Trespasser.....what would you do?

[Torvy]

Anyhow, we were raised to suspect everyone that was trespassing was up to no good, even though, in reality, 99% of them were just out for a walk.

I think of that like teaching my kids to look both ways before crossing or treat every gun like it is loaded. Sure, 99% will be fine anyway, but the 1% could be fatal.

 

[Jstpssng]

I've been to all of the lower 48. Mostly in the West. My only visit to Maine was near Portsmouth. My travels helped to cement my belief that we try too hard to make rules the same. Think speed limits...55 may make sense along the NE seaboard, but ridiculous out here between the Mississippi and the Rockies.

Somehow when I wrote my previous comment I combined it with something you had written.

However, I understand and agree with much of what you say. There's an old saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." That makes a lot of sense to me. I've spent my entire life listening to people from other states say "If we were in Jersey"... I do not want to be that guy.

 

[dstig1]

Heck, one time there was some guy carrying a sword! He refused to go out the drive and insisted upon cutting across the property. She called the cops, said 'guy with a sword' and they showed up pretty quick. Guy tossed the sword in the lake. Cops made him wade out and get it. Then gave him a ride..... down the driveway.

Pulled a sword out of a lake? I would think that would have made him King...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Dad had a hunter trespass recently. Used to never have that happen.

 

[etpm]

I have read all the posts on this thread so far. It has really made me think. When I was a kid I walked through all sorts of orchards. And I will admit to stealing a few apricots and plums as I walked. Usually the fruit was on the ground but I also picked some. Mostly though I just walked through orchards because it was a shortcut. Sometimes I was curious too. But aside of the fruit theft I didn't do anything to harm anybody. No vandalism or the like.
In my teens I lived at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains in a town called Saratoga. Through the town ran Hwy. 9. And Hwy. 9 intersected a road called Skyline. This intersection was 7 miles from the town center. My friends and I would, on occasion , hitchhike up to Skyline in the morning and then spend all day hiking through the woods all the way back down to Saratoga. The elevation change was 2200 feet. Lotsa downhill fun.
Anyway, we of course trespassed through many properties. Nothing was posted and we never gave it a thought. We just figured who would care if two or three boys were just passing through. We were never hassled. We did see a few folks now and then. We would just wave as we hiked by. Never spoke to anyone.
Fast forward about 30 years. I now have 10 or 12 acres of woods bordered on 2 sides by other woods owned by other people. The other side of my triangular parcel is a county road. When we first bought the place I didn't care if someone traipsing through. My wife wasn't happy about it. After we got the house built about 12 years ago I still didn't care much. Now though we have two problems. At the base of our property, like the base of a triangle, are two problematical neighbors. We have the gun lunatics shooting large caliber semi-auto rifles and pistols late into the night. While at the same time we can hear them partying and getting into fights. And then we have the meth heads next to them. All sorts of weird crap comes from them. And we occasionally see lights, like flashlights, moving through our woods. We have trails that they could be using. I am not comfortable with this. I think now I need to fence my property and put up no trespassing signs. My wife really wants me to do this. Who knows if it will help. Calling the cops is pretty useless time wise. We are in a semi rural area and so the cops are spread thin and response time can be long. The cops know about the whole situation, but can't do anything unless they catch somebody red handed.
Eric

 

[Torvy]

Sorry that your neighbors are inconsiderate and shoot at all hours. I would not characterize people as gun lunatics because they shoot large caliber semi autos on their own property. Based on how that was phrased, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between calibers. Some small caliber weapons are louder than large caliber ones. I doubt you would be any happier with them if they were shooting revolvers or lever action rifles either. Probably would have gone over better if you just said your neighbors shoot at all hours of the night.

 

[MossRoad]

So am I. Today I was talking to a hunter from Vermont who had been coming to hunt in northern Maine every fall. They really like being able to go almost anywhere. Last year his brother had told me the same thing.
Recently they bought an old 150 acre farm in a nearby town... and posted it all.

A couple months ago i found purple paint on the property behind my house.

 

[Torvy]

A couple months ago i found purple paint on the property behind my house.

Your property? Or neighbor?

 

[MossRoad]

Your property? Or neighbor?

