I’d call the cops if someone abandoned a car on my property. My alternative would be to hotwire the car and move it elsewhere.
I went down to take pictures of the layout, as access to the barn is the reason why I started it up and was figuring out the controls. I swear!
My neighbor came over and told me the guy originally asked him if they could leave it on his property. (His house is closer to our barn than ours is) He asked how much they’d pay a day, and the guy just walked away. I’m Mr Friendly compared to my neighbor. He’s 75 and still mountain bikes.
Also a civil matter. I would just have it towed. But then, I wouldn’t be messing around on equipment that did not belong to me, that I didn’t know how to operate properly. Nor would I hotwire anything.
Not my preference, either, but hell if I’d pay for an abandoned car to be towed from my property.
Why would it be billed to you? Isn’t it usually billed to the owner when they pick it up?
When I lived in an apartment eons ago I called a tow truck for a car in my parking space, which had a sign explaining the situation.
If I called a tow company would they just come tow a car abandoned on my property no charge to me, hoping they’d be able to track down the owner?
It depends on whether you’ve met whatever your jurisdiction requires in the way of signs or notice. If your city or state requires a sign of a certain size, for example, and you don’t have the sign, they likely won’t tow it to their yard at all unless the cops tell them to.
OP doesn’t say exactly what he did to the machinery. He did something that the operator recognized when he returned, such that the operator saw that OP had messed with the equipment. But nothing in this thread suggests that OP did any actual damage to the equipment.
Ah, the renowned Tholian punctuality! I doubt that any police or courts or anyone would be sympathetic to your case if they just left it there for such a short time.
As for your demised lawn: I’m pretty sure that the grass will green up again fairly quickly. Relax.
I (we) were sat in the seat and played around with the controls. My friend has a front end loader and was explaining how things work.
I think the guy recognized something was up the way you would if you got into your car and the seat was out of position and the radio buttons were all changed.
Tresspass? When someone parked in my driveway, I called the police and they found the neighbor who had done it. The neighbor was extremely apologetic, saying he was sure we were away. Of course, the car had a licence; I assume this equipment doesn’t.
Correct.
Hang a large "For Sale’ sign on it?
Heh. If they hadn’t picked it up I totally would have.
I think the point being, they could say you did anything.
They had permission to be there.
I think in this case the permission for access is implicitly granted by the state since this appears to be a right-of-way. The utility companies are allowed a lot of leeway in what they can do in the ROW. If they needed to do something like install a drainage pipe, they could just come in and start digging. They typically give notice to avoid any grumbling by the homeowner, but I believe that is just a courtesy.
This was one of my gripes. There was no notice. When I left for work Friday they had four big trucks on our lane and they had to back out to let me out (dead end private lane).
When I came home from work at 2:00 pm they had to move to let me in. I explained that I was dropping off my dogs, making a sandwich, then going to the store. They had to stop work to let me out and then back in.
A little advance notice and I would have rearranged my schedule.
They had verbal permission to leave it there until Monday, it wasn’t a perpetual agreement.
You mean coming and going every half hour so they would have to stop work to let you in and out?
A few days is not “perpetual.” In my experience, cops don’t want to deal with trespassing issues. Years ago, my sister had an on again, off again, boyfriend. He did not live at our house. He was on the front porch, drunk at 2 am. I called the police to have him removed from the property because he wouldn’t leave. I was told by the cop that because we didn’t have a sign posted “No Trespassing.” He couldn’t do anything.