Neighbors furious after luxury hotel sends workers to commit brazen act: 'Police can't catch us'

Several years ago, sometime between late 2021 and early 2022, an incident involving a Chinese-owned hotel in Japan and one of its neighbors culminated in a controversial move by the hotel.

According to Dimsum Daily, Kumonoue Fuji Hotel in Yamanashi Prefecture decided that it needed an unobstructed view of Mount Fuji. The problem? The hotel's neighbor's trees were blocking the view.

However, rather than reaching an agreement with the neighbor, Inoue (a pseudonym), who had no interest in removing their trees, the hotel allegedly sent workers over to the property to cut down the trees and spread herbicide. The result was damage to 23 trees.

Inoue made attempts to hold the business accountable for its actions, but hotel management claimed to know nothing about the incident and also tried to claim Inoue had cut the trees down themselves.

One member of the hotel staff, according to Dimsum Daily, even went so far as to state, "The Japanese police can't catch us."

Unfortunately, neighbors like this one can prove a significant barrier to others. While most people won't have to do battle with a business over an issue that ends in the loss of 23 trees, bad neighbors aren't uncommon and can engage in a variety of acts that cause harm to others' properties.

For homeowners trying to make their homes and yards more climate-friendly to ensure a healthy local ecosystem and reduce the amount of pollution their homes create, neighbors such as this one can quickly become a headache. Most unfortunate of all is the fact that dealing with bad neighbors can be challenging.

In many instances, the most you can do is talk with them to come to a resolution peacefully, but in cases like this one, where a neighbor damages your property, a resolution might have to involve the authorities.

That's exactly what Inoue had to do. They reported the tree-cutting incident, and initially, several people were arrested, including those who physically cut down the trees.

However, authorities released two of the workers without charges after the supervising gardener claimed the workers were only following orders. The owner of the hotel fled Japan, though authorities eventually detained them in April 2025.