What it is, is that there's a 5 acre woods behind us and about 5 other houses on 1 acre each. My neighbor asked the guy if it would be OK to walk his dog in that woods. The neighbor said he said he'd prefer if he wouldn't walk the dog there. Neighbor said OK, just asking. Next day purple paint went up all the way around the entire 5 acre woods, about 20' increments, especially behind each of our houses. Actually, I was kind impressed that someone would bushwhack their way around the perimeter of that woods at that time of year. Full foliage and not easy to push through it. I wouldn't have noticed it at all, except the neighbor pointed it out to me.

Not really sure if it's exactly on the property line or a couple feet either way on my side or theirs. I'm kinda glad that they posted it. Over the years there was a bit of trouble with kids and dumping in that woods.

 

[etpm]

Sorry that your neighbors are inconsiderate and shoot at all hours. I would not characterize people as gun lunatics because they shoot large caliber semi autos on their own property. Based on how that was phrased, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between calibers. Some small caliber weapons are louder than large caliber ones. I doubt you would be any happier with them if they were shooting revolvers or lever action rifles either. Probably would have gone over better if you just said your neighbors shoot at all hours of the night.

Hogwash. I'm a shooter. I have been shooting all sorts of rifles for over 50 years. The large caliber stuff fired by drunks pisses me off because they have so much more power to penetrate. I live where I do in part because I can shoot here. I expect other neighbors might do the same. But not after dark and not during parties. The semi auto stuff let's them fire a lot more rounds. I would be pissed off if they were shooting bolt action stuff too. But at least it wouldn't be as many rounds may be heading my way.
Eric

 

[oosik]

This time of the year - I hear shots any time of the DAY. It's deer season for the muzzle loaders. Better NOT hear anything at night.

 

[Richard]

I wouldn't approach hunters trespassing on my land unless I was armed. Your wife is "brave", as most women are, because they know someone else will fight their battles they start.
I disagree with the No trespassing signs but they are cheap enough to buy and post. Maybe even No Hunting signs.
It would be interesting if you could be liable for theft if they find out you took their deer stand? I hope not. If you sell it or destroy don't say anything about it to anyone.

Been busy at work....first chance to sit down and see I have pages to catch up on.

I found this interesting. Earlier (in this thread) I think I recall someone saying that the land has been (or looked) abandoned for 30 years... so who can blame someone for thinking they could perhaps hunt/trespass there....

Well... so we walked the land and found (thus far) two tree stands. How do I know how long they've been there? Maybe they've been abandoned for 10 years!??

How long do I wait for (what could be abandoned property) for the owner to come back to get it? How long do I wait for their abandoned tires, 5-gallon buckets to be picked up by the rightful owners who simply placed them there until they could return to get them? We all know that's simply discarded trash.

Seems to me you can't have it both ways.... if someone has the 'right' (I use that term loosely) to traipse on property that isn't theirs because they can't tell it's been visited (we've been there a number of times now and other than the signs we have up and the painted trees, there's STILL no way to tell that we've ever been there.....so what would their sign be that it's abandoned or not?)

No, one can't have it both ways where someone can traipse all over land that isn't theirs, then, the SAME person leaves some of their property..... and have a hissy fit when someone ELSE comes along and finds their abandoned property.

How can they be cited for trespassing if it's abandoned? How can "I" be cited for theft if what I found, was abandoned?


To make another comment about a previous thing someone wrote.... we ALSO have issues with trespassors here, on our local farm.

We're on/in hills and surrounded by a couple hundred acres of TVA land so someone IS allowed to hunt/hike/whatever on TVA land. We share a border with them that is probably over a mile in length. People trespass all the time and play the ignorant card. "Oh, we didn't know this was private property.... (in spite that they walked through mowed fields to get to the place where they were caught.... using the cut field as their target zone)

I've heard it all. If someone wants to hunt/hike/other around here, I really don't care. Just be respectful about property that isn't yours. (like don't leave your gutted deer carcas at the base of our driveway for us to drive by when you could have instead, left it in the woods or elsewhere)

We've had issues with people trespassing (mostly hunters). Had a big meeting one morning with TVA, Sheriff, Wildlife Resources.... all down at the base of our driveway. It was caused because of the 12-15 trucks that lined our driveway on first day of open season. Had I had a car bigger than my Miata at the time, I would have barely been able to get out to go to work. So they marked the area no parking AND they (TVA) had a couple parking areas built for people/hunters/hikers...

