Joany Franssen (36) from Eindhoven is maddened by a tree that grows inside her. The roots of an Acacia tree in her street grow under her house. And now from those roots grows a small tree in her living room. “I’m getting discouraged about this.”
In the corner of her living room, branches with small leaves stick out from the baseboards. “I keep cutting them off, otherwise it would have been up to the ceiling,” she knows. “It causes a lot of stress. I’m constantly working on it,” says a visibly tired Joany. “It really gives me sleepless nights.”
The roots come from a larger tree, further down the street. The thick tree roots cause cracks in the asphalt and crooked sidewalks. And so they grow to Joany’s house. Whatever the resident tries, the tree comes back. “I don’t give him water. And no money grows on it,” she says with a laugh.
How exactly does it happen? “No idea. They are the forces of nature, they are strong.” The problems may be caused by previous residents, she says. “They deposited yellow sand in the crawl space. That might make it easier for the roots to grow there,” Joany thinks.
The woman has been living in social housing for five years, but the problems started a year and a half ago. Suddenly the branches appeared. She reported the problems to her landlord Woonbedrijf SWS.HhvL. “You don’t feel taken seriously at all. I’ve scheduled about fifty callbacks,” Joany says.
“They just let it happen. It quickly became a big bouquet,” she continues. “Because of the corona measures, no one was allowed to come and see at first. The roots and branches continued to grow in the meantime.” In September, part of her backyard was excavated to eradicate the roots, but this turned out not to be the solution either.
Joany fears that her entire floor will soon have to be removed to eradicate all the roots. “Once that floor is gone, you will never get it back.” She therefore wants the housing sector to give her a new floor if it has to be removed, “But they don’t.”
She says she has received one month’s rent of 630 euros from the housing association. “You don’t have a new floor for that. I just make it every month,” says Joany. “A cheap floor is easily 930 euros.”
In a response, the municipality says it cannot do anything. “In this case it’s very annoying, but on private land we can’t help. Hopefully the tenant will come to an agreement with the landlord.”
The housing association has tried to stop the roots with root cloths, but it has not been successful. “The only option now is to break open the floor to remove the roots. Naturally, these costs will be borne by Woonbedrijf.”
According to the landlord, the damage to the laminate floor is covered by the contents insurance. The problem is that Joany didn’t have that insurance, but she does have the baked pears.
Joany feels abandoned. She won’t rest until the roots are gone. “This makes you desperate. The impotence is enormous. I just want peace.”