Trespassers

The BBQ Pit
41

Let me try to seriously address some of these issues:

  1. Firearm/capgun - Out of the question. First off, I don’t want to escalate the situation to the point it gets out of control. Second of all, a gun is a bad threat. I believe it’s illegal to threaten somebody with a gun, anyway. It’s also insanely stupid. I don’t know whether they have guns or not. I would feel pretty dumb firing warning shots with a capgun, and receiving for real return fire. Also, as I said before, it is a bad idea to point a gun at anybody unless you intend to kill them immediately. I’m usually armed, but the gun stays put.

  2. Sacrificial boat - This is kind of appealing at first. Sadly though, I wouldn’t be able to witness the spectacle, and would only know that it worked when the boat disappeared. Sadly, I don’t think it’s possible to rig a boat that it will sink fast enough to stop them from paddling to shore before it gets swamped (only a two acre pond.) Finally, boats, even second hand ones ain’t cheap.

  3. Signs - My property is posted. It’s not much of a deterrent. Some sections are fenced with an electrical fence. In the past I’ve had this cut by trespassers, and the horses got out. An electrical fence isn’t much of a deterrant.

  4. Talking to the local bishop - An excellent idea. To make it work though, I have to catch them red-handed so I know who it is, otherwise they can just deny.

  5. Multiflora roses - Might be a nice idea. It would be a bitch to enclose 90 acres that way though, and my farmers might object to my planting weed brush in their crops.

  6. Stealth - Usually when I’m jogging I’m fairly stealthy. That’s when I catch most people, and I vary my route. Something else that works is that the horses are excellent at detecting trespassers. Anytime somebody comes on the property or they see deer, they run down and stand at the section of fence closest to them, and stare with ears pricked forward. I don’t always take the truck, but it’s a pain to hike down there.

  7. Geese - They aren’t quite the badasses to local folk as they are to you citified people. I’ve given a goose a hell of a punt, and I went to some trouble to run them off. My Border Collie is trained to do so. I’d rather not have them back.

  8. Selling - Probably doing that.

  9. Tape/Pictures - I thought about this. There’s a type of camera, sells for about $200, you can attach to a tree, and if someone or a good sized animal approaches it’ll snap a picture. It’s not silent though, and I imagine I’d probably lose the camera.

  10. Boobytraps/grease/paintbombs and such - The grease might be worth trying. I’ve simply removed the boat.

What I’ve done:

Yanked the boat up to the garage. Notified my neighbor and farmers. My neighbor promises to sneak in a couple of times and see if he can catch anybody. I sneak down there more often as well. I also put a little sign where the boat was that says.

“Attention trespassers: When you are caught your personal property will be seized. You will be turned over to the police, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, with fines of $500 and/or jail time. You will be held liable for the damages that have accrued as a result of your presence, and the game warden will be notified of your poaching activities, resulting in further fines, and loss of licensing privileges.”

42

Scylla, I don’t think you have to be 100% certain whose children these are beffore you can talk to thier parents/the bishop. Remember. you aren’t accusing the parents of anything–you’re helping them keep thier kids safe. I would go talk to them, not as an angry property owner, but as a concerned member of the mutual community. You’ve seen kids in the middle of the pond in a rowboat. You are pretty sure that one of them was thier Bob. You are concerned, because you don’t have any lifejackets out there, and the bottom of the pond is a mess of weeds and logs and god knows what else that people have thrown in there. You yourself almost drowned once when your pants leg got caught up in some barbed wire that was rusting underwater. Plus, you got ringworm. The pond is not a safe place, and you hope that the parents will be able to impress upon the kids that they have to stay off your property, because you just couldn’t live with yourself if something happened. You are looking to work with the parents/bishop to prevent what could be a senseless tragedy.

You can spin a varient of this for hunting season, as well. Remember, there is no point of accusing them of raising lawless brats. but offering to work with them for the safety of thier kids has much more potential.

43

A buddy of mine here @ Texas A&M has (or, his parents do) a large ranch just west of Laredo, on the mexican border.

Obviously they have trouble with illegals coming across and whatnot ( I guess it’s easier to hold illegals with civilian M-16 then it is trespessers), in fact they have a pond like yours. Mexican ‘coyotes’ kept on stealing the damn boat for use on the Rio Grande (why? hell if I know, the damn river ain’t exactly the amazon.)

Another problem is local kids going onto his and and trying to “cow tip”, and the like. Eventually, Senor Saldana (My buddy’s dad) got an idea.

He would dress completely in black, including a mask with red cellophane. Under the ‘eyes’ he would have little lights. Then he and his rottweiler would hide in the bursh. When someone came by, he would turn on the lights, and suddenly there’s a rottweiler and a pair of glowing red lights chasing the bastards.

He would only do this to local kids, altough he would have his gun handy for illegals.

44

Whatever you do, don’t plant multiflora. It spreads like wildfire and you’ll need a bulldozer to get it out. Your best solution is deterrence, and the best deterrent would probably be dogs.

The Invisible Fence ™ people here in Maryland have a system they’re promoting for orchard protection (from deer). It’s basically a regular Invisible Fence. They take two dogs from the pound that were slated for euthanasia, and have them live inside the fence. The dogs are not pets. They live in the orchard full-time. You are required to provide shelter and food, and they will check up on the dogs from time to time. The dogs quickly learn their territory and become quite possessive of it. Deer damage to orchards basically stops, and I’m pretty sure your trespassing problems will, too.