Where I live used to be beautiful and shady. You could see evergreen trees near and far. You could hear the wind whisper through their branches.
Now park {*} management has come in and chopped down almost every tree they can reach. It looks like a naked, ugly new development.
My theory is that most people who are given ANY power, no matter how much or how little, immediately abuse it. Your council has the power to forbid, so they forbid everything. My park owner has the power to kill, so she kills everything.
What infuriates a power-hungry person or group more than anything else?
Having their authority defied.
>> Is there some kinda sneaky way to kill this tree?
If you want it dead, look for a VERY sneaky way, that leaves no fingerprints.
Tell no one you resent it being forbidden.
When it starts dieing, go to the council and beg for help keeping it alive.
Water it frequently and anxiously while neighbors are watching ... they can't tell that you're watering it with herbicide.
>> less than a meter from a bedroom window
If it's too late to be stealthy, can you use the law against the law? Roots can crack a foundation. Maybe in a "spirit of cooperation", you could discuss with the council ahead of time how they are going to pay all the damages when the roots crack your foundation, and how MUCH they want to pay, which would determine WHEN they cut down the tree and start rebuilding your house from the ground up.
This kind of thinking comes from having lived in New Jersey too long.
At least there, we had checks and balances against government and other power-intoxicated people.
We could always hire someone from the Mafia to reason with someone (after breaking one or two of their legs. One guy told me he knew someone who gave a discount on the second leg!) That came up when a newbie was taken for many thousands of dollars by a real estate scammer (No, not Donald Trump). The local judge was in on it, as he found out when he learned that he was something like victim #6. That's when Dominick brought up "this guy he knew" who had a progressive pricing structure for leg-breaking.
{*} Manufactured Home Park. They own the tiny parcels of land, which we rent, and WE own the small pre-manufactured homes that sit on the lots. So the park management is like an HOA, but more whimsical and with no way to appeal.
When asked not to kill all our lovely trees, they said they did it "for safety", which I think is a deceitful way of saying "because we felt like it, so shut up". Every tree that I saw, that they chopped, was healthy and good for several more decades at least. I wouldn't put it past this ... person ... to have killed them because she was too cheap to buy firewood.
She also periodically announces that she is going to "trap any cats loose in the park". I think her henchmen tell her they set traps but never set them, or there would have been villagers with pitchforks and torches in the streets. I see more cats walking around than people.
