My step-father who raised me 'learned' me: "Never let a bush touch the side of your house--never let a tree hang over your roof--and I never have!" I'm like Amethyst---we are down to 10 trees (3 whimpy ones and 7 that are 15+' tall after they're trimmed--they were supposed to be dwarf trees, but somebody lied to me). I've been trimming them and hauling the branches to the dump for almost 40 years--and yea, I hate it. I use an 8' stepladder, me on the next to top rung gets another 5-6', arm in the air is 2'+, and holding a hedge trimmer is 2'--so I'm able to go 17 feet off the ground. Had a 110' sliver maple that a tornado took out 1/3 of in Jan.-2008. I hired a crew to take it down, plus 14 12+' bushes around my pool fence, plus 6 30' trees in my garden, for $2k. I had to split and stack all the wood and clean up at least 1/2 the debris. Have never been on a ladder with my chain saw that I can remember. I'm doing it the cheap way, but the older I get, the harder it seems to get. Hmm....any of my neighbors doing the same??--not a chance--mostly, they just let them go.