Security & Theft Security for TN75DA during long absences

[highplanesdrifter]

Hi guys thanks

I appreciate that storage at a neighbor farm would be ideal from a security standpoint, but it's at least a mile away ... so I'd arrive by car, and would either have to trailer or abandon the car, bother busy farmer etc.

I'll be new to the area, not looking to be down a million favors off the get go ...

I noticed that DBnair joined in '05, and is still listed as 'new member' ... I guess it's just like real country life ... takes a few decades or generations to become other than 'new' ..

For now, I'll try a combination of insurance, Lojack/Boomerang and a security camera and flash with on-tractor signage to warn off thieves and vandals ... unless they're from far away, they gotta think twice about getting photographed ... don't they?

I'll keep you posted on the results ...

Safe tractoring!

John

 

[daTeacha]

Have you considered letting the neighbor farm your ground and use your tractor occasionally until you get set up? Land rent around here is about $100 per acre per year, so it's not like you're taking advantage of him by asking him to keep an eye on things, even if you rent it to him for half the going rate.

 

[AndyMA]

Have you considered letting the neighbor farm your ground and use your tractor occasionally until you get set up? Land rent around here is about $100 per acre per year, so it's not like you're taking advantage of him by asking him to keep an eye on things, even if you rent it to him for half the going rate.

Gee around here "land rent" in farm areas means beggging a farmer to cut your hay. You certainly don't see any money from it. Although if a farmer were cutting my land I would have no problem asking him to keep my tractor on his property.

Andy

 

[Soundguy]

Hidden GPS.. not a bad idea... just make it with it's own power supply, and REALLY well hidden.. otherwise they will pull it and mail it to you out of spite..

Insurance.. .. good.. but it's like renting your equipment.. still.. sometimes no other way..

park it at a trusted neighbors house. Works well in combination with 1 & 2.

The sirens & motion lamps are only good if there is someone there to be able to pull out their 'theif dispatcher' and then burry the bodies or call the cops after wards.

good luck.

soundguy

Hi All

I'm an about-to-be new owner (April 30) of a TN75 (and a 400 acre farm) about 100 m east of Toronto.

Despite being an engineer and a bit of a techie, I continue to be amazed at the depth and scope of the knowledge of folks on these threads ...

I'm not ready (itching, but not fully able yet) to move out to the farm full-time to build a green off-grid house, so the tractor will have to rest quietly in the 50x100ft Coverall [http://www.coverall.net/] near the house when I'm working and living 100 m away.

Now I've always subscribed to this basic sort of safety and comfort saying "Never wear a ring that's worth more than your finger", because one day someone will just take both!

But there I'll be with a tractor that's worth more than the barn, and only the barn cats to protect it. How do you folks deal with security and peace of mind? I can think up various schemes, but sure as shooting someone here has tried one or more and can tell me what has worked (or not) for them. Or am I just fretting that tractors are as much a target as a fancy car in the city? (I hear that construction machinery disappears from the roadside site all the time)

1. Insurance (but you only get money to replace your baby, and the premiums go UP!)
2. Ignition circuit or fuel line interruption (but any thief worth his salt can hot wire or whatever)
3. Motion sensors, flashing lights and crushing low frequency noise alarms (subject to disabling, and who hears an alarm in the woods, or else you come back and find all the barn cats ****-up in the hay?)
4. Sensors + Satellite uplink (so you get phoned on the Blackberry and can watch and talk to the thieves while they assault your loved one, at least until they find and smash the camera)
5. Hidden GPS locator (so that you can march up to the bastards' shed with the police the next day and reclaim your firstborn)
6. Mechanical obstructions (like clever parking angles, wheel chocks, steering locks, massive concrete curbs movable with hidden block & tackle etc.)
7. Motion sensors plus powerful flash, plus recorded message (which says your picture has been taken and sent out on the Web already, when of course all there was was a flash)
8. Recreational drugs (so that everything's way cool, dude!)
9. Your solutions?

Of course, the corollary is "Never have a warning system that's worth more than your tractor" or they'll just take that, and your stupid, blinking tractor won't have a clue where it went!

John

 

[highplanesdrifter]

Thanks Soundguy

The part about the separate power supply is essential ... I hope you don't take my 'hidden' GPS, because if you mailed it back to me it would be just awful tracking it through all those dead warehouse stops for days on end ...

But you have given me an idea ... when I become a thief and steal your tractor, I'll pitch your hidden GPS in your pond ... then I'll come over and watch you mucking about in your pond with a rented tractor dredging for yours ...

I'm still avoiding leaving it with the neighbor until I know him better; and then there's the bit about the 2 mile walk ...

around my parts, it's more like AndyMA's New England than Ohio ... the neighbor cuts and bales the hay with his own equipment and all and pays $8-10/round for what he takes for his dairy op ... it pays the realty taxes, which suits me fine ... I'd hate to see good hayfields going to weed, and we'll only need winter hay for two horses ...

Got to think of the best in the short term for security ... we take possession in 16 days, and 11 of those I'm away in France ...

I think LoJack may get a call ... better yet, I'll steal Soundguy's LoJack; I'd hate for the LoJack guys to know I had one ...

Happy Tractoring

John

 

[mojoinco]

So what is the coverall for? Was it for storage for equipment?

