Neighbor Trouble - Need some advice

35-acre

5 year old buck +
I need some ideas on how to deal with some bad neighbors (renters). This is probably a longer explanation of my problem than it needs to be - but here goes...

I own a small portion of land that has sizeable state land bordering on 2 sides. Bordering my other 2 sides is a lease from one land owner (A). That landowner has a lot of property that is currently leased to a bunch of slobs. These guys hunt over bait piles of corn (illegal in my state), and are suspected to take game without tags (I've even found one hanging in the woods several years ago and I know it's gotta be them).

Just up the road from my place, and past the slobs, I also lease some decent land. This lease is from a different landowner (I only point this out because I don't have the option to trade leases or switch leases based on the slobs having "first right of refusal" from their landowner). Through the years, I've had problems loading/unloading my ATV from my truck so I prefer to ride it on the road when going to my lease. I actually have had it fall from the truck - scary stuff. Anyway, I've always tried to maintain a cordial relationship with the slobs and I ask them each year if they don't mind if I use one of their access roads to get back to my property at the end of the hunt. They've always allowed it - I guess I've been fortunate in that regards. This year I forgot to ask (which is probably part of what caused things to go bad). Although, I did see them and talk to them several times this year, I forgot to check with them. But the bottom line is that they just give off a vibe that they aren't good people.

I didn't hunt my lease for the first 4 or 5 weeks, instead I stayed on my property. I hunted over a field that I had put in 4-5 years ago and have been putting a lot of work into. I've been building the soil up using T&M and I've planted 8 trees in cages (chestnuts, apple and pear) plus I've planted about 500 bare root trees throughout my property after having it logged with various things like wild apple, nuts, pine, etc. The bottom line here, is that I own this land, I have a cabin on the property and I enjoy going there for some really peaceful time - it allows me to recoup from the year's events and gets me grounded enough for the coming year.

Here's what happened:
I hunted my lease a couple of times and I came out through the slobs access road, onto my land (without permission/like I've done in past years with permission).
This last time that I came down, I decided to check on my field. I walked over and found it wrecked! My watering bucket tossed into the field. Cages torn off my trees and stomped. Metal posts bent. One of my trees was knocked over - it's a 5 year old chestnut that I was hoping would produce nuts next year. The place was a mess. Of course, my 1 trail camera (oddly enough) didn't have any photos of all of this being done. I suspect that the person responsible used a portable reader and deleted them as the camera was in plain sight.

Not really thinking it through, I fixed everything as best as I could as light was fading fast.
Just after I get to my place, one of the slobs comes over to my place and tells me they don't want me riding their access road.
At this point I'm still FURIOUS from finding the field all wrecked. I'm furious that I didn't have a picture from that camera. And I've already put 2 and 2 together! I'm SURE it was the slobs! The followed my ATV tracks from their access road and came down into my property and trashed up my stuff - escalating to vandalism instead of talking to me. I assume this because rarely do I ever see anyone else hunting in the area. And the way I think about it is that if someone happened to hunt the areas and they found my field, they would have no reason to trash it up. WORST CASE - I have imagined someone coming onto my land, finding the field and deciding to sit and hunt it (even though they would be on posted property).

I didn't accuse the guy, but I mentioned it, to see the reaction - which was denial.

So here I am with a place that I own, that is causing me stress and I'm trying to figure out my options:
  • I just bought a few blackout cameras that I'm going to go there and point them at my cabin as I have no idea what else the slobs may do. The problem is, even if I get a photo of them damaging my cabin, I'll have to press charges and who knows what these guys might do then. They rent. I own. They will still lease the land and I'll still have to deal with them.
  • I could call the "squirrel police" but even if they went onto the slobs lease and found the corn piles and salt licks. What would really be the punishment? A fine? I think that they have to catch someone hunting over it. Or what if they found a deer without a tag? What would really happen? The bottom line, even if they got in trouble for that stuff, I think they will still be there next year and things will only get worse.
  • Should I just stay quiet and suffer through this for years to come? Just keeping cameras on my cabin and bringing tools to repair it each time? Gone is the relaxation of going there for some peace and recuperation.
  • I even ran into another group of guys has the same fear with leaving their trucks parked on the road while they hunt their lease (which border mine and the slobs).

