Problems with Trespassers

[7879fordman]

You could pile some trees and brush in them gaps to keep them out .

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[hawkeye08]

For our property lines, we are planning to put some concrete posts in (concrete railroad ties that were scrapped or excess). I have been told they are cheap and weigh around 1000lbs. I have not verified either, but if it is true, we would be able to at least mark the corners and some strategic spots. Maybe you can do the same... Good luck and keep us posted..

 

[westcliffe01]

I have been involved on a property which also has trespassing issues, not quite to the level expressed by the original poster. It was a situation where the family members living on the farm got very old and inactive for a long time (over 20 years) and many fields were overgrown with brush. The old folks didn't venture out much past the barn and the rest of the family didn't get involved in any way to make up for the frailty of the elderly folks.

During this time, the surrounding property was bought by a commercial farmer and hunting rights to it were leased to a group of immigrants over this period. Of course the commercial farmer planted crops, and so some of the best hunting land became the fence line to the property in question, or even some distance on the wrong side of the fence line... After 20 years of this activity the old folks passed on and the farm was inherited by a young couple. They set to tediously repairing the oftentimes 60+ year old equipment, clearing the fields and getting the farm back into the sheep farming business.

After clearing a certain amount of land, they started noticing activities near to or over the perimeter, even though they are not hunters and therefore not active in the field from Fall through winter. Thus started the conflict with the group of hunters who had been leasing the adjacent farmland for over 20 years and had free access without anyone setting them right. Because of their nationality and belief system, they had no respect whatsoever for the farmers wife and had no problem informing her what her rightful place was in the food chain. Neither husband nor wife have a concealed carry license, nor do they regularly go about armed, so the "meetings" were almost invariably between camouflaged men in tree stands with guns or bows and unarmed landowners. There was a lot of cussing and threatening that went on and it became a full on boundary dispute. One of the fences on the east side was set back into the property 20 feet to allow a vehicle path along the entire eastern side of the property and the trespassers had always assumed that they had right of way along the "road" that ran adjacent to their leased property.

Even after a survey that cost several thousand $ and stakes showing the boundaries contained the "road" the trespassing continued. Some time after the survey and marking exercise the farmhouse mysteriously caught fire while the owners were in town and was mostly destroyed. For reasons that are not clear to me, it was an uninsured loss. The couple lived in a camping trailer for a while and set about harvesting timber from the property, built a sawmill and milled their own logs and build a log cabin in their barn. Then they dragged it out to its present site and got an amish crew over to help them roof it.

This is about where I entered the picture. I had offered my services in a craigslist ad to help farmers who were having problems with predators. When I went out for my interview (the day after a pack of coyotes killed a full grown sheep within 50 yards of their barn) I didn't fail to notice the detail with which the boundary markers were pointed out, along with some of the tree stands which were permanently set up in the fence row, facing onto his property. The owner said that one of the reasons for bringing in hunters from outside was to try to get a better picture of what was going on in the "disputed" area and to try to create conditions that were not conducive to encouraging the neighboring hunters to continue hunting there.

When I initially started my patrols of the farm boundaries, I carried my AR-15. I did meet several of the trespassers on different occasions, and they were always polite, even if agitated by my presence. I pointed out the boundary markers and showed them my letter of designation as the owners representative in matters relating to predation. I later took to setting up targets and doing some shooting practice in the general area too. After about a month of that, there were no more meetings over the fence line. I told the owner that he needed to clear a path around the perimeter which would at a minimum allow him to ride an ATV, and even better a tractor, so that he could brush hog it every few months and that would make it easy to drive the boundary on at least a weekly basis. Once a week is sufficient to discover anything that is obviously way out of line. The activity might also make the game move away from the perimeter to some of the thickets deeper into the property where they are less likely to be shot by the fence line hunters.

In the last couple of weeks, I set up some steel targets at different ranges on the property and have encouraged the owner to regularly take a few shots at the plates. Both him and his wife hit the plates at 160 and 300 yards on the first shot this week and I have a spot for a plate at close to 500 yards, but there is some foliage to be removed to restore line of sight first.

So, this is a long winded response, but everyone should be cautioned that one never knows to what degree a situation will be escalated. Ideally, the OP will be armed but I would encourage him to set up a range on the long strip of land he has, even if it means moving dirt to create a safe backstop. Owning weapons and demonstrating that you know how to use them are 2 different things and strategically practicing where you know the "enemy" is able to observe your skill is one of the reasons I am alive today (going back to my combat experience in Namibia). I am certainly hoping that things will resolve themselves peacefully on the sheep farm and that the game animals will move away from the troubled area and the hunters in turn will find better places to hunt on the more than 300 acres available to them....

 

[plowindeeper]

I wanted to dig a 10'x10' mote around my place. Before I came to my senses and talked to my lawyer. If the OP is using their surveyor that divided a estate. The dividing boundaries will be very hard to argue on there part if the surveyor will stand behind them. However surveyors can be WRONG I had 3 different ones mark mine and two surveyors did it twice. One of the ones that did it twice marked it the same, the other had 40' of difference in his 2 surveys.

 

[newbury]

It doesn't sound like they care for him much more than the OP and just because they're all heirs doesn't mean they like each other, let alone know each other. In fact, you really want to cause a ruckus, get inheritance involved.

I may have missed it, but was the survey done before or after the purchase. If it was done before and turns out to be incorrect, then there may be an avenue. Getting an indisputable survey is the first step.