During this meeting, the Wildlife guy got about 12 inches from my face and in a raised voice was yelling at me that I'm anti-hunter, anti-hunting and all of this is to impede the hunters who wanted to come out here to hunt since I was so against hunting. He was so exasperated (or realized he made such an azz of himself) he then got into his vehicle and left.

It was very ironic when literally 5 minutes later (they could have passed on the road) a vehicle came out.... was NOT a family member.... and drove onto the property. He was someone who was coming out to hunt because he had permission. His arrival though 5 minutes late, poetically showed those who were still here that we can't be anti-hunting if we are allowing hunters onto the property.... gee....maybe this really WAS about simply keeping the roads passable.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Hee hee

I'm not a hunter so id crunch the stands like you said and hang them back up.

IMHO it's on the hunter to determine who owns the land and to get permission, posted or not.

 

[John_Mc]

Around here there are way to many deer so I would get in touch with a few more hunters that would hopefully be willing to pay some money to hunt on your land.

I am curious about right to roam. What happens if people get hurt while roaming?

We have the problem of too many deer in many parts of Vermont. The browsing is so heavy that it suppresses forest regeneration.

However, if you charge someone for access, you lose the protection you have under Vermont's landowner liability laws: if you allow free access, you are protected from
liability. Basically, if you charge for access, you are treated more like a commercial enterprise, and you have a higher standard of care to meet for your "customers".

 

[ultrarunner]

Applies to a lot of things.... seen some creative work around to cover cost or donation system.

Some of the old car guys were charging for weddings...

One member in the insurance business said hope you have extra coverage for that... your now in the chauffer business.

A rural land owner asked hunters to donate to the Boy Scouts... it was a work around...

Like the farmer selling raw milk to the private school... the work around was to no longer sell milk but charge the school to board and milk the cow now owned by the school...

 

[John_Mc]

Today I was talking to a hunter from Vermont who had been coming to hunt in northern Maine every fall. They really like being able to go almost anywhere. Last year his brother had told me the same thing.
Recently they bought an old 150 acre farm in a nearby town... and posted it all.

It becomes a vicious cycle: when I first moved to Vermont 20 years ago, very little land was posted. As more & more flatlanders (VT term for people from "away") moved in and posted their land, those who didn't post saw more & more traffic - whether hunting or just people out for a hike. Some of those who hadn't posted before got tired of losing their peace and quite, or got tired of being everyone's "go to" place for hunting and started posting their land as well. This putting even more pressure on the remaining unposted land.

It's really unfortunate. I liked living in a state where folks were free to wander. I have been impressed with how 98%+ of the people using my land have treated it and have enjoyed meeting many of them. The few jerks I met were told to leave and not come back (surprisingly, all of the jerks seem to have complied with my request).

Unfortunately, the combination of that small number of jerks & crazies and the increased pressure due to surrounding land being posted have forced me to start posting as well. All of my neighbors know they are welcome to hike my land anytime, and I rgularly give permission to others, once I have met them and explained the ground rules.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Sorry that your neighbors are inconsiderate and shoot at all hours. I would not characterize people as gun lunatics because they shoot large caliber semi autos on their own property. Based on how that was phrased, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between calibers. Some small caliber weapons are louder than large caliber ones. I doubt you would be any happier with them if they were shooting revolvers or lever action rifles either. Probably would have gone over better if you just said your neighbors shoot at all hours of the night.

I have no problem with neighbors shooting as long as it is done responsibly. I've taken a few slugs out of my barn wall over the years but it isn't a big problem since it's away from the house. I have a range on my property but never use it early or late in the day.

There isn't much shooting around here these days since it's almost impossible to get ammo. Everyone is saving what they have for the upcoming hunting season.

 

[ultrarunner]

Every year I find slugs in the roof...

Must be local city dwellers bird hunting with 9mm and 45's?

 

[TheMan419]

I had to google that Joe Bornstein comment.

I assume it is like Keller and Keller?

 

[Larry Caldwell]

This time of the year - I hear shots any time of the DAY. It's deer season for the muzzle loaders. Better NOT hear anything at night.

I take it you don't have coon hunters where you live?