I know I'm part of the problem for not asking about using their road this year and assuming like in the years past it was okay. That's trespassing. I would not intentionally do that - it's just not who I am. But yet, in hindsight I did. It probably pissed them off. So I could have started something.

What would you do? Do you have any ideas or recommendations for me? At this point, selling my place has actually crossed my mind too many times (and that makes me mad too).
 
May not be an option but have you tried to buy it rather than lease it?
 
Good thought. It would probably be something like $350,000.00 year. I don't know if my wife would go for it. Hmmmm... Maybe I need. New wife (lol)!

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I would mention the damage to the landowner,maybe he's the one that should give you permission.Does he know they are breaking the law on his land
 
That sounds awful. Personally, if it were me, things wouldn't have gone so smoothly when they came to your door. I tend to have a bad temper, especially if someone would come on to my property and damage it. Here’s what I would do and actually currently am doing with one of my neighbors. Last year during gun season I had a trail camera stolen and four wheeler tracks coming from his property to my property. Obvious right? So I set up dummy cameras which didn’t work because they only trespassed during the week of gun season and I didn’t realize it until the end of season. This year I put up no trespassing signs on the paths that join our two properties. I put one obvious camera out that is a cell cam and one hidden cam. I have already caught him on camera twice on my property this year. It’s over an hour away so I can’t actually catch him on it, but I have picture proof. I’m waiting on gun season to end and I will pull the card on the hidden cam. He also does not live on his property so, I will either try to catch him during gun season and give him a warning to stay off my property and if he gives me any grief what so ever I’m going straight to the game warden to prosecute with evidence from my cams. So my advice to you would be to pile all the evidence you can of these guys, wether it be illegal hunting...trespassing...thieving, whatever it be and prosecute them.
 
Sounds like a complicated situation for sure. Without having first hand experience in your exact situation, from what I read here I might be inclined to try the following:
1. Grab a bottle of bourbon, deer sausage and crackers and stop by their camp. Even though I don’t feel like I’m “in the wrong” (so to speak) I would fall on the sword and apologize for not touching base with them about driving in on the access road. I would also ask for their help in identifying any trespassers or suspicious activity after explaining what mess someone created for you. Ultimately I think I’d try and repair the relationship (and maybe even improve it from what it was) to start.

2. Go to the landowner and explain the situation to him. Obviously without proof you really can’t say they did it, but you can explain what’s going on to you (a fellow landowner and neighbor) and see what his thoughts are. I think I might even feel him out on leasing the ground to me at a little premium if they aren’t under a long term contract.

3. Continue as is as hide a couple well placed cameras and if/when you have proof of trespassing/criminal activity go back and revisit #2 above.
 
If it were me---i'd wait until i had actual proof before taking any action. I have seen many conflicts between people over land and hunting. People are passionate about their land and the work they put into it. Without concrete evidence you can't prove anything. I would try to get proof and then be able to defend my situation. Some people are just plain pricks----i try not to be one of them.
 
Yep. You do need more proof than what you’ve got but, I believe you really need to take this up with the landowner directly. If he’s unconcerned well then your on your own but usually a landowner doesn’t care for stuff like this. Apparently there’s a market for leasing around you maybe if there’s enough concern you’ll see some new lenses next year
 
Bad neighbors are a real drag. Is selling and buying elsewhere an option? It can make or break a property.
 
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I’m with everyone else saying that you should talk to the land owner. If I was a Land Owner and leased land to them I’d feel embarrassed and upset that someone was using my property like that and that would be the end for them on it. If you do talk to him, I’d Just be 100% truthful included you “trespassing” just to show him you’re sincere.
 
, I will either try to catch him during gun season and give him a warning to stay off my property and if he gives me any grief what so ever I’m going straight to the game warden to prosecute with evidence from my cams.

Rooster in my experience a warning only compounds the situation depending on who it is. That just says you’ll warn them next time.

