EAST PROVIDENCE — A bill meant to mend both fences and neighborly relations was recommended for passage by the Senate Wednesday, but the neighbor who inspired it is doubtful it will actually help her own situation.

The bill holds neighbors with overgrown bushes, hedges, or trees responsible for the damage that the vegetation can wreak upon a fence. It was introduced by Rep. Helio Melo, D-East Providence, in January, and was amended and passed in the House last month.

According to existing law, fence owners are responsible for maintaining their fence, even after their neighbor’s bushes or hedges make it difficult to do so.

“There was nothing protecting the fence owners,” Melo said.

Melo heard about the problem from Thelma Dufresne, who has been in a long-running dispute with her next-door neighbor Jose Cruz over her fence. Dufresne claims Cruz’s hedges and bushes are growing on her fence, destroying it.

Dufresne said she started complaining to Cruz four years ago. According to Dufresne, Cruz never complied with any of her requests to cut the hedges and bushes.

Last summer, she attended two meetings discussing her problems. Those on the council insisted that her problem was a civil matter. When Dufresne insisted on amending a law, council members informed her that she was referring to a state law. Shortly thereafter, Dufresne discussed her problems with Melo, who began working on a bill.

Dufresne continued to contact Cruz, taking him to the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island, where the two parties signed an agreement that Cruz’s vegetation would be trimmed to leave a 1 1/2 foot gap between the vegetation and the fence. According to the agreement, the distance would be “maintained consistently” by Cruz.

Months later, Dufresne said he did not follow the agreement and took the dispute to a small claims court a number of times. At one meeting, Dufresne agreed to help pay for someone to cut the hedges. The hedges were cut in February, but eventually grew again, according to Dufresne.

But Dufresne is not the only one complaining — Cruz said he has called the police on Dufresne at least once, when he discovered that Dufresne had ordered the bushes at the end of the driveway to be cut. The bushes were not in an area that affected Dufresne’s fence. Dufresne claimed that they were growing on her property and she had sent him a letter detailing that it would be cut.

“She’s giving me a lot of headache for nothing,” Cruz said.

Dufresne plans on taking Cruz to court soon to hold him to their agreement.

As for the bill, she thinks “it will be helpful to an extent,” but is not optimistic it can completely remedy the problem with her fence or her relationship with Cruz.

“I want peace and harmony, but it’s so hard with some people,” she said.

ndungca@projo.com