Unusual early morning visitor today...

In My Humble Opinion
1

A man drives up the driveway and walks up on the porch, knocks on the door…at 6:30 AM…

He says he’s “from the town”, and he “wants permission to maintain the graveyard on the property”
(we have a small family graveyard down at the extreme far corner of the field, it’s a graveyard of the original owners of the house, a 230 year old Colonial, we currently maintain it ourselves) and that the town “sent a letter a couple weeks ago detailing this proposal”

we have not seen said letter, and our land is posted Private Property, no tresspassing, clearly posted, we are boring and have nothing to hide, the fields are Timothy and Alfalfa hay

what would your response be;

1; sure, go ahead, less work for us
2; do you have proof of your employer, who is your supervisor, who do I check with to verify this and why did you show up so early?
3; no, go away, we maintain it ourselves
4; get thee behind me, evil governmental minion of evil, you are not wanted, the Power of Freedom compels you!
5; Cooper, go eat the government drone, he’s your new chew toy
6; prepare to face litigation for trespassing, especially this early in the morning

Mom’s response was #2, as she was caught off guard by how early this idiot showed up, she’s now leaning strongly towards #3 (which i also recommended to her), my response would have been #3, but blunter and with a little more profanity and maybe a threat of #5

now that I’ve had some time to think it over, there’s another possibility…
we have a large, healthy population of deer on the property (12-15 at least) they are most emphatically not shy or timid around human activity, even with Cooper with me, we can get around 35 to 50 yards from them before they bound off, and i’ve been able to close the distance even more, heck, yesterday evening, we were about 25 yards from a good sized doe before she saw us and bounded away

the land is posted no hunting, no tresspassing, but I’m sure there are unethical poachers (redundant, i know) and less-than-honest hunters who would love to scope out the land and find good areas to hunt

too bad, jerks, it’s private property, and the deer are safe until I decide i want to hunt them (it’s easier to keep the meat fresh that way, keeping it alive requires no refrigeration

7; probably a poacher/hunter with less than honest intentions, too bad, sucks to be you, no hunting

2

2, then 6, or “start running”

3

When you say it’s a family graveyard, do you mean all the people buried in it are your family? Or that it’s the graveyard of a family? If it’s the latter, and people come to visit those interred there, I’d let the town start maintaining it as it mostly absolves you of liability if somebody gets hurt there.

4

So, did he have proper ID? Did you verify this with the city?:confused:

5

“Show me the paper work!”

“You don’t have? Leave my property please, now. Thank you!”

6

I would have said get lost.

Years ago a contractor a neighbor hired to build another room onto their house started coming around at the crack of dawn before going to the house he was working on trying to see if I wanted to buy baby clothes with the tag still on, or fresh fish, or avacadoes. Used to drive me insane.

7

No he didn’t, and mom is checking

8

I voted for 2 but even if this person had the right credentials I might not let him do the work. I wouold want to phone up the department he works for and discuss it. Mind you I probably wouldn’t have answered the door at that time either.

9

I vote for #5! Cooper needs some exercise.

10

I picked 6; prepare to face litigation for trespassing, especially this early in the morning. Not because I would choose litigation, particularly, but because any contract with anyone official would include allowable work hours and 6:30 at a residence wouldn’t be alowed. So there would be a complaint aimed at whoever was managing the contract.

That’s assuming he was really hired to maintain the cemetary. If he wasn’t, there would be a different kind of complaint, made to the police. Litigation takes money. Complaints just take time.

11

The guy had no identifying elements that he was from “the city”.?
Was he wearing a uniform of any kind?
What vehicle was he driving? His private car–if so, why not a city vehicle? What kind of tools did he have in the vehicle to do this maintenance?
And why did he have no paperwork—a form from his boss, or a copy of the letter that was supposedly sent to you earlier? Or, if he is driving his own car, he should have some kind of internal form used by his department for financial reasons…to record mileage driven and number of days of use for city business.
And when he self-identified as from “the city”, why did he not say “the city sanitation dept”, or “the city parks dept”. Did you ask him for the phone number of his department manager?

etc,
etc.

Moral of the story : if you want to check out potential deer poaching territory, don’t do it by acting suspiciously at 6:30 in the morning.
Try knocking on the door at 8:30, smile, carry a clipboard, and wear overalls with your name embroidered on them–that way you might fool somebody.
But not me.

True story:
I once had a summer job for “the city” too–on a survey crew, checking property boundaries in a marshy area, overgrown with tall bushes and reeds. We carried [del]swords[/del] machetees to cut a line-of- sight through the vegetation. It was hard,sweaty work in a jungle of weeds, and you had to be careful when swinging your machete not to behead the guy standing next to you.
At one point, the head surveyor wanted to set up his instrument at a high spot on somebody’s private property. So we went to ask permission from the landowner. Suddenly, the head guy stopped us and said “uh, ya know, guys…maybe it’s not such a good idea for 3 dirty, sweaty guys armed with swords to barge up to the front door all together”. : )

12

I would not be interested in having some person come onto my property to maintain anything. It’s an invasion of my space. I’d be pissed, and he would be told to leave.

13

You can’t sue someone for trespassing just for knocking on your door, incidentally. Well, you can, but you’ll lose.

14

At 6:30 in the morning? Were you already up? If so, # 2 & #7 If not, # 2 & #8
7. <pick up phone & dial> “Hello, police”
8. Say hello to my little friend. C’mon, you’ve already got a cemetery out back to get rid of the body. :wink:

15

I’m curious to know how this all turns out. I would likely do #2.

You might be on to something with the hunting, but then, if he’s going to poach, why ask permission to be on the land in the first place?

I would wonder if there isn’t something in the law that states that graveyards are under state/provincial jurisdiction, despite being on private property? The reason I wonder this is because in some jurisdictions, there are pieces of legislation in a similar vein. Specifically, in Alberta (where I work), all water belongs to the Crown (province) even if it is on your own private land. That means that any use of the water, or disturbance to that body of water, including the bed or banks, requires approval by the province under the Water Act. A lot of the general population doesn’t realize this and, if they do any type of activity in that body of water without authorization (and are caught), are charged and fined.

Maybe check with the municipality/county to see if there isn’t something similar?

16

This. And if you set the dog on him just for knocking on the door it is you who will wind up on charges.

The correct answer is 2, then, if he checks out OK, 1 or 3 as you prefer.

17

Okay, boring answers ahead…

Mom didn’t brief me on the full situation this morning, so I jumped to conclusions, I’m good at that…

She does know the guy, he lives up the road and is employed by the town, there are two war veterans buried in the cemetery, and they have already been maintaining those graves, he was just wondering if she’d like help with the rest, to which she answered no, but thanks for the offer

And today’s lesson?
Jumping to conclusions may be fun, but make sure you get all the information before making a decision

Oh, and don’t tell your libertarian, government hating son that the town wants access to our property, he will assume that they have ulterior and nefarious motives, he jumps to conclusions really, really well :wink:

…I admit it, I overreacted and feel a tad foolish…:smack::smack:

18

It takes a big man to see how small he is … er … or, something like that.

19

Still, the most insane part of all is knocking on someone’s door at 6:30am. There’s kind of an unspoken rule there…you don’t call someone or knock on their door at 1am or 6:30am. Unless it’s an emergency or you know the person REALLY well, you do it during the reasonable hours that people are awake. This doesn’t sound like anything that couldn’t have waited until 9:30am.

20

normal people are at work at 9:30

back in my day we got up when the sun rose and didn’t mind callers

you youngsters sleep too much