People, STAY OUT OF MY YARD!!

[ZephyrHawk]

Everybody has fenced yards around here. I can't even imagine NOT having a fence. What's the theory behind not fencing your yard?

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.

There was a recent case in Boulder, Colorado about a family that bought property bordering a large hiking/open space area. After 20 years of owning the property, they decided to build their dream home on the property. They fenced the property and a neighbor sued them, claiing that they were being denied their habitual route to the open space (which they had had been trespassing on). It went to court and the court GAVE 30% OF THEIR PROPERTY TO THEIR NEIGHBOR!!!! The judge ruled that the landowner had failed to protect their property and thus lost their rights to that part of the property,

Outrageous!!!

It's called adverse possesion. Welcome to the wonderful world of real property. Oh, and don't leave lots vacant for 20 years...it's wasteful.

 

[Thats_for_Shore]

I live on the Chesapeake Bay. Waterfront. There is a small strip of beach on my property, but none of my neighbors have this little piece of heaven. It's just the way the property curves, it happens to catch sand in that particular spot.

So my neighbor, two doors down, would send her kids to my beach to play.

Now, I'm not stingy or greedy about it, I honestly don't care who goes back there.

But she was sending her children ALONE, without her. Her daughter wasn't more than 4 years old at the time, and this caused me to freak out.

Who in their right mind would send their 4 year old to play by the water by themself??

I confronted her and told her she was welcome to use the beach any time she choose, but the kids were not allowed unless they were being supervised by a grown adult.

Since she was too lazy to go with her kids to the beach, they never came back.

 

[kbkids]

I live on the Chesapeake Bay. Waterfront. There is a small strip of beach on my property, but none of my neighbors have this little piece of heaven. It's just the way the property curves, it happens to catch sand in that particular spot.

So my neighbor, two doors down, would send her kids to my beach to play.

Now, I'm not stingy or greedy about it, I honestly don't care who goes back there.

But she was sending her children ALONE, without her. Her daughter wasn't more than 4 years old at the time, and this caused me to freak out.

Who in their right mind would send their 4 year old to play by the water by themself??

I confronted her and told her she was welcome to use the beach any time she choose, but the kids were not allowed unless they were being supervised by a grown adult.

Since she was too lazy to go with her kids to the beach, they never came back.

Amazing, I don't even let my OWN children go down to the lake by themself, and we own the property!

 

[SC Minnie]

When we bought our house is was a new house in an older neighborhood so the lot had been vacant for many years. I was home was afternoon during the summer and thought I saw someone riding a dirt bike through the back yard. It was one of those moments where you say to yourself- surely I didn't see what I thought I saw . Another day DH said he saw the same thing but they were gone before he got out the door. The next time DH happened to be outside when they road through. Kids and their stepfather were riding dirtbikes through our neighbors driving, across our backyard, through the woods that are still ours, to the area behind us that has since become a new neighborhood! When DH confronted the SF he said that the neighbor years ago had said it was OK to use her driveway. DH told them to not come through our yard anymore because DD could have been playing back there plus we didn't want tire tracks through the grass we were trying to grow.

I too grew up in the country where you didn't traipse around someone's property.

 

[kbkids]

When we bought our house is was a new house in an older neighborhood so the lot had been vacant for many years. I was home was afternoon during the summer and thought I saw someone riding a dirt bike through the back yard. It was one of those moments where you say to yourself- surely I didn't see what I thought I saw . Another day DH said he saw the same thing but they were gone before he got out the door. The next time DH happened to be outside when they road through. Kids and their stepfather were riding dirtbikes through our neighbors driving, across our backyard, through the woods that are still ours, to the area behind us that has since become a new neighborhood! When DH confronted the SF he said that the neighbor years ago had said it was OK to use her driveway. DH told them to not come through our yard anymore because DD could have been playing back there plus we didn't want tire tracks through the grass we were trying to grow.

I too grew up in the country where you didn't traipse around someone's property.

The house we owned several years ago, I was standing in the kitchen one morning and looked up to see a guy riding a horse through our back yard. Kinda like you, I thought, "What!!! I must be seeing things." I was too stunned to say anything, and it never happened again. We had woods in behind that house that we didn't own, so I guess he was going there, but don't know where he came from. Again, we lived in a residential neighborhood. I can imagine the looks on people's faces when a man on a horse comes riding down the street.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

I too grew up in the country where you didn't traipse around someone's property.

