Small farm security

[S1969]

@Simkie

After catching a whole family of people having a picnic on the property (right next to the pasture!) on the game cam last year, we’re following new england tradition and building a stone wall on the property line. There’s just too much liability to have people wandering around the property.

Part of my farm (no animals) crosses a gas pipeline and at the roadside there is a fairly large entry driveway (which was actually for the local school district bus turnaround.) Further in, I’ve mowed paths so I can run my dogs.

But it seems that people often think it’s kind of a parking lot to a public trail or something, and they will go there to take pictures…because we do get a pretty impressive sunset. I’ve interrupted a fair number of people holding wedding photo shoots on my property, as well as a high school class shooting a video with a drone. They always seem surprised, despite the fact that they walked by a posted sign. And they seem to think that I’m just another random person walking at the public trails. Last time it happened I said “Hi. What’s going on?” And they responded “Nothing - what’s going on with you?” (Uh…you’re photographing someone in a Victorian wedding dress…on my farm. Just thought I’d ask.)

If I had animals there, I would probably be more concerned, but it is annoying. What part about “posted” makes you think “this is public property?”

[Jarpur]

We have good perimeter fencing, chosen to deter stray dogs, with a locking electric (swing) gate at our front entrance. There is a strand of electric inside the perimeter fencing, with warning signs.

I figure that professional criminals won’t be interested in our place (we don’t really have anything of value that they’d want), so it’s the opportunists that concern us. The smash and grab type looking for easy pickings, who’d move on to the next place, one without a locked gate.

We’re not in an area with an attraction such as a nearby winery, although we did have a neighbor trespass shortly after we moved in – he brought along small children. We found him in a pasture with our (very cute) horses; when questioned, he told me that he’d promised the kids that he’d bring them over to see our horses.

When I said that he wasn’t welcome, he seemed shocked. Also had someone put toxic clippings over the fence, thinking he was doing our horses a favor (his story was that one of my easy keepers “looked hungry”). Caught this before the horses ate any, fortunately.

We have posted our place with No Trespassing, Don’t Feed the Horses, and Please Keep Gate Closed signage. Won’t deter the pro crooks, or clueless neighbors who think it doesn’t apply to them, but it gives us standing to report the trespassing neighbor to the authorities. We also put up a game cam.

So far, no further problems with human trespassers, at least of which we are aware.

If in an area with more of a issue with passersby or wandering tourists, the double fencing would be a great idea.

[Simkie]

@S1969

If I had animals there, I would probably be more concerned, but it is annoying. What part about “posted” makes you think “this is public property?”

HEAR HEAR. There’s just this weird entitlement??

I have a neighbor that just loooooves to trespass, even when there’s an actual public path that’s MORE convenient. I swear to god he gets his jollies by “getting away” with something he shouldn’t be doing. Such a PITA. (And, sadly, illegal to build pit traps with spikes. Sigh. )

[trubandloki]

@Simkie

And, sadly, illegal to build pit traps with spikes.

Well darn it. Rules like that suck.

[B_and_B]

I had that! Except, it was a group of people from the winery, who walked over (across the public road, albeit dirt) through the barn yard and set up their picnic on the lawn outside our dining room! Nice view of the horses apparently And then the multiple people strolling across to the ‘pet the horsies’.
We’ve had some ‘interesting’ discussions with people over the years. It is posted ‘Private Property’ you blank, blank, blank idiots! Thankfully the winery helps corral people as much as they can. But people will not read the signs.

[dqtastic]

What a funny winery theme that’s popped up!

I am indeed nearby a …winery! Mayhaps something happens once people do their tasting flights…

[S1969]

@Simkie

HEAR HEAR. There’s just this weird entitlement??

In my case I think there is some believe that it is ‘posted’ but by the gas company because of the pipeline, so people figure no one will care. So it’s “private” but not like “really private.” LOL.

The kids filming the movie was hilarious though. They stammered…“well…this is sort of a… um…big empty field. We didn’t know where to look to find the owner.”

I replied - “Dude, I can see you from my kitchen window.”

[Simkie]

@B_and_B

But people will not read the signs.

Around here people just don’t CARE. They can read, but there’s this over whelming sense of “you have more than I do, so you won’t mind if I take some of what you have.” It’s bizarre!

@S1969

I replied - “Dude, I can see you from my kitchen window.”

[B_and_B]

Welcome to Connecticut? It is even better when the culprits are clearly driving a car that costs way more than your yearly salary and are well dressed, with expensive modern phones…and visiting an expensive winery, but somehow I should give them a free picnic spot???

[ASB_Stars]

@clanter

the estates I worked on in Mexico either had Very high walls (with glass embedded into the top…they would stick bottles in by the neck then come back breaking the bottles) the walls make the place a compound …or cactus with razor sharp leaves was used as a fence

Clanter! I had no idea you worked for the cartels!!
(I’m sorry. I could not resist!)

[ASB_Stars]

My property sits above the roads that surround it. So, the other day, some teenaged boys decided to drop their bikes, and jump up the bank, and yell at the Donkey. She quite obligingly was headed in their direction when I heard them.

I walked out to where they could see me, and I hollered, “YOU are trespassing!”

Them: Can’t hear you!

Me (stupid): YOU are trespassing!

Them: Can’t hear you!

Me, holding up my phone: Abla 911? (and no, they weren’t hispanic)

Them; well, nothing, as they hopped off of the bank, and onto their bikes and vamoosed.

Still, I am glad that I installed 2 by 4 non-climb with a board on top around the entire perimeter. You can get over it, if you are desperate, but it ain’t easy.

[dqtastic]

Blockquote(with glass embedded into the top…they would stick bottles in by the neck then come back breaking the bottles)

@Clanter part of me is into this wall idea…a year or so back we had a homeless encampment down the way. I set up some sort of insane Home Alone style electric / hazard barriers in my front field access way. Scary time. Luckily they moved on.

[clanter]

@dqtastic

part of me is into this wall idea…

one of the “homes” I worked on in inner Mexico was on three acres in the rich part of .Chihuahua…it was completely walled, wall was about three feet thick a the base tapering to about two feet at the top …Lowest point on this wall was 18 Feet.

I asked the owner how that was poured. All by hand by three workers who used old wheelbarrows to move the hand mixed concrete (they had piles of sand. gravel and cement that they worked from mixing the material on the ground) then loaded it into the wheelbarrows pushing them up ramps to pour in place. He said it took them one year to build the wall. (afterwards I questioned how the Egyptians built those pyramids)

Then they built the house.

Sort of U shaped structure with the left wing being for the indoor full sized Olympic swimming pool.

I never asked him which drug cartel he owned. He did say the family was seventh generation Spanish Land Grant family that owned “Lots” of land …that rail road that runs from Chihuahua to the Pacific …they own that. Everything in that house was either top of the line new or from France’s Louis the 13th period…it was about 50/50 mix …he brought container loads of furniture in from France.

I did tell my wife if I did not return the person I was working for is where his 14 year old daughter goes to school in Dallas. Find her and you could find where I went.

[baybrio]

In addition to no trespassing signs and trail cams, putting up signs indicating trespassers are being recorded on the cams is a good deterrent. Also tacking up pictures of trespassers below those signs helps.

Of course real criminals won’t care. I think any kind of medium+ dog that looks or sounds scary helps. Although my vet was robbed at night while they were sleeping. The thief just let their ever so sweet golden retriever out the front door.