First, in late June, we featured the ladder in a tree in our ‘Where Have I Seen This?’ feature.

Then came the complaints from neighbors. Not funny, they said, in essence. In fact, downright dangerous. Not to mention ugly.

So a month later, we zeroed in on the house at 236 Broad Street to ask: Yeah, what’s with the rusty ladder stuck in the groin of the large, dead tree out front? And why has that ladder, and a taller one tied to the roof of the house, been there for more than a year?

Neighbors told us that they’d seen the house’s owner, Kevin Boyce of Long Branch, using several ladders—including at least two supported by the tree itself, not the ground—to try to cut down the tree. But the effort, and one of the ladders, ended up abandoned.

The other ladder, Boyce told us, was one he bought to complete the tree removal. But he instead used it to re-shingle the roof of the house, and left it there when that job got interrupted.

Boyce told us in late July that he’d get the ladders down pronto.

Well, such concepts are relative, of course. But in just the past few days, the extension ladder has been removed from the roof of the enclosed porch.

The one in the ex-tree remains.

Email this story