Bradford pears are nasty because they have beautiful blooms that smell absolutely disgusting and then they drop copious amounts of petals everywhere. The petals then get very slick and slippery and stick together and are hard to clean up. Then they get tiny little 1/4" to 1/2" pears that they drop everywhere and they are hard as little rocks and hurt your feet. Then in the fall, they are the very last trees to drop their leaves . . . months after everything else is long done and they drop them all in a day or so. They usually don't drop them till it's about ready to freeze, so they drop, get wet and then freeze. They make a driveway (ours is lined with the stupid trees all the way up and around . . . you can see at least 5 in that pic) very slippery, so even the car slides down the hill. And the leaves are hard to clean up too . . . and they grow funny so they have to be pruned or they snap in wind or ice storms.
There are 16 of them lining my driveway and they have never been properly pruned. The guy who lived here before us didn't do it and so they were too big and had already grown dangerous forks before we moved in the house. We wanted to top them but first were advised against it because they hadn't been pruned to have wide forks when young. The arborist came out and said that they could be topped and thinned, but the price was prohibitive. I dunno what has possessed DH to do it now, but I'm so happy he's doing it.
So I hate them because they are messy and uncooperative and not very pretty.
And I really hope they are getting a very severe thinning because they need it as much as I want it . . .