Neighbors Not Respecting Property Line

Last November, my neighbor and his wife had a landscaper butcher shrubs I planted 25 years ago that I keep trimmed into a privacy hedge. I caught their contractor just after he had cut back shrubs that were more than 15 feet inside our property. He also pruned (if you can call it that) at the wrong time of the year, and this year’s leaf growth has been nil. I have before and after photos of the hedge as well as one of the landscaper's truck bed full of our shrubs.

When the neighbors were asked about this their response was that they had done us a favor, while also maintaining that the shrubs were on their property. (The property line is obvious, by extrapolating their side fence).

This wasn’t the first time they had performed unauthorized work. They have also been verbally abusive on a couple of occasions since the shrub incident, screaming and cursing at us from their front yard while we were on our own property.

In response we had a professional survey performed, obtained a zoning permit, and erected a fence. As a courtesy, before installing the fence we sent them a letter to inform them that a permit had been pulled with the intent of erecting a fence.

The fence still didn’t stop them, so the other day my wife and I put a No Trespassing sign on our fence. As chance would have it, on our way out to the fence to put up the sign, we heard the neighbors talking about “the other side of the fence” to someone, and found their contractor in our yard (we have video). He wouldn’t tell us why he was there but he did leave immediately.

Within a matter of hours, the neighbors had put a large metal daisy on a pole 5” in front of the sign (the fence is set in 4” in from the property line – they knew this because they took down the surveyor’s flags after the fence went up).

Before we consult a lawyer, what options do we likely have?

Location: New Jersey