Quite a few years ago, we were removing a tree when we saw the middle aged neighbour over the fence start to get his ladder and saw out. He extended his ladder right out to reach by about 4 inches the lowest long reaching horizontal limb on a huge Magnolia Grandiflora. His wife was watching.
Then he tested his saw was working.
I (in a very friendly way) interrupted him.
"Are you going to take that limb off?"
"Yep. Been annoying me for a while"
"Not going to tie the ladder or anything?" I ask
"Dont need to, done this hundreds of times boy."
Seeing that suggesting anything wasnt going to probably go down well or change the outcome of what I could see coming, I tried a different route
"Ever tried using a harness?"
"Nope, dont need to, got a good ladder"
"Would you like to try mine, just to see what its like?"
"No, it would just get in the way" he turned his back on me, obviously not wanting to discuss anything
Sigh, he gets a few more things out and Im thinking like mad. His wife is starting to look nervous. So I have an idea
"I will give you 50 bucks if you put my harness on and cut the limb with it on"
"what?" he asks (full attention now from him and his wife, I have offered him money)
"I said if you use my harness and rope to do the cut, I will give you 50 bucks"
"Your crazy, you must have money to throw away" he says
"Well I climb trees for a living so I am a bit nuts. But 50 bucks" I pull a note from my wallet, his eyes open wide.
"your loss then, sure" he says brightening up a little.
So I jump the fence and put him in my harness and show him how my flip line works, and manage to get him to wear my helmet to. he asks about how much it all costs and then tells me that it cost a few times more than his ladder. I show him my big handsaw and how well it cuts so he doesnt need his chainsaw, and how to do a cut so the bit doesnt take out the ladder. He actually pays attention.
He climbs the ladder, complains about the harnesses weight and that it restricts movement a bit. Then when he gets to the top I get him to tie the flipline around the limb.
So he procceeds to cut the limb. of course as soon as it pops off the limb the ladders resting on pops up by a foot, leaving the ladder with nothing to lean on, it falls and his wife screams. Hes left up there hanging in my harness. MANY expletives are being let loose.
"Get me down!" he yells, legs windmilling around.
"your okay, just relax, you cant fall if you just hang in the harness, stop kicking around" I say
"Get me $*$&#* down"
"No sweat, we are qualified in Aerial rescue, but its going to cost you 100 bucks"
"You #*$&#&* #%$ #%$* Get me down now!" he yells
His wife then lets rip at him "You mind your language John Smith, He has just saved your life and your in no position to be acting like a complete ***!" She turns to me and says "thank you so much, I will gladly pay you 100 dollars to get my husband down, once hes calmed down."
So I got my spare harness and some gear, went up and with some difficulty, got him down. He was angry as all heck. But a week later he dropped by my place with a couple dozen beers, apologized and thanked me.
I worked for them every year after that.
