I wondered about this actually.
Maybe - Maybe Not.
Hampton is a good example because we get a good horse crowd but the natives don’t like us. I was pretty disappointed in my fellow equestrians during Jess Halliday’s first memorial ride. There was tons of horse crap and loose hay all over the parking lot at the end of the day. I chucked what I could into my muck tub and always make a point to leave a public space like that better than I saw it — but the parking lot was a mess.
Come on people. We are not entitled to these spaces. It’s such a privilege to ride on beaches — especially without paying the whopping season trailer pass that other beaches like Cranes charge.
I’m a bit surprised to see so many people telling the OP to use it as fertiliser. Fresh manure should never be used as fertiliser directly on plants, be they ornamental or edible. Manure is only good for this use once it is aged. I wish as horse people we could lead the charge to stop telling people that they should just throw fresh manure on their gardens. Fresh manure can actually harm plants/crops.
This sums up my thoughts on this matter. Some of the attitudes here are also surprising given how people feel about property owners who allow events on their land. One must practically genuflect to such landowners (and I agree that they should be given thanks and praise and appreciation for sure) but that consideration does not seem to extent to landowners who own smaller bits of land riders need to get from A to B, etc. That is spectacularly short sighted. Respect the owners of all land you cross over/use.
People are saying this man even asking a question is being a bad neighbour, ‘that neighbour’, city slicker, etc., etc. No one suggests that letting your horse poop smack in the middle of someone’s drive makes YOU the bad neighbour. Just b/c you’re mounted doesn’t mean you don’t need to be a good neighbour, too.
He is totally reasonable in his request: he doesn’t mind if they ride over his land, he doesn’t even mind poop on the lawn, but could you please come back and clean up the rare times they poop directly on my drive. If someone came to my farm and asked the same in a positive friendly way, I would be delighted with such a neighbour and say, yes, I will ask all riders to be mindful and remove manure that falls on your drive. Welcome to the neighbourhood, thanks for welcoming us to use your property, thanks for your understanding about poop on your lawn occasionally, and yes, the least we can do in return is keep it off your drive.
And this. This is ‘that neighbour’ who may be the first responder when there’s a fall in front of his house or a horse gets loose. Why mock him for moving into a rural place or whatever. He has a reasonable request to go with his otherwise welcoming the horses. What a nice neighbour.
If having a bucket and shovel there, I say the barn should do the neighbourly thing and buy those items and ask would the landowner be okay if they left them there to facilitate poop pick up.
Very good point. No decently run farm would allow piles of manure in the drive. Why is it okay to cause the same in someone else’s drive?
We’ve gone beyond the drive though. Now we’re complaining about ‘edge of the grass’. That sounds awfully like ‘side of the road’.
I’ve stated over and over the annoyance of it in middle of the driveway is fine. Me? I’d just go whip it in the ditch to avoid making enemies of my new neighbors, especially since this is not an every day occurrence. But complaining about it on the side of the road? Too much IMO.
Or, the edge of the grass could be as he has described already, on his driveway, overlapping the grass. That too would be called the edge of the grass and would not require you to get all angry at him for being annoyed by it.
I personally think a home owner should never ever, not even once a year, have to clean the from my pet/animal out of their yard that they mow/maintain.
A graphic to show where the edge of grass is:
True. It could be. But it could also be the gravel area on the side of the road before the grass begins.
I still think it’s foolish and short sighted to be the new guy on the block making enemies of the people who have tractors and equipment to help you if you need it. Not just the horse stable - anyone rocking the boat is going to get a wide berth from all the neighbors.
It’s a good thing horses don’t file insurance claims because this would never get anywhere.
Going to sue over a Halloween decoration? Nah.
His family has owned this property longer than the horse place has been there so maybe he personally is new there, but they are certainly not the new guy on the block.
And the other side of that coin, let’s go with the whole new guy on the block theory. The equestrian facility should be being extra nice to the new guy, because he is new.
Right? I do not get the folks making out that this man is the bad neighbour. No…the people leaving manure on other peoples’ driveways? Those are the bad neighbours!
Wrecks my head when (and this happens so often in life): wrong is done to person A by person B; person A says, hey, could you go ahead and not do that anymore?; people line up to say person A is ‘the problem’ ‘that neighbour’, etc.
Nope: poop leavers are wrong; guy politely asking for no poop on actual drive but okay with poop on grassy verge is just a normal human being with a modicum of manners and the ability to live with and respect others around him.
There’s an arsehole here (or several of them sadly) and it’s not your man without horses who keeps finding manure on his driveway.
And to @trubandloki’s point: if I ran a facility/rode horses and had been going over a sort of abandoned property and then saw someone was now fixing it up, I’d have high tailed it over there, introduced myself, welcomed him to the neighbourhood, and explained how people from the barn ride over on his side of the road for safety and was that cool and they’d make sure to clean up if there was every any poop on the drive. THAT’S how you be a good neighbour with horses.
Humm … Yes lawsuits have been filed over Halloween decorations between Humans.
Which is what I stated. Humans not Ponies.
Nice try though at a snark at me, though. Something that you like to do again and again and again, yawn, I think maybe you need a new gig or therapy that might work too, however that just MO.
They should, up until he comes knocking on the door with a request that is (to them) out of left field.
It’s not the first impression I’d want to make even if I was in the right. This is probably something that should have been brought up after a year or so, if it even continued once the property got straightened back out.
We also only have the OP at his word that he was polite when he spoke to them about this. Remaining polite in these types of requests is an art that many many people don’t have, so I’m guessing it wasn’t as “oh pretty please don’t poo on my driveway” as he would make it out to be.
We have the OP at his word on a lot of stuff here.
Filed means nothing. I can file a lawsuit against you for doing a bad job at trolling.
I spy with my one good eye, that you are starting out the day on a nasty note again.
Same Ole, Same Ole.
Have fun with that as I could care less to engage with you any further.
Question. With the concern of losing access to trails, why would this be your response here but not on a road side? It’s possible the young couple with the goldendoodle has gobs of money to make your access disappear, so wouldn’t it be best to get off and pick up the poop no matter where you are?
Thanks for taking the time to say goodbye, Felicia.
OP, could you provide a general drawing of the areas you’re upset about the horse poop? And the distance from your place that the stable is, and if it’s on the other side of the road? Do you have a ditch? Does it slope immediately at the road side, or is there a small flat area before it drops down?
It is rude to leave manure or poop in the yard or driveway anywhere that is not the yard or driveway that you personally are responsible for.
No sketch required.
No further explanation required.
It is simply rude and these riders are being rude.
If it’s on the gravel on the side of the road “next to the grass”, it’s not being left in his yard.
If it’s in the road in front of the driveway, it’s not being left in his yard. (even if they should kick it off to the side for obvious reasons)
If it’s IN the driveway, you tell them to stop trespassing.
If it’s IN the lawn, you tell them to stop trespassing.
If that doesn’t suit his fancy, I can put up a blocking fence for $20, in an hour and a half.
I’m confused how we got here, where instead of taking action we want to complain and not take preventative action. The second the BM basically told me to shove it, a fence would have been up. Problem solved.