Homeowner Cuts Trees In Yard To Heat House

Maryann Linscott needed heat for the winter.

She had a couple of trees that were rotting and had to go anyway, so she borrowed from a relative, paid off what debt she could, then had all eight trees in her yard cut down for her wood stove.

"I cut down the trees because we're broke, and we need firewood," said Linscott, 53.  "My son hasn't had a raise in four years. And four years ago, it was 50 cents."

She said they've been living off credit cards. They considered applying to the Department of Human Services, even downloading the forms and filling them out. But they never turned them in.

"I'm just embarrassed," she said.

Instead, she said a relative offered to lend them money, and she took him up on it.  Her son's grandfather - her ex-father-in-law - gave the family a $10,000 loan to repair the house roof, reduce some credit card debt, buy wood and cut down the trees.

Linscott worked as a cocktail waitress once, but that was many years ago.  Her son, 33, has a job as a chef and lives with her.

Human Services Director Marjorie Fondulas said most people will ask for help if they need it, because they have no choice. Her office typically refers clients who need heat assistance, including firewood, to Thames Valley Council for Community Action, Inc., which administers the state fuel assistance program in Groton. Fondulas said it's not hard to obtain this assistance.

"It sounds like this individual went to the extreme of cutting down trees when she could have qualified (for help)," she said.

Families who are struggling financially can also find themselves isolated, even in neighborhoods where houses are close together and the same people have lived on the street for years.

The trees on Linscott's yard created a wall between her house and her next door neighbors, an elderly couple who have lived there 25 years. Linscott said she had the first real conversation with her neighbor, Louise Paige, when Linscott explained she was having the trees cut last week.

"She was the sweetest thing," Linscott said, and the two started talking. Paige explained that her husband, Richard, had broken his hip and was in the hospital. Linscott moved the car for Paige so it would be out of the way of any falling branches.

Then the car died. So there they were; Linscott getting her Maple, Oak and Pine trees cut down for firewood, and Paige having her car towed away while her husband was in the hospital.

"My father told me when I looked at this house 33 years ago, you don't want to live in the country, in the woods because it's lonely and desolate," Linscott said. "You want neighbors."

Richard Paige is back from the hospital now. He still hasn't met Linscott - doesn't even know her name - but he knows his wife met the woman next door. He said it's common that neighbors don't know each other, and that's a shame, especially in times when people need help.

"I don't think half the people know anybody around here," he said. "They reckon they're working. They get busy with other things. And it's very poor in a way. It's poor when you want to ask someone to help you out.

"Even if to just stop and and ask how you are."