Do You Post Your Property?

[jand38]

Captain Jack I can not believe what I just read,what is open woods 10 ft from your home or 50 ft? Posting of land would mean everything if enforced. Why should I be scared of people for telling them to stay off my property? From what I read is everyone scum? Must be if they they harm you for standing on your rights as a land owner. Can they come in and use your bath room at their convenice? Why not?
I pay the taxes and no one has the right to use of my property (except law enforcement) but I the person who bought and paid for the land by working hard, saving and all the other things one has to do to pay for any item they buy. Why can I not camp out on the city dewllers front lawn when I come to the city or use their back yard for a party ,did not have the land posted and I believe you said posting of land was useless.
Relax be happy life 101 my defention of life 101 is "I will stay off your property and you stay off mine "oh so simple so easy to do I know because I have practiced this all of my life and it works. MD

 

[jand38]

I can not believe what I have read about this topic it just shows that parents have not taught their children right from wrong and when they become adults the trend continues their children learn the same and practice the lack of character.
I should not have to supply ATV owners a place to ride I should not have to supply hunters a place to hunt I should not have to supply a place to party. I should not park my car in their front yard, swim in their pool or just make use of their property as I see fit simple, simple , simple and use the Golden Rule when in doubt. MD

 

[slowrev]

I post my property. Too many houses too close together here for safe hunting.
Also one guy down the road is a sue happy idiot with troublesome kids. Just doing what I can to cover my butt.
In KY you can't hunt on non posted land without landowners permission.
Ben

 

[kossetx]

Most Texans probably don't unserstand what most of you Northeasterners are going through. I grew up in western pa where most land went unposted. Simply driving up to a place and asking for permission to hunt or fish was all that was required. It was nice and most times permission was granted. Usually the land owner would tell you the stories much as you all are talking about and ask you to comply. It was nice but I could always see it getting out of hand.

I've lived here in TX since 1981. Almost all land here is private. In TX, all of the private land is considered posted, whether there is a sign or not. It kinda makes things much more simpler. In the 25 years using family land, I've only seen trespassers 1 time and seen signs maybe a couple more times, and none in the last 10 years.

I certanly miss having access to thousands of acres of land like I did in the Northeast, but I also like going to my place and knowing who I'm going to run into. No one.

Sorry the idiots are ruining your places.

 

[dmccarty]

We live on a private road that is about 2,100 feet long and dead ends in our land. The last 1,000 feet or so we own both sides so we have put up a gate that has a couple of posted signs. There are also posted signs on the trees along the road. We are legally posted per the state statues.

I'm still picking up trash that people had tossed and dumped over the years before we closed the road which is one of the big reasons for the gate and posted signs. I came home today and noticed something off the road and across the ditch on our land to the east. Monday when I came home I noticed that someone had driven past the open gates turned around and left. This happens from time to time so I did not think much of it. Today I saw what they had left. They had come in to dump a litter box.

Now think who did this for a second.

Our road passes through a subdivision of nice houses. Not McMansions but a nice mix of houses. 3 miles down the road past two traffic lights is a public dump station. Its free to property owners of the county. There is also service into the subdivision by a private trash hauler. All the lots are on 2-3 or 5 acre lots that are very wooded.

So someone had a full cat litter box. Instead of putting into the trash, dumping it on their land, or going to the dump, they brought it to my land and dumped it. Nice people. Remember these are nice houses with a decent standard of living. In could have been someone outside of the subdivision but there are so many other places they could have dumped if they drove into the development. So almost certainly it was someone that lives here. Most likely a teenage who can drive who has a kitty....

