TREE TROUBLE: Nature sometimes can be a wee cruel especially when your next-door tree begins to creep into your living room. When the branches of a tree start to inch towards your home or start to grow roots into the external walls of your structure, it’s time to write to the managing committee of your CHS to urge the civic and fire-brigade officials to help trim the ‘encroachment’. Cutting off a tree or its branches without the legal intervention of civic authorities is a crime and punishable too but when it begins to cause problems to your structure’s stability, pressing the panic button may make sense. Approach the authorities to replant the tree or trim it.