we're having our house painted and we have an arbor in front. until today, it had an established wisteria probably 15-20 years old growing up and across the trellis, in front of the house. the wisteria had been trained to wind the trellis and has a trunk of 20" circumference. they cut it back to about 3' high.
I called the project manager as soon as I noticed the damage this evening and was told that the contractor had been asked specifically not to cut the tree down, and to only trim it conservatively. I gave permission for them to trim only the leaves if needed, and we had just had a professional arborist out 2 weeks ago to trim all our trees away from the house. In prep for painting, I tied the wisteria back, away from the house so there was space to get paint applied.
The reason for cutting it back as stated by the person who did it was that they'd gotten over spray on the trellis and needed to paint it—something that could have been done by hand. there are just a couple spots of over spray.
I know many consider wisteria to be invasive but ours was established, consistently pruned, and provided privacy to our living room and now it's gone. I'm an avid gardener and I don't even use pesticides in my garden because I want animals and insects to come thrive in our yard. I'm really upset about this whole thing.
I'm not sure what to do. I don't know if wisteria counts as a tree here.
Location: WA, US