For two months a year little red pebbles showered their property, and then they had to contend with showers of "little brown dusty hairy things" that blew around causing havoc with his wife's sinuses.
"Breathing in this dusty prickly debris can't be very healthy for anyone," she told the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday.
Mr Clarkson said they were not tree-haters.
"We love trees. There is nothing better than a pohutakawa but they have to be in the right setting such as a park. We trusted council staff that they knew what they were doing when they planted these pohutakawa."
Every year they had to pay for someone to wash down their home because the brown tree debris stained the paintwork, plus every three years they had to have the house repainted for the same reason, he said.
Mr Clarkson said each week a small bag of debris had to be cleared and hosed from their driveway, balconies and removed from the internal roof guttering.
Mr Clarkson had offered to pay for the removal and replacement, and had not come up against any opposition from their close neighbours, he said.
Some of the city's pohutakawa are listed as protected trees, but council arborist Richard Conning confirmed the two trees were not - but removal would be subject to council approval.
Mr Conning said feedback would be sought from residents who lived within 200m radius of the trees and the request would also be published in council's city vision newsletter.
A report would come back to council in April, he said.
Meanwhile a large mature pohutakawa tree in the Monmouth redoubt reserve was being removed yesterday after it lost a large branch posing a threat to people using near by walkway.
Mr Conning said the tree, aged 80 to 100 years, was decaying at its base and there was no way to prevent risk to the public.
