Evil Ivy, Revisited

I promised to provide pictures of the ivy that's threatening to take over our yard (such as it is). I don't have any "before" pictures of the fence area in the BACK yard, but you can kind of see how it might have looked from this picture of the side yard. I have yet to bring the assault to the side yard.

You might notice that the ivy appears to simply be crawling over from the other side and draping down this side of the fence. NOT SO! The ivy is coming over, through and under the fence. It's embedded in the wood and the soil. The stuff on top is growing into little trees with seed pods sproinking out of them. Like aliens. Like evil aliens.

When I whacked the overgrowth in the back yard, I discovered just how embedded the horrid stuff actually is. It's literally ripping the fence apart. It's difficult to see in this photo, but the main middle section of the fence is leaning significantly over into our yard from the sheer weight above it and on the other side:


Now, look just above the BBQ. This is the brain of the invading species. What else could it be? It's HUGE. Incredibly dense. Multitudinous convolutions. Really, really heavy. I tried to hack at it with pruning snips, both the big and small ones. It's nearly impossible to snip more than one strand at a time. So you snip one - it's not like you can take the snipped end and yank it out. Here's a closeup so you can see what I mean: No wait - that's not close enough. There's a closeup below that should pretty much sum it up. That thing has been there so long, there is not a single gap between the vines. And it's all living - there's nothing brittle to dig out of there. It has to be nibbled at, bit by bit. I'm too chicken to take a chain saw to it. When the fence goes over, as it will soon by the looks of things, they're going to have to get a backhoe in there just to pick it up off the ground. Here's that super closeup:


Now, take that picture above, multiply it in your head to a size about 25 times the size of the picture - probably more - and you might get some idea of what is living on our fence in our backyard.

Who does this?? Who lets ivy grow so long unchecked that it can evolve like this? Clearly, this has been going on for some time. I appreciate the suggestions I've received about how to slay the monster. Honestly, I'm afraid to do so. I have no faith in either my landlord or my neighbors to deal with the carcass and the aftermath. I'm pretty certain that the only thing holding the fence up at this point is the ivy itself. Dead, it becomes just weight that will bring what's left of the fence down even faster. No thanks. Let the next chump who rents this dump negotiate with my absentee landlord about taking care of the evil ivy alien monster brain.