I caught a guy for the second time on my lease this spring shed hunting. Landowner was afraid to press charges because he fears retaliation. My lease was always a handshake and I had no recourse. I’m now in possession of a written signed lease that gives me the absolute right prosecute. County prosecutor even gave me the nod that that will hold up in court. I can’t wait to catch the prick again...

Neighbors might be different if one isn’t willing to pull up stakes and start over. I have a neighbor that everyone told me was an prick when I bought. They said he won’t even let you retrieve wounded deer. I’ve spent years being good to that guy and it’s true he won’t let people retrieve wounded deer. But he lets me walk through his place to get to my stands and I have an open invitation to retrieve deer now.

I’m a prick when I’m in the right. But sometimes (not always) but sometimes being cordial goes a long way.
 
When we bought our place, we had major trespass issues for the first 5 years. I've talked to others in our state that had the same issue. The way we handed it was this:
- First, we identified the folks who were the biggest problem after we posted our property. Our state allow folks to issue "Trespass Notices". This is a formal notice that is delivered by the local sheriff's office to the individual. There is a cost for individuals but it is free to companies and since we are an LLC, it was free. When someone is caught trespassing after a notice has been issued, the notice acts as a warrant and they are arrested on the spot. While regular trespass is taken pretty lightly by judges with a $50 fine for a first offence, they are much tougher when it occurs after a trespass notice has been issued.

- Second, we reported every incident to the sheriff's office whether they could prosecute or not. We kind of became a PITA, but we did not stoop to the level of the offenders and attempt any self-help. Once you do that, you are seen as bad guys verses bad guys by law enforcement. We did not want that. Every time there was a prosecution opportunity, we prosecuted. Whether successful or not, it cost the offender a day off work to go to court.

- Third, we established a relationship with the game warden. We gave them keys to our gates and welcomed them to come monitor our hunting behavior and that of our guests. It helped that we were also working with the game department biologists for habitat management and part of their DMAP program. One day, we found a bunch of young deer carcasses hung on our fence. We could not prove who did it, but we knew it was the biggest bully and his gang trying to intimidate us. We called the game warden. He interviewed the biggest bully who was drunk and got in his face. The game warden came back and told us he did not have enough evidence to prosecute but thanked us for reporting it and said he would see what he could do. Well, he followed that bully and his hunt club around the next hunting season and cited them for every violation. Each time he cited someone, he would make it clear that the main bully was probably not the best guy to have as a friend.

- Forth, we partnered with adjoining large landowners who were also being bullied. They were afraid of having their cabin or barn burn down. We would share information about trespass with them and they started sharing with us. Once they saw us working with law enforcement, they began to get some courage and started reporting as well.

It took a good 5 years of vigilance, reporting, and prosecution but the word got out. I doubt it stopped their behavior, but they realized we were not a soft target and moved on.

One difference with your situation is that we came in with clean hands. Once you trespassed (even if it was assuming it was still ok), you put yourself on their level from a law enforcement perspective.

At this point, I'd post your property and buy a trailer for your ATV. I'd monitor the situation the best you can with cameras. I'd do nothing but collect information this year. Next year, I'd start fresh. The first thing I would do is to see if there is something equivalent to a trespass notice in your state. Next thing I would do is to try to establish a relationship with the adjoining land owner. It would have been better if you had started there before the incident but you are where you are. Depending on the lease, the leasee may not have even had the right to authorize you to cross the property. If you can establish a cordial relationship with the landowner, it make it much easier to deal with folks leasing from him. Document and report the vandalism. Keep in mind that folks doing this are often committing other crimes.

One day, back during our difficult times of trespass, I caught two guys riding ATVs across our property. I happened to have a game camera hidden near a gate where they stopped for a rest. I was careful, as always, when I confronted them. I was courteous, but told them they were trespassing and needed to leave. They did. I reported the incident to local law enforcement along with the pictures. The deputy thanked me for the report and left. A couple weeks later, the deputy came out for an unrelated trespass incident and told me I would not be seeing those guys from the pics for a "long, long, time". He said they were headed to prison. He did not elaborate beyond saying that the time and dated pictures were very helpful to an investigation.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I think Jack's approach is best. Collect evidence and work with law enforcement. And be prepared for the long-haul with these guys.

