Bamboo Growth Causes Rift Between Neighbors, Gets Attention of Town Board

The growth of yellow groove bamboo, which has crossed property lines form the owner of the bamboo into neighbors’ property, has caused a divide between neighbors and has also caught the attention of the town board.

Keith and Ann Marie Alletto of Oak Avenue have been engaged in an ongoing feud with neighbors Robert and Margaret Baldwin of Elm Avenue concerning bamboo infiltrating their property dating back to 2004.

“In 2004 we purchased the home … approximately a month to two months after that we noticed that the cesspool line had backed up into the basement,” Keith said. “My brother in law who is a plumber came to the house to try to clean it out and said there must be a blockage within the line. We dug down to the cesspool line after removing the deck off of the house because the cesspool line went underneath the deck, and we uncovered roots … after uncovering and tracing back the roots we traced them back to the rear property line to this large cluster of bamboo.”

According to Alletto, rhizomes – the rooting system of the bamboo – penetrated the cesspool line. He said the cesspool line being penetrated wasn’t the only problem the bamboo caused as his basement foundation wall started to collapse.

“We’re into the house maybe three to four months and I have to start digging up the foundation wall to the basement stairs,” he said. “We dug down and noticed again that all these rhizomes were pushing up against the foundation of the house.”

Alletto then sought advice from horticulturalists and other various plant experts on how to deter this problem from causing more damage to his home and property, which led him to install an in-ground barrier near his rear property line.

“I hired a private contractor with a backhoe to install this 36 inch trench and to remove and spot dig the entire back yard to get rid of the roots, so basically I dug up my entire back yard as well as that 135 foot trench, 36 inches deep,” he said. “Right off the bat we’re not even in the house a year and I’m already looking at $7,000 to $8,000 worth of additional costs to the purchase of the home.”

According to Alletto, this repair turned out to be temporary.

“I installed that back in 2005, come spring of 2007 I noticed that it broke through, so we were back at square one, it’s infiltrated the barrier,” Alletto said.

Alletto said he never brought the issue to the Baldwin’s attention and took care of the maintenance of the bamboo on his property and the prevention of it causing more damage to his home himself until Robert Baldwin called the police upset that Alletto was touching his bamboo. This led the Alletto’s to take the Baldwin’s to court in 2008 for private nuisance and an injunction to remove the bamboo or have it maintained so it did not infiltrate their property.

The Alletto’s lost their case in September 2010.

Although this matter is a private issue, the Alletto’s are not the only Smithtown residents who have had issues concerning bamboo.

Anthony Corbo of Dale Lane said he has had a similar issue with a neighbor’s bamboo growth infiltrating his property. Now retired, he said his main concern is the selling price of his home decreasing because of a neighbor’s plant.

“The house next door to me was for sale and when people came and saw that bamboo they walked right out that door and that’s my fear,” he said. “I am older, I’m retired, I don’t know how much longer I can afford to stay here and my fear is that my house is going down in value because when they see that bamboo the people know about it and they know they’re in trouble.”

Alletto and Corbo have similar views of what they would like to see done by the town concerning the bamboo.

“What I want to see done is I want this outlawed,” Corbo said. “I’m afraid of the future, I’m afraid that this causes damage and people should not be having this stuff.”

“Even if it doesn’t affect me I want it to protect other people in the future and for people to realize that it shouldn’t be planted in a residential area,” Alletto said. “This is not indigenous to Long Island, it’s not supposed to be grown here especially this close to other homes. It’s about getting local law passed that does not grandfather anybody in and to remove the bamboo.”

After the Alletto’s lost their case in court to the Baldwin’s, they brought this issue to the Town of Smithtown and asked Town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio for assistance. Vecchio addressed the issue at a town board meeting and said he currently has Town Attorney Matthew Jakubowski doing research on the issue.

“Sometimes people who need assistance from their government ought to get it no matter how menial the people might think the matter is,” Vecchio said. “It is something that is affecting the lives of the residents, and so the town ought to do its utmost to research it and if it’s feasible we’ll make a law to ban that species.”

Vecchio said he met with Jakubowski Wednesday afternoon to discuss the attorneys’ findings from research conducted thus far.

The Baldwin’s have not commented by time of publication.