Do you have "zombie trees" at your house?
(WJBK) - The trees in Michigan are beautiful this year, but some of us may be living with some creatures of the Underworld in our backyards.
Zombie trees are, in fact, a thing. They're trees that look alive but are actually dead on the inside.
"Basically, it's an undead tree - or a living dead tree," says explains Josh Leo with Davey Tree District Manager. "It could be a storm, it could be a flood, it could be something to that extent. The tree is damaged but to a normal homeowner or to anybody else, they don't know that there's a problem with the tree."
The tree looks alive on the outside but the inside begins to rot making, it a member of The Undead.
"Most ot the time it's a rooting issue; that's the main culprit. And a lot of times, unless there is visual decay that someone can see, it goes unsuspected," Leo says.
One sign you can look for is those little mushrooms that form on the tree, or even lower at the base of the tree. Those could signal that the tree is already dead from the inside out.
These Undead trees become dangerous in high winds, with the threat of them toppling over. Storms could easily expose the decaying insides.