Since I bought this place, I've had a TON of trespassing. The previous owners lived 1000's of miles away, so there was no one there to keep things in check. Perhaps the previous owner didn't mind, we asked them about easements early on and they never mentioned anything about letting all the neighbors use the land.
It took us two years to get things under control, to the point we were no longer getting weekly trespassing. Our lovely neighbors did not like having access to our property taken away. They also tried to form a HOA to which we politely declined. They even tried to get the HOA pushed through (with the previous owners) while we were under contract to buy this place!!!! That's how these people operate. Yeah who wouldn't want a HOA controlling their 200+ acre ranch.
One neighbor even has five of our acres behind a locked gate. We graciously gave them a year to build their own fence and gate, but two years on, they had done nothing. We did try to give people time to adjust but it was a relentless onslaught. Stealing wood, trashing the road, dumping building materials, parking cars, speeding (65mph on our driveway), trash, calling up utility companies to get our private info, aggressive dogs paroling my land 24/7. One neighbor even cut the fence to built a road onto my driveway to give themselves easy access to park their RV behind their barn. They claimed they thought my driveway was a public road. Then there's the dirt bikes and ATV's riding on my land etc. The list goes on. Every week it was something new.
It's a difficult situation and while some may say some of these complaints are petty, as a collective it was out of control and no one should have to put up with this BS.
Getting back to this fire chief...... he isn't just trespassing for secondary access. A few months back he trespassed onto our land to take a photo of our intersection. He then used that photo, along with a photo of our street numbers and published it in the local newsletter as an example of poor signage, making his job as fireman harder. Well the signage has been that way the entire time he's lived there, but it's only a problem now?
So yeah, I think something has to be done and I don't think it's petty. No one likes someone using their "position of influence/power" to settle their private grievances. Very unprofessional to say the least. I keep trying to deescalate with this guy, but he keeps coming at us with his BS. The last time I had contact with him was in the spring. I called him to check on his horses as we had horses loose on our property. He thanked me and I thought we were finally on OK terms, but then he goes and trespasses to take photos to publish to the general public to try and shame us.
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