I don't deal with shitty neighbors myself for two reasons:
1. You cannot reason with unreasonable people. It is a waste of your time, and it will only aggravate everyone involved.
2. Law enforcement generally doesn't want you to handle criminal activity yourself. If you want the cops on your side, treat them how cops want to be treated.
 
I will add this, unless I just wanted to move properties I think I would exhaust all alternatives first. If these guys are leasing there’s no guarantee they’ll be there in another year or two. If you sell and buy somewhere else there’s no guarantee you also won’t find yourself back in a similar situation, but potentially with the actual land owner themselves instead of a

As Bill mentioned, some what “used to be” doesn’t always have to be. When I bought my last property the current owner and long time neighbor hated each other and I was warned to steer clear. That neighbor and I ended up becoming pretty good friends and even gave me open access to turkey hunt his property since they didn’t turkey hunt. I had a similar situation with my new farm. The neighbor who I referenced in my Hole In The Shoulder buck post didn’t really get along with the previous owner. He and I text daily now and share all camera pictures and “hit list” bucks.

Sometimes just being the bigger person and/or approaching something from a new angle can make all the difference in the world. I know I would hate to sell a place I loved and had history and sweat equity in without exhausting all other options.
 
Thanks guys. I love the feedback and am trying to stay a little quiet on this thread as people give ideas and experience. I am definitely interested in hearing from everyone.

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I'm sorry that happened to you. As I was reading it did not seem obvious to me that this was done by the slobs. You do have public land adjacent as well. To play devil's advocate: I can understand that the slobs were "nice" enough to give you permission to cross their lease every year that you asked. They decide this year they don't want you to, maybe because you did it without renewing that permission or maybe for another reason. They come to your cabin and tell you they don't want you doing it anymore.
It would seem that possible responses to you doing something that was allowed in the past would be:
1) "yeah, that guy drives across our lease, no big deal."
2)"I'm going to go ask him/tell him not to drive across our lease this year."
3)"I'm going to go trash the cordial neighbor's place because he did something we have told him he could do in the past and hope he gets the hint and if he doesn't, then I'll go and talk to him."

This sounds like senseless kid vandalism. Even if it was the slobs, it is possible some of the slobs are worse than the others? Even if it was them, I have a hard time believing that this will escalate if you don't escalate it.
 
i would go with jack and telemark's approach a few posts up^ with full realization/expectations that resolution/satisfaction may be a year or two

bill
 
You a
I need some ideas on how to deal with some bad neighbors (renters). This is probably a longer explanation of my problem than it needs to be - but here goes...

I own a small portion of land that has sizeable state land bordering on 2 sides. Bordering my other 2 sides is a lease from one land owner (A). That landowner has a lot of property that is currently leased to a bunch of slobs. These guys hunt over bait piles of corn (illegal in my state), and are suspected to take game without tags (I've even found one hanging in the woods several years ago and I know it's gotta be them).

Just up the road from my place, and past the slobs, I also lease some decent land. This lease is from a different landowner (I only point this out because I don't have the option to trade leases or switch leases based on the slobs having "first right of refusal" from their landowner). Through the years, I've had problems loading/unloading my ATV from my truck so I prefer to ride it on the road when going to my lease. I actually have had it fall from the truck - scary stuff. Anyway, I've always tried to maintain a cordial relationship with the slobs and I ask them each year if they don't mind if I use one of their access roads to get back to my property at the end of the hunt. They've always allowed it - I guess I've been fortunate in that regards. This year I forgot to ask (which is probably part of what caused things to go bad). Although, I did see them and talk to them several times this year, I forgot to check with them. But the bottom line is that they just give off a vibe that they aren't good people.

I didn't hunt my lease for the first 4 or 5 weeks, instead I stayed on my property. I hunted over a field that I had put in 4-5 years ago and have been putting a lot of work into. I've been building the soil up using T&M and I've planted 8 trees in cages (chestnuts, apple and pear) plus I've planted about 500 bare root trees throughout my property after having it logged with various things like wild apple, nuts, pine, etc. The bottom line here, is that I own this land, I have a cabin on the property and I enjoy going there for some really peaceful time - it allows me to recoup from the year's events and gets me grounded enough for the coming year.

