• stray@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    22 hours ago

    Littering your yard with food attracts things like rats, raccoons, squirrels, etc, which destroy property and infrastructure, spread disease, and cause injury to people and pets. I’m not saying I’m against fruit trees, but I do understand people who are. It’s a legitimate concern. Some areas even have things like boars or bears which are extremely dangerous.

    I’m also curious with the way you can sue people in the US what would happen if someone becomes sick after eating one of your fruits. I imagine it varies by state.

    • BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      I lived in a small city (~30k) in the middle of rural texas growing up, and our main wildlife was deer, squirrels, possums, foxes, armadillos, javalinas, and birds, although we also had the occasional ratsnake or raccoons or skunks.

      We didn’t really have fruit trees, but we did have plenty of pecans and several gardens of all kinds of veggies, a fig tree that never seemed to bloom, and some assorted berrying bushes.

      We never experienced these plagues of infrastructural damage and diseases and hurt pets (4 cats and 2 dogs in total) that you describe. Idk where people get these horror stories from.

      I suppose it can happen, but that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.

      I s2g cityfolk act like getting brushed up against by a non-domesticated critter will give them an instant prion disorder.

      • stray@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 minutes ago

        that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.

        I think this is the case. In urban areas you get the rats and such nesting directly in people’s homes because there’s nowhere else for them to be, thanks to the absolute miles of pavement. When I’ve lived in more rural areas you would see a lot of animals all the time, but everyone was pretty much minding their own business. I think habitat destruction is the real problem.

      • Delphia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Dropped fruit all over the ground really encourages rats though.

        My mum got a house super cheap when I was young because it had a “rat problem” it also had a peach tree in the back yard that the owner didnt pick up after. We removed literal garbage bags of peach pits from the roof space and crawl spaces of that house and garage.

        Chopped the peach tree down (it wasnt a healthy tree anyway) and the problem basically disappeared in days.

    • Thebigguy@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      15 hours ago

      This. Fruit trees are loads of work that most amateur gardeners don’t know how to deal with them or have the time to deal with them. Gardening and farming is a shitload of work and was only made cheap and easy through the marvel of modern technology. You don’t just plant shit and get to eat lol