As Miranda Lambert said, "Forget your high society, I'm soakin' it in kerosene"

A weekend or so ago, my parents came over to help me with yardwork, as James was tending to the family ranch. Of the yardwork tasks, taking down a dead tree was high on the list, so my dad starting digging as mom and I planted flowers. The tree was a live oak, maybe 3 years old, and since we bought the house, the tree had died. We assumed it was affected by some disease. However, we noticed the grass at the base of the tree was dead, and there was a strong petroleum odor as my dad broke ground. Could it really be? Was this a nice way to ask us to cut down that particular tree? (we have approx 15 trees onbour lot, 8 of which in the front yard. This particular tree was close to our and our neighbor's front door, so we planned on removing the tree prior to his death anyways). "hi welcome to the neighborhood, I'm going to douse your tree and kill it so you must remove it?!?" Any suggestions or advice? What on earth do we say? I hope more trees aren't killed in this manner! Normally I habe pretty good advice for people, but I completely lack wisdom for this situation. Previously I just used to ignore people; isn't it too early to start ignoring or holding a grudge against my neighbor?! I had absolutely no idea the "hardships of home ownership" everyone warned about included dealing with odd neighbors; I thought people meant killing bugs and replacing appliances! Any suggestions?! ~Rachel