Here's what happened:
I hunted my lease a couple of times and I came out through the slobs access road, onto my land (without permission/like I've done in past years with permission).
This last time that I came down, I decided to check on my field. I walked over and found it wrecked! My watering bucket tossed into the field. Cages torn off my trees and stomped. Metal posts bent. One of my trees was knocked over - it's a 5 year old chestnut that I was hoping would produce nuts next year. The place was a mess. Of course, my 1 trail camera (oddly enough) didn't have any photos of all of this being done. I suspect that the person responsible used a portable reader and deleted them as the camera was in plain sight.

Not really thinking it through, I fixed everything as best as I could as light was fading fast.
Just after I get to my place, one of the slobs comes over to my place and tells me they don't want me riding their access road.
At this point I'm still FURIOUS from finding the field all wrecked. I'm furious that I didn't have a picture from that camera. And I've already put 2 and 2 together! I'm SURE it was the slobs! The followed my ATV tracks from their access road and came down into my property and trashed up my stuff - escalating to vandalism instead of talking to me. I assume this because rarely do I ever see anyone else hunting in the area. And the way I think about it is that if someone happened to hunt the areas and they found my field, they would have no reason to trash it up. WORST CASE - I have imagined someone coming onto my land, finding the field and deciding to sit and hunt it (even though they would be on posted property).

I didn't accuse the guy, but I mentioned it, to see the reaction - which was denial.

So here I am with a place that I own, that is causing me stress and I'm trying to figure out my options:
  • I just bought a few blackout cameras that I'm going to go there and point them at my cabin as I have no idea what else the slobs may do. The problem is, even if I get a photo of them damaging my cabin, I'll have to press charges and who knows what these guys might do then. They rent. I own. They will still lease the land and I'll still have to deal with them.
  • I could call the "squirrel police" but even if they went onto the slobs lease and found the corn piles and salt licks. What would really be the punishment? A fine? I think that they have to catch someone hunting over it. Or what if they found a deer without a tag? What would really happen? The bottom line, even if they got in trouble for that stuff, I think they will still be there next year and things will only get worse.
  • Should I just stay quiet and suffer through this for years to come? Just keeping cameras on my cabin and bringing tools to repair it each time? Gone is the relaxation of going there for some peace and recuperation.
  • I even ran into another group of guys has the same fear with leaving their trucks parked on the road while they hunt their lease (which border mine and the slobs).

I know I'm part of the problem for not asking about using their road this year and assuming like in the years past it was okay. That's trespassing. I would not intentionally do that - it's just not who I am. But yet, in hindsight I did. It probably pissed them off. So I could have started something.

What would you do? Do you have any ideas or recommendations for me? At this point, selling my place has actually crossed my mind too many times (and that makes me mad too).

35-Acre .... I have been where you are at and more.

Great that you have received all these great white linen and good manners answers above ... problem is you are fukd if you can't aggressively confront these types. They already know you are not prepared to fight so they think you are beaten.

You need one of three things to solve your dilemmma ....
A proven tough guy approach with buddies to back it it up ...
Or ... a lot of money to bring legal discomfort to the land owner to force him pain
Or ... ability to sell and walk away to start anew ...

I have bought and sold numerous properties both hunting and recreational ... learned to walk away at the right time. If this was your home and they came on your property ... what would you do?

Tolerance is never a solution ...
 
Tough guy stuff will not go well---you are putting yourself on the wrong side of the law when you take it into your own hands. Remember CHAI VANG? He was in someones stand and without permission was also on land without permission, he was approached by several hunters who thought they would bully him. He walked a liitle ways and turned around proceeding to kill them all. It can happen--it did happen.
 
If I got the story correct, you are only using this path to get to your hunting lease to and from your land without having to go on the road. Sounds like you have a couple of solutions.
1. Use the road to get to the other property and not have to deal with those guys.
2. Is the other property worth the aggravation? You said you are doing more things on your land so you may want to just give up that lease.
 
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