About a year after Seymour resident Caryn Rickel sued four of her neighbors over bamboo allegedly coming into her yard from theirs, the battle rages on.
Rickel claimed in her lawsuit that two of her neighbors, Michael and Roberta Komaromi of Sunset Terrace, planted the bamboo in 1994 without an underground plastic barrier, and that the root systems overtook Rickel’s property. Rickel lives on Edgehill Terrace, which backs up to Sunset Terrace.
Rickel also claimed her neighbors William and Laura Price bought another property on Sunset Terrace in July 2010 that had bamboo growing on it. They did nothing to stop the bamboo from spreading to her property, Rickel claims, so she’s suing them, too.
In the latest development in the civil case, which has not yet come to trial at Superior Court in Milford, the Prices won the right to use time as a defense against Rickel’s lawsuit.
In court documents, the Prices said Rickel had waited too long to file a lawsuit against them because the bamboo was planted in 1994. Rickel didn’t file her lawsuit until November 2010.
On Aug. 1, a judge agreed with the Prices. That allows them to use that defense if and when the case goes to trial.
Rickel is representing herself in the case.
A message was left with the Price family. Their attorney, Robert O. Hickey, based in Stamford, declined to comment.
Rickel, reached by e‑mail, said the bamboo from the Prices has invaded new parts of her property this year and that she had 25-foot-tall bamboo trees growing out of the centers of all her hydrangea.
“I cannot put a price on this loss. My land is unsellable,” she said in an e‑mail response.
Regarding the Prices, Rickel said they did not intentionally plant the bamboo, but they allow it to remain and invade from their property.
“This count remains. The case will go to trial,” Rickel said.
Botanical Expert
In the meantime, defendant Roberta Komaromi told the Valley Indy Oct. 5 that she brought in a botanical expert — Wayne Cahilly, the site historian at the New York Botanical Garden — to examine her yard.
His take, according to Komaromi: The bamboo had been contained in the Komaromi yard.
Cahilly, when reached by telephone, declined to comment.
Komaromi said Rickel is out to control what her neighbors plant in their yards.
“She has no bamboo growing in her yard. She has no damage,” Komaromi said.
