ELDERLY residents in a Tweed Heads townhouse say they are fed up with out-of-control grass and trees on a neighbouring vacant block.

They claim the "jungle" next door, which is currently for sale, attracts rats, snakes and spiders, while the roots of the gums - under a tree preservation order - have ripped up their drains.

"Four of five units backing the block have had to fix their sewerage pipes because of the root system from the trees," Rae Austen said.

"We have elderly people that are too scared to go outside because we have big branches falling out of the trees on their head," she said.

Eileen Johnson, 81, said that during storms she couldn't sleep at night.

"You can hear the trees creaking at night. One storm a branch fell and, had another gum tree not been there, it would have destroyed our house and us in it."

Body Corporate chairman Rod Maguire said he first wrote to the Tweed Shire Council about the problems in 2010.

The council's Planning and Regulation director Vince Connell said the council's compliance officers have tended to the site twice this year.

He said the block had been mowed on Australia Day and in late April.

"An inspection of the site on 21 July 2015 revealed that no notice was required given the site was generally considered generally safe and not unhealthy due to any overgrown grass weed, with the exception of a small section of land adjacent to the north-west boundary, which has clearing constraints."

But Ms Austen said: "That's the part we'd like to have cleared."

Mr Maguire showed the Tweed Daily News broken pipes caused by the tree roots, which are a civil matter. He said owners have paid up to $2000 fixing them.

Elaine Ryder, who has been living in the townhouse since June 1996, said: "I had six snakes which shed their skin in my unit and then went back into the jungle."

"And I had a 12-foot carpet snake in our barbecue."

The retirees say they have no option but to mount a challenge in the Land and Environment Court.