Thoughts: the old shipping container should be cheap. And it's lockable. Get a larger one until you build a barn (or put sides on the coverall) so you can store the other stuff you will collect. Are you going to set up a camper until you build a house? Just a thought in terms of storage layout. Possibly an old semi trailer for storage? Would mostly only need to be lockable storage, not weather proof (dig a hole with your new tractor so it is easy access when set up). And make it none moveable by truck. May also be rentable (I see older ones used as job site storage). Most problems are minimized by 'out of site, out of mind'.

Go talk to your farmer neighbor and get his thoughts on making it theft resistant. He knows the area and will have thoughts.

So how much is insurance and how much will it actually cover?!

Enjoy!

 

[Soundguy]

But you have given me an idea ... when I become a thief and steal your tractor,

You are certaintly welcome to try!

However. I must warn you that between the wife and myself.. someone is here 24hs a day... we have plenty of guns.. and not much comes across the property that doesn't die of lead poisoning.. or get caught by our 6 dogs. Did I mention that our cur and chow mix run pretty fast... just a wee bit faster than our longhorns do.

let me know when you are on the way over so i can tell EMS to be there with the ambulance to retrive you!

soundguy

 

[daTeacha]

It's kind of amazing to me to learn that you pay people to cut your hay and take it away, if I understand everything correctly.

The farmer pays us so he can grow corn, beans, alfalfa, or whatever on our land, much like some other guys pay for the right to hunt there. We then buy hay from whomever has any to sell, favoring the guy who grows it on our ground. We give him a break on the land rent because he uses what he grows for livestock and not making fuel, and he gives us a break on the hay we buy from him, but it's pretty much cash all around so no one feels mistreated or taken advantage of. Besides, with the prices and the weather in Ohio acting like a yo-yo it would be a little hard to work it all out ahead of time.

The highest rental price paid around here happened when two neighboring farmers got in a bidding war to use the ground between their places. One of them is renting it this year for $190 per acre. The average price to put in an acre of corn here, no-till, figuring fuel, fertilizer, seed, labor, etc. is about $550. That's for planting it, mind you, not counting the investment to harvest it. When you figure in the size of some operations, it gets to be real money in a hurry.

 

[highplanesdrifter]

MoJoinco

The Coverall (50x100) was used by the previous owner, until a few years ago, for hay storage and for a winter barn and feeding area for sheep (Toronto area can get pretty cold) ... I'm likely to use it in the short term for dry storage for equipment (tractor and accessories) and put some hay in the big barn (40x100), as there is a huge mow and horse stalls underneath; we're going to have 2 Belgians, our only animals apart from barn cats ...

I do like the idea of a big shipping container, perhaps even covered with old barnboard and a sloped roof with some solar/wind/battery powered venting to keep humidity levels ideal for tractor storage ... later on, like maybe next year, I could move the whole thing over to the other farm where I'm going to try to build the 100% off-grid house ...

... the present place is 100 acres, closing April 30 ... there's a lovely house along with the Coverall and Barn, but it's heating system is a disaster ... Living Room has a Propane Fireplace, Family Room/Den has a Wood-burning Fireplace ... Kitchen has Radiant in-floor Propane/Hot Water Heating ... rest of the house is electric baseboard ... no central air in the summer ... we bought it because the lady friend loves it, and I can play off-grid house builder and turf disturber on the 300 acre place about 3 miles away, without the "is it done yet?" and "what's that thing in the driveway?" stuff ... don't get me wrong; Anne-Marie's a lovely outdoor kinda lady who loves to get grimy and sweaty, but is totally unmoved by things like PTO HP and attachments, especially when they're lying around (because I'm 'about to use them real soon') ... the Belgians will be really great at skidding logs out of the 60 acre hardwood bush with 200 ft elevation change ...

DaTeacha

My wording wasn't clear enough on the land use situation ... the neighboring farmer (2 miles) cuts the hay from about 30 acres, ideally 2-3 crops/year, and pays us $10/round for whatever he takes for his dairy op ... last year was only 1 1/2 crops in droughty conditions, and about 250 rounds ... (the other farm has a similar situation, with about 60 acres in cash crops, 20 more in hay, but that one closes on May 31 and I have no idea what that farmer's putting in this year)

Closing in two weeks, and then all **** breaks loose ... but I'll get to post a few pics ...

Cheers All

John

 

[AndyMA]

So what is the coverall for? Was it for storage for equipment?

Thoughts: the old shipping container should be cheap. And it's lockable. Get a larger one until you build a barn (or put sides on the coverall) so you can store the other stuff you will collect. Are you going to set up a camper until you build a house? Just a thought in terms of storage layout. Possibly an old semi trailer for storage? Would mostly only need to be lockable storage, not weather proof (dig a hole with your new tractor so it is easy access when set up). And make it none moveable by truck. May also be rentable (I see older ones used as job site storage). Most problems are minimized by 'out of site, out of mind'.

Go talk to your farmer neighbor and get his thoughts on making it theft resistant. He knows the area and will have thoughts.

So how much is insurance and how much will it actually cover?!

Enjoy!

I have 2 40' containers and I don't think there is any way I could get my TN75D in. Even if I did, there is definately no way I could open the doors to get out of the cab. I suppose you could remove the rear window and crawl out that way. I still don't think it will fit.

Andy