Exactly. Before we bought our house, we rented 3 houses over the years, all of which were out in the country, on a few acres. You don't go on other people's property out in the country, period, unless you want to be greeted with a shotgun.

 

[CowboyCO]

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.



It's called adverse possesion. Welcome to the wonderful world of real property. Oh, and don't leave lots vacant for 20 years...it's wasteful.

Advrese possession is complete BS. If I own it and pay the taxes, it is mine. How many people buy a piece of property with the dream of some day building a vacation home or dream house on it? Not "using" a property isn't wasteful, especially in Boulder. The 30% of that lot in Boulder, CO was supposedly worth about $160,000.

 

[manning]

Advrese possession is complete BS. If I own it and pay the taxes, it is mine. How many people buy a piece of property with the dream of some day building a vacation home or dream house on it? Not "using" a property isn't wasteful, especially in Boulder. The 30% of that lot in Boulder, CO was supposedly worth about $160,000.

Actually adverse possession is not BS. If you allow your property to be used by others for a set consecutive number of years it can revert to them. You have to take steps to protect it.

Here is a perfect example:

Say you have a road (a dirt one made by driving over it many times) running thru your property and someone has made it a habit to use it . once every seven years (that's the time limit in our state) to avoid that road becoming his propery thru adverse possession you have to block access for at least one day every seven years.

The same applies if someone uses a piece of your property and you don't stop them. They can claim it as theirs.

It's the law and something that pays to know.


Ok heres one. If you have vacant property that you do not visit often and one day you show up and see a house on it. Who owns it?

 

[darlene9947]

Why are some people so stupid?!?! I live in a small community. Most of the lots are small with a few trees - ours happens to be 4 1/3 acres and is almost fully wooded. I have one neighbor along the side of our property that keeps an immaculate lawn, however what she does is throw all of her twigs and leaves onto my property and instead of mulching her grass she collects in in her mower and yup - tosses it on my property.

Then this weekend one of our trees up by the corner of the street fell down. DH went over with the chain saw and cut it into pieces but left it there for now as he still has the tractor set up to plow and he'd have to change something over to get the wagon on it to move the pieces of tree. We burn wood so it's not like it wouldn't have been used. Well TODAY as I am leaving to pick the kids up from school I see huge gaping trenches - it's obvious that somebody drove a truck into that part of my property - I looked to make sure they hadn't dumped anything then I noticed they took that freaking wood. I know exactly who did it too since there was a huge set of dirty tracks going right to his house......

Scoop up all the stuff they trow over, and deposit it on their front lawn!

I had a neighbor who would let their dog outside and he would always come onto my front lawn to do his business. It used to burn me up. We both had fenced yards - why couldn't their dog go in their own backyard?? Their kids and mine would play together, so I tried to just ignore it, but it was aggravating. Now this was a large dog (so large poop!).

One day when I got home from work, the kids were all outside playing, they left their dog out and he came right over to use the facilities! I blew a gasket. I went and got a shovel, scooped it all up and deposited it on therir front stoop!!! Those kids were all bug-eyed cuz they couldn't believe I did that but I just had had enough!

The dog stayed in the yard after that!!!

 

[EMom]

Actually adverse possession is not BS. If you allow your property to be used by others for a set consecutive number of years it can revert to them. You have to take steps to protect it.

Here is a perfect example:

Say you have a road (a dirt one made by driving over it many times) running thru your property and someone has made it a habit to use it . once every seven years (that's the time limit in our state) to avoid that road becoming his propery thru adverse possession you have to block access for at least one day every seven years.

The same applies if someone uses a piece of your property and you don't stop them. They can claim it as theirs.

It's the law and something that pays to know.


Ok heres one. If you have vacant property that you do not visit often and one day you show up and see a house on it. Who owns it?

Like others, I am aware that adverse possession is legal. That does not make it right. I don't care what I was taught in law school, I don't have to agree with all of it.

To many who were raised in the country and/or whose families own large tracts of land, adverse possession is simply wrong. If we cannot check on a section of land for years, so what? It is still OURS. Period. To a great many people, what the law terms "adverse possession," we more accurately label "opportunistic stealing." The law may be on their side, but they are still just common thieves. In this case, successful thieves.

Yes, yes.....depending on all the conditions, the law would likely give the land the newly built house sits on to the thieving adverse possessor. Decency would give the house to the longtime landowner.

