Letters to the Editor
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Oleanders are not nice neighborhood plants
Oleanders are used on highspeed freeways as natural traffic barriers that, I suspect, are tougher than steel barriers. They're highly poisonous. While large numbers of them in bloom can be pretty, they take up huge amounts of room. On normal neighborhood lots (less than an acre with houses set back less than 100'), they are very obnoxious as screens. I've never seen them used along the front of a property not on a highway; neighborhood plantings are always along the side of the house as a means of getting around the 8' limits on privacy fences.
But one thing oleanders are is cheap. A neighbor planting them on my yard would be taken as nothing less than an extreme insult and an intentional display of disrespect. Even if I felt the oleanders should stay, I'd have to deal with the disrespectful neighbor. One good scare or upset would typically be enough.
OTOH, maybe the old lady and her hospital-visiting son have other issues and priorities. Maybe those issues dwarf the petty neighbor's issues and her antics. And, so, they let the smaller oleander thing lie. If this is the case, a "helpful" neighbor that forces them to take up the petty neighbor stuff isn't being a help no matter how good their intentions.