Later,
Dan

 

[MikeD74T]

Land ownership in an interesting concept. Land's existance pre-dates man by untold years & presumable will post date man as well. Native Americans didn't believe they owned the land, rather they belonged to the land. Then along comes "ownership", which in reality is just the exclusivity of use. When there was no one else around exclusivity was free. If someone else wanted "your" land they just took it from you by force. In modern times for continuance of that exclusivity one pays a tax. This tax is something of value, usually money, that others would rather have than the use of "your" land. The tax collectors protect your right to pay the tax for as long as you can. If you can't or won't pay the tax collectors takes your exclusivity & sells it to someone else. Another forceful takeover today is called eminent domain.
New Hampshire local government is primarily funded by property tax, no income or sales taxes. Like any tax code there are/were big business interests that leveraged laws in their favor. In NH they were the lumber & paper businesses. Wood growers are like any other farmer, they harvest their crops & eat or sell them. Since wood crops take many years, even generations, the woodsmen devised a harvest tax, paid at harvest, and negotiated a lower land tax to be paid each year. Not to appear self serving they included all farm land in the deal. Part of the hype was also the concept of keeping the forests open to hunting, fishing, and recreational pastimes of the era. The program is called "current use".
Skip forward to today. My 2.something acre houselot is assessed at about $250K. The adjoining lot of pine, in current use, is about assessed at about $160 per acre. At $25/thousand I pay $3,125.00 & the abuttor pays $4.00 annually per acre. If the acre of pine was "wetland" the tax revenue would be 37 1/2 cents anually.
There are no restrictions re;posting one's land but there is another 2 +/- % discount for not posting it to non-motorized uses. NH law says foot traffic is legal on the land of others unless specifically prohibited by the owner. If all of this land gets posted eventually the people paying the bill will revolt & current use will go away. Higher taxes will force many, including vacationers/part-timers, to subdivide or sell. When the NH forest barons of the 1890's finished stripping the land and saw years of taxes ahead with no crop to sell they sold the land to the federal government & the White Mtn. National Forest was formed. Abuttors will tell you what kind of neighbor the National Forest Service is. The land is pretty much unused and pays no taxes. Most recently in northern NH the paper baron sold several thousand acres to the State of NH. Now every environmental group is trying to prohibit uses previously allowed by the paper company and it no longer pays taxes. It won't be too many generations before paying taxes no longer even guarantees exclusivity of use. So NH current use landowners (I am one actually )-post your land & I'll vote to rescind your tax break then maybe I'll have enough money left over after tax time to buy some of your land. MikeD74T

 

[MDM]

The problem we have is city dwellers buying 5 acres of property, which in turn, gives them the right to hunt anywhere they want. Atleast that is what they think. We locals call them "Akronites". As most of them are up from Northern Ohio and come down during deer season and shoot about anything that moves. We also refer to them as the "Great White Hunters" because most don't know 1/2 as much as they think the know about hunting. I guess a new gun, new 4 wheeler, and a membership to Buckmasters gives them right of passage. There is always a case of some Akronite shooting some farmer's cow or goat or horse. I just went to strictly bowhunting- less Akronites around during bow season. I have to laugh when I see an Akronite with a 90lb doe strapped to the roof of their SUV and they walk around all swelled up thinking they have really accomplished something.

 

[Eagle Nest]

i do post one side of my property the other sides are water or swamp i have lived here 6years the 1st year i had problems with duck hunters they would park there trucks on neibors property and walk across mine to get to the water the 1st time i confronted somebody on my property i was threatened the 2nd time i confronted somebody this person told me i could not do anything to them because thay were in the water i said to him that may be true but sooner or latter you are going to want to go home i told this person i hope you like walking because i own about 1/2 mile each way of shoreline and if you step one foot on dry ground that would be tresspassing at that time this person threatened me but this time the odds were even this person walked all the way back to his truck without stepping one foot on my property the 2nd year of duck hunting all of the problems of tresspasing was cured i have a local sherriffs deupty that asked if he and his two sons could hunt on my property.

 

[JSUnlimited]

I have to laugh when I see an Akronite with a 90lb doe strapped to the roof of their SUV and they walk around all swelled up thinking they have really accomplished something.

I've seen that around here..really funny!

 

[JimR]

I just found a tree stand in one of my trees a hundred odd feet away from the house, so I should post. I don't mind people hunting my land - happy about it, as we have a deer problem, but I do want to be asked first.

And I'm worried about the liability...

It is illegal to hunt within 500 feet of a dwelling in Ma. I would remove the stand and call Fish and Game.