OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma couple is hoping that a tree trimming business fixes their mistake after plants were taken from their front yard.
Drew Skaggs and his wife were shocked when they watched the video, caught by their front door surveillance camera. The video shows a group of men with a truck and gardening tools first survey the plants surrounding the home. Then, one man is seen indicating to a ten-year-old tree right in front of the couple’s front door, and the others dig it up, carry it away, and fill in the hole. A second plant was also taken.
“It was quite shocking to see that they would walk up in my yard in the daytime and take the trees,” Skaggs said.
The two said they don’t have gardeners and they’ve never hired landscapers. They even posted the video on their neighborhood social media site.
“On our neighborhood website, no one was able to identify the landscapers,” Skaggs said.
The two fear they may be taking healthy plants from people’s yards and planting them at other homes.
Police said they’re looking into it, but say it may have been a mistake, that the group could simply have done work on the wrong house.
“If that’s the case,” Skaggs said, “they should reach out to the police department.”
Either way, the two are unnerved by the incident.
“You have something that belongs to you and you come out and someone’s taken it,” Skaggs said, “and it’s gone.”
After our story aired, Skaggs says the owner of a tree trimming business called to say that he sent his crew to her home by accident. The couple says they expect that he will fix his mistake and replace the tree.