Dealing with trespassers

[whiskers]

 Sunday  noon out with the dogs found this on the rear of the property a quarter mile back along our power line ROW, past 2 no trespass signs. Seems the driver had a few to many and thought he'd go out for a little late night trespassing. After losing his quad in the stream he hoofed it home for wifey's nice 4wd. grocery getter.



This was bottomed out nearby.   


Spoke with a neighbor that thought he might know the quad's owner. Mentioned that if I'd call for a deputy and a wrecker in an hour. Twenty minutes later he's there hung over and very polite, his friend with a tractor following along. Took most of an hour to get them out on a nice sunny afternoon. My wife knows his mother and grandmother so no trespass charge, this time.

If he'd  been injured or worse we'd likely have been sued for somehow failing to prevent his injuries, this time.

[Ron Wenrich]

Who is going to clean up the damages?

[square1]

I know of a vary similar situation in which the land owner refused access to the trespasser to recover his wife's vehicle.  There was easily an over $20k vehicle sitting in the field for over a month while negotiations took place.  Try explaining that to the wife when she wants to drive somewhere :D

[Peter Drouin]

I know of a vary similar situation in which the land owner refused access to the trespasser to recover his wife's vehicle.  There was easily an over $20k vehicle sitting in the field for over a month while negotiations took place.  Try explaining that to the wife when she wants to drive somewhere :D

That's just what I'd do for at least a year.  ;)

[Texas Ranger]

Back in the day my father had a place in Missouri that had a septic drain field that emptied into the middle of his property.  Teenagers next door decided to drive over his property.  Next morning their pickup was to the frame in the septic seep.  He told me he had some interesting conversations with the boys farther.

[TKehl]

Looks like they've punished themselves a good bit already.   :D  I'd probably handle it about the same, but would want some restitution for the ground damage.  Either straighten and reseed the grass, or labor on some other project to drive home the point.  $ would be too easy.

We have a good long term neighbor who's farm hand took his equipment one night and tried to rustle our cattle.  We were lucky on two fronts.  1.  They did it within 300' of where my cousins had their deer camp on our place.  ;D  2.  The farmhand was incompetent and got hung on a tree and stuck trying to back up to the corral.  My kin got a good description of the unique truck and were getting ready to shoot tires, but after he got stuck decided to watch the show instead.   :D  He ended up leaving the trailer to get a tractor with loader to unstick the trailer and then booked it out of there.  A week after discussing this with our neighbor we were compensated with a wagon load of hedge posts that were supposed to go to the farmhand as a recompense.  I wanted it taken further, but no actual theft occurred, and dad didn't want to drag the neighbors good name through court over his farmhand's action. 

[sawguy21]

 :D Karma has a way of biting them in the butt. You handled the situations well, the perps paid for their misdeeds and your neighbors are still your friends.

[wolf nemeth]

Hey Whiskers,
  You've got to stop watering your lawn!

[PineNut]

Why should he stop. It looks like he got the desired result.

[whiskers]

 No real damage, just a couple ruts that'll fill in when the creek floods. That little stream can become several feet deep by 200' wide after a storm.

He was polite, apologized and said he would make it right. He understood that his family's good name was saving him a lot of grief and expense. Had he come off with an attitude I'd have spoiled his whole week. Been on a few fool's errands myself, some not all that long ago. But for the wisdom and kindness of strangers my lot wouldn't be as it is today. I'm guessing that he won't be back which is all I want.

Those kids finding the septic leach field could get expensive real fast. Recently had one replaced, $1300 for 100' in sand soil.

[coxy]

i got caught one time by a lo and that was enough for me he wasn't bad but my dad well that was different story    after that i always asked  and most said ok  now that I'm a lo i know how he felt  ;D

[Sixacresand]

I have concerns that kids might plant illegal crops on land I pay property tax on.  Land owners are easy pickins for gung ho law enforcement. 

[whiskers]

At times law enforcement appears more interested in the rights of the offenders, those four young men that went missing may have run afoul of someone with a shotgun, a backhoe and a crop to protect.
 
One problem around these parts, the illegals setting up camp. There's a church near here with some acreage and a stream. Their guests, invited or not, have some of it's unhappy neighbors selling out. A bad situation for all. Not sure how I might handle a deal like that.

[whiskers]

Hey Whiskers,
  You've got to stop watering your lawn!

this was from October '15

[sawguy21]

i got caught one time by a lo and that was enough for me he wasn't bad but my dad well that was different story    after that i always asked  and most said ok  now that I'm a lo i know how he felt  ;D

I didn't want to deal with my dad either. I really didn't. He was not mean, I had too much respect for him.

[dgdrls]

Usually never works out well when one mixes booze and anything with wheels.

You may want to inform him 4x4 is for getting you back out,  Not in ;)

D

[sprucebunny]

I rode my atv out to the back gate the other day for the first time in weeks and came up on a guy with a dirt bike !
He also had an antenna for tracking collared moose. Turns out to be a state wildlife biologist. I don't mind that kind of 'trespasser'.

