Tom_in_CA
Gold Member
- Mar 23, 2007
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A thread below was about a fellow md'ing around an old abandoned FL mansion, (which apparently was not fenced or posted). A sheriff came up and chit-chatted/small-talked. The md'r asked about also hunting other spots in the area, and the sheriff answers that "as long as it's not fenced or posted, and .... or ... until told otherwise" etc.... Bumluck chimed in that some states don't require fencing or signs, yet you can STILL be trespassing. I don't know what states that would be, but it occured to me, that if that were the case, then HOW does the person know he was/is trespassing, to begin with? Anyhow, it made me think of the following encounter I had here in CA:
There's a little burg near me, where's there's a certain church that dates to around the turn-of-century. Next door to the church was a vacant lot/grassy field. Not sure if the church owned it, or if it was just a perpetually un-developed parcel (as this is a sort of rural area). My friend and I decided to give the lot a try one day, and found a few coins (perhaps fumble-fingers of the nearby church, etc...). Another time we were passing through this little burg, and decided to give the lot another whirl. But THIS time when we got there, we saw that there was now a little vegetable garden on it. Someone had it all tilled up, and was going to be planting veggies in it or something. But no one was there, and the tilled soil looked inviting (might have brought something else up), so we went ahead and hit it again. This time we found some more stuff, inc. a button from the 1840s (as there's a feature a few blocks from there that dates to the very early 1800s).
This went on for a year or two, that anytime we were passing by there, we'd stop off at this lot, and sometimes give in another whirl. However, one such day we showed up, lo & behold, there were signs "no trespassing"
So as we studied the landscape, we saw that there was a dirt road that separated the church from the lot, etc.. We figured we could work along the peripheries, and perhaps no one would care. So we did. But eventually, I sort of edged my way in to the out rows of the lot itself (hard to resist, but ..... I figured "I'm close enough to the road that I can just step back, etc..."). About 10 min. in to our hunt, a truck pulled up to the curb, and a man got out. I could see gardening equipment and tools in his truck, so I instinctively thought "oh no, I'm gonna get chewed out", etc... So my friend and I sort of "slinked" back to the peripheries a bit more, and sort of ...... got out of there. As we went to our truck, which was right by his truck, the man said nothing, and totally ignored us (even though I was certain he'd seen us near or aside or in his plot). We left, and thought nothing more of it.
A few days later, I was talking to one of my employees, who happens to live in that little burg. I told him of the lot, the signs that had appeared one day, of the man, etc... He quizzed me about exactly which lot, by what buildings, etc.... Turns out the man was his DAD! And the lot was a lot where someone had given him permission to plant a garden. So I asked then, why his dad, after a long time of no signs, had one day put up signs. He said that the reason was, that shortly before this incident his dad had pulled up to the lot to tend his vegetables. He arrived just in time to see a person loading bags and bags of vegetables into their vehicle, that they had just picked from his garden! He got their license # and called the sherrifs.
The sherrifs came, heard his story, and got the license # from him. Then they surveyed the lay-of-the-land, and saw that there were no fences, and no signs. So they told the guy "we can't do anything" (even though they HAD a license #), because "the lot is not fenced or posted". So. .... the fellow therefore PUT signs up. Not because he necessarily cared about someone using the lot for a short-cut path, or someone md'ing it, or whatever, but simply because of how .... otherwise, he could not have the ability to keep people from taking vegetables.
There's a little burg near me, where's there's a certain church that dates to around the turn-of-century. Next door to the church was a vacant lot/grassy field. Not sure if the church owned it, or if it was just a perpetually un-developed parcel (as this is a sort of rural area). My friend and I decided to give the lot a try one day, and found a few coins (perhaps fumble-fingers of the nearby church, etc...). Another time we were passing through this little burg, and decided to give the lot another whirl. But THIS time when we got there, we saw that there was now a little vegetable garden on it. Someone had it all tilled up, and was going to be planting veggies in it or something. But no one was there, and the tilled soil looked inviting (might have brought something else up), so we went ahead and hit it again. This time we found some more stuff, inc. a button from the 1840s (as there's a feature a few blocks from there that dates to the very early 1800s).
This went on for a year or two, that anytime we were passing by there, we'd stop off at this lot, and sometimes give in another whirl. However, one such day we showed up, lo & behold, there were signs "no trespassing"
So as we studied the landscape, we saw that there was a dirt road that separated the church from the lot, etc.. We figured we could work along the peripheries, and perhaps no one would care. So we did. But eventually, I sort of edged my way in to the out rows of the lot itself (hard to resist, but ..... I figured "I'm close enough to the road that I can just step back, etc..."). About 10 min. in to our hunt, a truck pulled up to the curb, and a man got out. I could see gardening equipment and tools in his truck, so I instinctively thought "oh no, I'm gonna get chewed out", etc... So my friend and I sort of "slinked" back to the peripheries a bit more, and sort of ...... got out of there. As we went to our truck, which was right by his truck, the man said nothing, and totally ignored us (even though I was certain he'd seen us near or aside or in his plot). We left, and thought nothing more of it.A few days later, I was talking to one of my employees, who happens to live in that little burg. I told him of the lot, the signs that had appeared one day, of the man, etc... He quizzed me about exactly which lot, by what buildings, etc.... Turns out the man was his DAD! And the lot was a lot where someone had given him permission to plant a garden. So I asked then, why his dad, after a long time of no signs, had one day put up signs. He said that the reason was, that shortly before this incident his dad had pulled up to the lot to tend his vegetables. He arrived just in time to see a person loading bags and bags of vegetables into their vehicle, that they had just picked from his garden! He got their license # and called the sherrifs.
The sherrifs came, heard his story, and got the license # from him. Then they surveyed the lay-of-the-land, and saw that there were no fences, and no signs. So they told the guy "we can't do anything" (even though they HAD a license #), because "the lot is not fenced or posted". So. .... the fellow therefore PUT signs up. Not because he necessarily cared about someone using the lot for a short-cut path, or someone md'ing it, or whatever, but simply because of how .... otherwise, he could not have the ability to keep people from taking vegetables.
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