 

[manning]

Yes, yes.....depending on all the conditions, the law would likely give the land the newly built house sits on to the thieving adverse possessor. Decency would give the house to the longtime landowner.

Actually not, I am talking about a few year span, not the 20 year adverse possession.

If you did not know the house was built on your land you get to keep it. You don't have to pay for it.

If you knew the house was being built and you stepped forward to claim it after it is finished, the house is yours, but you have to pay for it. You have to stop them and can have it torn down at their expense.

 

[muffyn]

could you possibly run a few strands of electric fencing?

that at least won't block your view....

or.. some wide spaced cattle fence .

( we have both,, but then, we are out in the country)

 

[EMom]

We had electric fences when I was a child. We sometimes used them as the midline in tug of war. THAT will give you an incentive to win the game.

 

[shkeogh]

http://www.remington.com/products/firearms/shotguns/model_870/model_870_marine_magnum.asp

 

[barkley]

poison oak and poison ivy will grow quite well even in rocky soil-and it's not prone to people opting to stomp on it even in it's earlier stages of growth

 

[Mrs. Bee]

why do so many people hate fences? afterall...good fences make good neighbors, right?

our house is being built right now and one of the first things we're doing when it's done is putting up a fence. partly because i don't want random people in my yard. but also because i like privacy. if i want to lay out in a swimsuit on my patio...i don't want anyone to see me...haha. i also don't want to feel obligated to chit-chat with my neighbors all the time.

 

[Piglet4Ever]

We had a problem with people cutting through our yard when we lived in VA. Mostly kids who couldn't be bothered to go around the block, riding their bikes through our lawn. It ticked me off to no end. DH and I solved the problem by putting up a wire fence, about 10 ft tall, didn't ruin our views, but was very secure. One day while I was looking out the window, a kid on his bike rode through the lawn and got the surprise of his life when he ran into the fence and fell off his bike that was the last time anyone tried using our yard as a pass thru!!

 

[kbkids]

why do so many people hate fences? afterall...good fences make good neighbors, right?

our house is being built right now and one of the first things we're doing when it's done is putting up a fence. partly because i don't want random people in my yard. but also because i like privacy. if i want to lay out in a swimsuit on my patio...i don't want anyone to see me...haha. i also don't want to feel obligated to chit-chat with my neighbors all the time.

Because while I'm lying out on my patio in my swimsuit, I'd rather look at a sparkling lake than the back side of a fence. Okay, realistically, if I'm lying on the back patio in my swimsuit, I'm snoozing and not looking at anything - but you get my drift.

 

[JPN4265]

Okay - I'm majorly venting, but since the weather is warming up here, it's starting again. We finished building our house last summer. It is in a neighborhood with a lake out behind our house. The lake belongs to the homeowner's association. The shore of the lake on the side behind our house is our property. There is a neighborhood entrance to the other side of the lake further on down the street. People constantly walk through our back yard to go to the lake. We've tried being nice and politely letting them know they are in our back yard - didn't work. DH put up No Trespassing signs - still didn't work. I really didn't want to put up a fence, but I guess we're just going to have to. Today, 3 kids cut through our back yard, and on the way, picked up one of my dog's balls and headed off down to the lake. Now honestly, I don't care about the ball, but geez, if you're going to cut through my yard, at least have the decency to leave my stuff alone!! I walked down and said, "Can you please give me back the ball you just took? It belongs to my dog." "Oh, I'm sorry. We were just playing with it." "You know, you guys are cutting through my back yard, and I'd really appreciate it if you would use the neighborhood entrance down the street." "Oh, we can't do that. It belongs to someone." What I wanted to say was, "Hey genius, so does this property," but I didn't. I just said, "Well, this is our property. The entrance down the street is for people to come down here to the lake. You really need to stay out of people's back yards and respect their property." Now, these are same three boys last summer who when my kids and I were swimming in the pool just came trotting through the yard within 3 feet of my pool and act like they have a right to be there. DH walked down to the lake and talked to them - an hour later, they come right back through again. I'm sooo aggravated with the situation. We're not talking about huge acreage here. It's a regular sized neighborhood lot - it's so obvious that you are in my back yard!!

FENCES MAKE GREAT NEIGHBORS!!!!!

 

[barkley]

FENCES MAKE GREAT NEIGHBORS!!!!!

electric fences make for amusing stories to recall at future block parties