[newoodguy78]

The other night the woman I work for got a call in the middle of a down pour, someone had tried to come across one of the fields to find more trails.Didn't pan out so well as they went right into the wettest part of one of the backfields and got stuck.

Went up to find it but couldn't until the next day. It was in there pretty good but I yanked it out with the tractor.

They didn't really have permission to be up there but  here and the adjoining neighbors are good about people enjoying the land. I do respect them for calling, so I figured I'd put it somewhere safe  ;D
Last we heard the drivers boyfriend was going to come get it unstuck,hopefully he brings a ladder

[WV Sawmiller]

   Its getting harder to deal with trespassers every day. With the high cost of ammo we can't afford to fire a warning shot any more. :

   I do like the safe and secure storage of the guys ATV/Mule. It should be very safe up there.

[Southside]

Very nice.  Unfortunate all that mud splashed onto the seat while you pulled it out.....

[Tacotodd]

Unfortunate all that mud splashed onto the seat while you pulled it out

Wink wink  :D

[Tom King]

On our place, we have an abandoned rock quarry with 8 tenths of an acre of crystal clear water in it, surrounded by miles of trails.  ATV riders are always a problem.

I have a group of dirt bike riders that I call the Moto Militia.  They have permission to ride here, and permission to scare off anyone.  We are surrounded by waterfront homes, on three sides, with a lot of retired people living in them.  Some are retired military, including officers, and Special Forces guys.  Some of them are in the Moto Militia, and have fun running people off.  One guy has a Trials bike that he walks his dog here with, and also a 450 motocross bike.  The group, as a whole, has accumulated quite a nice group of toys to ride here.

Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays are for horses only.  Whoa be the person caught riding something motorized in here on those days.

One 4th of July, years ago, I had the county deputies arrest a bus load of people in the rock quarry.  In the group was a police officer from out of state.  He would have lost his job if he had been arrested, so I came up with another plan.  

With the group standing in front of me, I told them that anyone that didn't want to get arrested could leave their name, and contact information.  I gave them two weeks to send the county Sheriff's office a list of 10 peoples' names that they had told that they'd better stay out of our quarry, or a car would come for them.  All decided to do that, and the Sheriff told me when he had all the lists.  

It was a fair number of years after that before we started having any trouble again.

Sometimes I just lob a bird bomb back in there.

My most common thing, if a car is found parked under the No Tresspassing signs, is to leave a picture of the vehicle, that shows license plate, and NT signs, in the vehicle, and dump a couple of loader buckets of dirt right behind it, leaving a shovel with a broken handle, so they can get out.

I used to have a couple of mean looking guys working for me.  I'd let them carry guns, but they weren't loaded.  I'd carry a loaded one.  We'd go in there, and confront the group.  My BIG guy would act like he was half crazy, and ask me if he "could shoot this one".  I'd say that he would have to bury him with a shovel, because the excavator was broke down.  Those people always left a pile of clothes, and other stuff, as they ran away.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I would never send anyone in with an empty gun. Either have it ready to use or not at all IMHO. But that's just me.

   I like the broken shovel, broken excavator explanation and such though.

   Could you sell season passes to let people swim there and make some money out of it or is the liability to great?

[Kindlinmaker]

Old school lessons learned.  

Many, many years ago, I got caught riding a dirt bike across a field of clover that was ready to be mowed.  I stopped for the rightfully upset farmer waving his arms while a couple guys riding with me kept going.  The farmer was much more controlled about the situation than I would have been in his shoes and asked me to quit riding across his livelihood.  Being raised in a hardscrabble church going family, I felt obligated to make amends so I offered to come back and help bale the field.  Well over the next year or two I found myself, and a  few select friends, were welcome to ride on more than one farm's access roads, unplowed fields and woods in exchange for a few afternoons here and there of hustling some hay bales around.  Easy work for 14 year olds but maybe not so easy for a few farmers getting on in years.  Even started hunting some of those farms and of course sharing whatever got skinned.  Most importantly, I learned a bit about farming and a whole lot about being a man (politically incorrect or not).

I do believe we could use a bit of this old school common sense and taking responsibility for yourself today.

[Tom King]

  I would never send anyone in with an empty gun. Either have it ready to use or not at all IMHO. But that's just me.

  I like the broken shovel, broken excavator explanation and such though.

  Could you sell season passes to let people swim there and make some money out of it or is the liability to great?

Don't want to bother with keeping up with it.  Wouldn't be enough money to be worth the trouble.  There is no shallow water.  It's 22 feet deep to start with.
Years ago, I went in there, and some commercial outfit was teaching Scuba diving lessons to about ten people-had never asked anyone anything.
Those guys were just for show, and you wouldn't have wanted either of them to carry a loaded gun either.  It's almost always just a bunch of kids in there.
We have a shooting range in there too.  I let any of the county deputies go in there to shoot, any time they want to.  That's become a pretty good deterrent.