn't tell me to go and talk to anyone. In eleven years nobody has done that. We've been out four times since. We've agreed to disagree on methodology.
The Boundary
Council records show that a high hedge complaint about the property was received in 2019. An officer visited after the hedge had been reduced by its owners, and the complaint was closed with no action. The advertiser paid the council's application fee and has described the outcome as "procedural".
The neighbours who planted the leylandii sold their house in 2021. The current owners, a couple with a young child, said they had not been aware of any dispute until they received a four-page letter from the advertiser this August. They said they had the hedge cut twice a year by a gardener and would be "very happy to have a chat over the fence", an offer which the advertiser said he was "considering".
His former wife declined to comment beyond confirming that she "did not leave because of the hedge".
Expert Analysis
The advert is more candid than most. He is not really screening for an interest in boundaries. He is screening for a partner who will sit with a grievance rather than try to solve it. The respondent he values most proved the grievance had no basis and he still counts her as the success.
For the avoidance of doubt, a hedge of one point nine metres that is cut twice a year is not a liability, a subsidence risk or a loss. I have seen claims built on less, but not many. I would also gently note that the file appears to contain more than one hundred dated photographs of a hedge remaining roughly the same height.
A View From The Lineside
Lineside vegetation is surveyed to a published standard, cut back on a fixed cycle and recorded against a known datum. Nobody on the railway would accept photographs from a landing window. That said, monthly observation from a consistent position is better practice than I see on several regional routes.
Reader Reaction
u/Leylandii_Survivor_61 · 21430 points · 6h ago
The surveyor measured it, told him it was fine, and he's still seeing her. That's honestly kind of sweet?
u/Quiet_Pergola_Man · 17288 points · 6h ago
"She planted a climbing rose against it in 2017, which I thought said a lot." It did say a lot. Just not what he thinks.
u/HedgeFundManagerActually · 12904 points · 6h ago
The new neighbours didn't even know there was a dispute. He's been fighting a hedge whose owners left five years ago.
u/Mild_Retired_Planner · 9051 points · 6h ago
Small correction to the comments: the two metre figure is the point where a council can consider a complaint at all, not a legal maximum. But yes, 1.9 is below it either way.
u/TeaAndAGrievance · 7716 points · 6h ago
I'm with him on the second date to be honest. If you've spent eleven years on something and the first thing a stranger says is "have you tried talking to them" that does feel a bit dismissive.
u/Mild_Retired_Planner · 6120 points · 6h ago
@TeaAndAGrievance he hadn't talked to them though
u/GardenCentreScone · 4877 points · 6h ago
Which garden centre sells leylandii with the growth rate on the label? Asking because ours just says "fast"
u/east_facing_patio · 3302 points · 6h ago
the patio faces east
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Update
The advertiser has confirmed that his advert has been withdrawn from both the newspaper and the dating website.
He said he and the surveyor had now been out six times, and that at her request he had moved from monthly to quarterly photographs. He has also accepted the neighbours' offer of a chat over the fence, and said he would be bringing the file "for reference only".
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