These disputes can get out of control. This thread has to be the all time biggest example of that. The result is on page 35, post #344 - http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/14251-help-i-need-legal-advice.html

Worth reading:

O.K.
Is everyone sitting down?
We went to trial . It lasted five days. Much of the time was taken by the two psychologist ($500 per hour) going on about their qualifications, the validity of their tests etc. Mainly their different takes on the fact that the neighbor ranked in the 98% percentile in the "paranoid" category.
Their attorney's opening statement slung everything he could think of on the wall hoping some would stick. He even said I would go over near their property in my tractor and accelerate so quickly as to spin the tires, spew gravel and cause the front tires to almost raise off of the ground! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif This, on a B21 with a front end loader!
He said I repeatedly shouted obscenities at him - I don't swear. at all, even when I hit my thumb with a hammer and even though I was raised by (or perhaps BECAUSE I was raised by) a sailor. They spewed out dozens of lies without any shred of proof, but they were things that I had no way of dissproving either i.e. shouting obscenities, pounding on his car as he drove by, rattling the doors to his RV etc etc etc. I could only say that none of this was true because how could I prove I did not do these things unless I had a 24 hour video of my self or proof that I was living outside the country?
They had several friends take the stand describing how these nice people are now so depressed. One of them described an incident they attributed to me, where a car came to their driveway, shining the lights into their house for many minutes, although they didn't see the car they were sure it was me has they then saw the car drive around and park near my barn. Well this was a provable lie as first a car parked in their drive would not be aimed at their window, second it would be impossible to see a car drive back and park at my barn as they would have to see thru their hedge, my 6' fence, my house, about 600 feet of woods and thru a 30' high hill! When the neighbor took the stand, this guy, who months before this started was helping me rebuild my barn and continues to take one hundred mile bike rides suddenly appeared old and almost senile. He wore a "hearing assisted headphone" and had to be told MANY times to scoot closer to the microphone so we could all hear his faint voice. I don't think he ever directly answered a yes no question. Always went off on rambling tangents. They said they would call home to the other as they approached so they could be alerted if I did any bad deeds. For some reason my attorneys tell me I could bring character witness to point out I'm a normal guy - coach my daughters softball team, past president of the parents association at school etc etc
They produced THOUSANDS of photos - they would drive along the road with camera or video camera raised pointed at me, alert the other ahead of timeupon arriving, had five video surrviellance cameras running 24 hours per day but could not produce even one shot of me doing any of the accusations!!!
There was one time when I was about three feet off the road, the neighbor drives by very slowly and edges over near me. I stand my ground and he actually comes so close his rearviw mirror brushes against me. I am upset and lean up to his closed window and shout something like: "are you crazy? you are way off the road!" He flipped out his camera and got a shot of my face from about six inched away. Needless to say this was an unflattering picture and the blew it up to 3 foot wide and showed that to the jury.

We discoverd and pointed out to the jury, that in the court right next door, the very same neighbors and lawyer are also suing the title insurance company also for emotional distress for one milllion dollars!
Anyway the Jury deliberated about four hours and came back with a verdict in their favor! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
They decided, for all the lies they accused me of, that I pay them damages of
Are you sitting down?

$422,000
Yes four hundred and twenty two THOUSAND dollars.

Then they had to decide the "punitive damages" so as my wife is sitting there cryying almost hysterically, I have to get back up on the stand and lay bare my entire financial state to these 12 strangers on the jury and listen to their attorney describe me as "a monster" who must be punished as if I was charles manson. They jury went out and deliberated about two minutes and came back with a punitive award of $0. As if it would have made any difference because I don't have anywhere near the money for the first part.
So we go back next week and ask the judge to reduce it, but as it stands now I lose everythng - all savings (wasn't much), the kids college fund, everything I've worked for, maybe even the house. I am still in a state of shock.
Their lawyer, immediately called the local paper, which ran a banner headline the next day about how the poor elderly ccouple was awarded on of the highest amounts for this type of case. They even said that they won the first part of the trial earlier!
I suppose most people hear of this large award and figure Wow he must have really done SOMETHING bad. But I honestly did not! They did not have any proof of anything and even the things they were accusing me of should not have warrented this. It's not like I was accused of anything violent. I cannot think of anything I should have done differently.
I've learned they have paid their lawyer about 350,000 so far. It burns me up to think he gets off scott free with a ton of money for the wat he acted.
But thats all just money, what I havn't got a handle on yet is how am I going to prepare my daughters for a world full of people like that lawyer and "always tell the truth" is not necessarily the best weapon. How much does honesty and integrity count for?

 

[Ted Summey]

Worth reading:

Somebody didn't have much of an attorney.

 

[EE_Bota]

Somebody didn't have much of an attorney.

They definitely had a lousy jury.

 

[riptides]

Worth reading:

I heard there was more to the story than what was posted here on TBN. Someone (not you newbury) said they found the case documents through google.

I'd sure like to read up on it. Perhaps someone can send me a PM with the link?

 

[greasemonkeyok]

Somebody didn't have much of an attorney.

That may be, but Newbury's post makes a very important point regardless of who was right and who was wrong.

When the parties escalate the dispute to the point of going to the courthouse, there are clear winners and clear losers. The former are called lawyers, the latter are called clients, and no-one can predict the outcome.

Heading down the slippery slope of vindicating your "honor" because someone "disrespected" you and your family can get out of control very quickly. When that happens, hindsight generally reveals it wasn't worth it for the mere sake of boosting your ego.

Um, I'm pretty sure he meant answering to a judge in the line..

I didn't intend to infer that shooting in revenge was what Brin was advocating. But it is clear from his posts that ego is a big part of his decision-making process.

 

[Midniteoyl]

I heard there was more to the story than what was posted here on TBN. Someone (not you newbury) said they found the case documents through google.

I'd sure like to read up on it. Perhaps someone can send me a PM with the link?

The way I saw it too..