Bad loggers

[jd540b]

So I want honest opinions.  There is a very bad news logger  cutting on one of my neighbors wood lots. Thes guys are known for faking slips paying firewood stumpage for sawlogs, you know the deal.  When I mentioned it to them-just trying to do what I thought was right and neighborly-they got all defensive.  Obviously I dropped it and said OK..just trying to give you a heads up.  Should I have kept my mouth shut and mind my own business? What do you guys think??

[BradMarks]

If they were good neighbors they probably would have said thanks. Since they got defensive, it was more like MYOB, which you did. The "told you so", when it happens, you'll just have to keep to yourself!! :laugh:

[John Mc]

You did your part.  Whether to act on the info or investigate further is up to them. I certainly hope my neighbors would chime in if I were doing something that was likely to cause me regret down the road.

[glassman_48]

jd540b,
If I was the neighbor I would be grateful that you told me.  I have heard good and bad things about loggers in our area.  It gets pretty confusing, some of the loggers even go after one another pretty hard because their all competing for the logs.  I think you did just what you were supposed to, you can sleep well tonight knowing you did what you thought was right,,,,,,,,

[ehp]

its the same pretty much everywhere , I got a guy down the street that just had his white pine logged , never got a cent from it , logger split . I hear about bad loggers alot in my area . That logger came on my landing a couple months ago looking to get whatever I would give or tell him, I told him he better leave right now while he still could , I hate thiefs and people that BS. News around here travels pretty fast and loggers that donot pay donot last long

[Ron Scott]

If you know and are sure of the logger's reputation as a "bad logger", you were right in giving your neighbor a "heads up" on the logger's known performance. They may thank you later.

[jd540b]

Ya, these guys are bad.  Super high graders...cut the best, leave the rest type deal.  But wicked smooth talkers.  Notorious for say one thing and do another.  They are good at "we'll do you a favor and clean up and haul all the chips away for free"...ya, all 300 tons of them.

[jd540b]

Also, thanks for "backing me up" sort of speak.  I was beating myself up a bit thinking I shoulda just Kept my mouth shut.

[clww]

I absolutely feel you did the right thing. Most neighborly, in my opinion, and sometimes a rare thing these days.

[chester_tree _farmah]

Agree. U did the right thing. Some folks r just weird and there is no explaining it.

[mikeb1079]

no matter what the trade, if a neighbor came to me about someone i had hired to give me a "heads up" i would appreciate it. 

[BargeMonkey]

 Somehow these guys stay in business, and usually have newer equipment till the bank takes it. You did the right thing, but don't go out of your way to say anymore,  you tried. Let them get burned real hard, then just sorta sit back, and I would avoid the situation. I did this recently with a landowner who cried I wouldnt pay enough for stumpage.  "We have a guy from up north who will pay 2x as much". Good luck. They never saw a penny, yard is destroyed and they even broke into the RV that had a game camera in the window so no one could prove how many loads.

[HiTech]

You did the right thing...trying to help a neighbor. I tried to warn a guy last spring and got the same results. He wanted the cull trees taken out of his woodlot and the guy he hired cut all the saw logs and left the rest. He didn't get enough from this logger to pay the taxes. I told him to start with to hire a forester to cruise his land and then he would know what was what. These bad actor loggers have a Silver Tongue and tell the landowners exactly what they want to hear. Sad to say but sometimes these land owners get exactly what they deserve.

[thecfarm]

Man,do I hate to hear about Bad Loggers. I know they are out there. I don't know of any that would steal the wood,but use to know of a few that could do a better job getting the wood to the yard.

[MJD]

A few years back a 2 man crew came through here looking for small woodlots they could knock out in a day or 2, give a little money upfront to get in and the logs would get picked up the same day the last tree was cut and the land owner would never see the loggers again. The mill I cut for would not buy from these guys but they were selling this stuff to a mill somewhere. Mills need to get tough on these guys and stop buying from them.

[Woodboogah]

I think you did the right thing.  I wish I had a neighbor (if I had neighbors) that would take the time to give a heads up.  By any chance are you in the limerick/newfields area of Maine?  We had a couple crooked foresters that nobody will work with and they bring some outfits from southern Maine.  Hope your neighbors dont get taken for to bad of a ride by these guys.

[John Mc]

We had a guy south of here who was dubbed "stinky" by folks who knew his practices -- the name had nothing to do with his odor. The really sad part was that a lot of the landowners he targeted never knew how badly they got taken, both in immediate financial terms and in terms of what was left in their forest.  Families who had been around a while and been through timber sales before knew enough to avoid him.

I don't want to seem to be picking on loggers. My impression is that the percentage of jerks in any given profession is probably about the same... it's just that you hear more about them in some professions than others.

Sadly, one of the best one-man logging crews in our area retired recently. I had hoped to use him when it came time to do a commercial harvest on my land.

[Texas Ranger]

Yep, my biggest loss was a small crew logger that would cut smaller tracts, and was absolutely honest.

[deastman]

You would think that their bad reputation would catch up with them and they would run out of work but it seems they always keep going and continue to give loggers a bad name

[enigmaT120]

I don't know if there is that much communication between small forestland owners.  Most here don't belong to the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, and not all that do show up to events and communicate with other owners.  But the smaller operators you guys are talking about are frequently the type we need,  somebody who may be willing to log just a few truckloads of logs.  Commercial thinning or very small clear cuts. 

[John Mc]

You would think that their bad reputation would catch up with them and they would run out of work but it seems they always keep going and continue to give loggers a bad name

"Stinky" doesn't get many repeat customers. I suspect if he does get any, they have no idea how badly their woodlot was pillaged and raped the first time around.  There is a changing landowner demographic in VT. The old time families who held large tracts of land for generations are getting fewer and fewer. More and more landowners are new to owning land, and don't really know much about good land stewardship. THey make great targets for guys like Stinky.

[thecfarm]

That is why,references,references,references. And check them too.   ;)   But I suppose a forester would stop alot of the bad loggers from stealing too. And as I say,if they come a knocking and say they can be there in a week,wonder why? And then run the other way. Good loggers are busy. As @bill m   is.  ;D  so are good mechanics,good doctors,good anything really.

[coxy]

That is why,references,references,references. And check them too.   ;)   But I suppose a forester would stop alot of the bad loggers from stealing too. And as I say,if they come a knocking and say they can be there in a week,wonder why? And then run the other way. Good loggers are busy. As @bill m   is.  ;D  so are good mechanics,good doctors,good anything really.

that's funny thecfarm I just started cutting a piece that I told the lo I was going to do in march they have been good about waiting and have talked to the other lo about me every one seems to like the way I do things  there was 2 roads that where about 500ft from joining each other with no way of getting an atv between so I just put them together when the lo came up and saw it they could not thank me enough even tried to pay me I just said give me a good name to the people next door   ill be cutting them off this winter  ;D a little bit of extra goes a long way to some  but as far as bad loggers every town has them  and to some they said the same about me  :D :D :D

[thecfarm]

coxy and that is how and why Jeff started the FF.

[thenorthman]

This kind of thing keeps me up nights...  I've been "outbid" a few times... but the results have been less then spectacular...

I'm the new guy so sometimes I can be there in a few weeks or a month or two, but it seems like someone else can be there tomorrow, these are the folks I worry about...

All a guy can do is be honest, do whats right and pay the LO,  Sometimes its not much, (danger trees, full cleanup etc) but if logs go to the mill they still get paid.