Several (many) years ago one of my coworkers was visably upset when she arrived in the office. When I asked why, she told me someone had stolen her yard. Your yard? Someone took something from your yard? NO! They took the whole #$% yard! She had moved to a new townhouse, and the night before someone took her entire freshly laid lawn. It must have taken a crew to roll up and steal all the new sod.
There was a problem in Colorado with folks posting Forrest Service land (which is open to the public) with "No Trespassing" signs and threatening hikers and fishermen. The government agencies were forced to put up "Open Access" signs and arrest some of those involved. I think marijuana grow fields were the problem.
People buy lots that border government land knowing that no one will build on them then try claiming the land as theirs to keep people away including calling the cops Worst the cops show up and think the land is theirs not government
I worked on the Kalamazoo River oil spill in Southwest Michigan back in 2010. The river was closed to all entry except by remediation crews. Two 60+ year old gentlemen came down the river in a canoe right past our staging site. I hailed them and informed them the river was closed. They were amazed. This was several weeks into the spill cleanup and was the news item of note everyday on local news. The very physically fit gentleman had ridden bikes to the river pulling the folding fabric hulled canoe on a trailer. Very neat setup. When we took them back to their entry point after decontaminating their canoe we found they had chained their bikes to the signpost that displayed the ‘’RIVER CLOSED DUE TO OIL SPILL’’ sign. ‘’We didn’t pay any attention to the sign’’ was their response. Some folks…………
Not a boat guy here, I know nothing about boating laws, etc. Is it even legal to close a river due to an oil spill? If so what statute does it come down to? I've always thought waterways were considered free passage to anyone / anything as long as you're not in a motorized device or over a certain weight. I'd always assumed in a scenario like that it'd be at your own risk to go into the contaminated site.
Very early, I was at the Kzoo release, stationed just a couple hundred yards from ground zero. What a wild operation. Somehow I ended up in charge of supplies for our crew of 20. I once traded 6 meat lovers pizza's for 4 pairs of size 11 rubber boots. I worked 13hr shifts 28 days in a row. Insanity.
@@linuxguy1199 *Good point, just like a sign on the road that says flooded, but it's up to you to determine if it's safe or not. Everyone has a different level of what's safe and what's not.*
*I'm sorry but those guys had a very valid point, With a billion signs all around us the majority of people don't read them. Only when doing things like pulling up in a parking spot and making sure you can park there will people usually look for a sign to make sure they don't get a ticket or towed away, otherwise why the heck would you waste your time reading billions of signs everywhere you look?* *You'd look like an idiot, wait I need to read that sign, wait I need to read that other sign, wait I...*
@@linuxguy1199 State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality shut it down. Not sure what statute was cited. Local Sheriffs office was the enforcing body. River was closed from Talmadge Creek / Kalamazoo River confluence westward to Morrow Lake. Waterways are closed all the time for safety’s sake.
I almost have no words... a whole porch... The humor lies in the utter stupidity of humans. I'm glad the porch & canoe were recovered. Thanks Mr. Lehto 🙂
Plot twist: it's rural georgia.....they dropped the s, the guy ACTUALLY stole his neighbour's Porsche lol (alluding to the old joke about a guy painting a home owner's porch "btw, it's not a Porch it's a mercades"
Someone once did something worse. When a family went on vacation, some jerk took out an ad in the paper stating that all items on the property had been seized by the police and were being offered for free to whoever wanted them. A lot of people showed up and started taking all his stuff. A neighbor saw the huge crowd stealing his stuff--one of them was taking the horse--and when he tried to stop them even to the point of screaming the ad was fake, he was threatened with violence--people refused to believe the ad was fake. Eventually the police arrived and dispersed the crowd, but by then most of his appliances and valuable items were gone. The owner of the home rented ad space in the same paper for weeks, begging people to return his stuff, but almost none of it was ever returned. People--probably many of them ordinarily law-abiding-- felt they were entitled to whatever this man owned simply because they fell for a fake ad.
People can be so oblivious and entitled sometimes. I live next to a Dr’s office, I can’t have anything in my backyard such as a picnic table because the Dr’s patients will sit at the picnic table. The worst was went they sat there changed their baby’s diaper and left it on the ground. There is a dumpster that would have been 20 feet from the picnic table. Working on getting a fence put in to keep the entitle oblivious disgusting people out.
With no Trespassing sign and big Yellow letters and keep out dog guarding 24 hrs or even better a jar with a sign in the picnic table saying donation accepted for seating in the table.
My friend was out "Dumpster Diving" during Spring Cleaning one year looking for freebies, saw a leaf blower and string trimmer sitting at the end of a driveway, pulled over and grabbed them. He got home and checked them out, both ran perfectly, and he started thinking about it, "they were warm when I picked them up?" Someone had been doing yard work and probably just took a break and sat the tools down where they were working. He took them back and the person was very happy, he thought that he was going to have to buy new tools.
Me and my mom grabbed some empty boxes for moving from behind a strip mall once. When we got home and opened the boxes-they were taped shut but that's common behind stores to keep the packing material from blowing out-they were full of very nice gift bows. Turns out we were behind the Hallmark store and they had just gotten a delivery. We called the store and told them what had happened, they were very happy to trade the full boxes we had for some empties for us, lol.
@@zafarsyed6437No fooling! I've changed residences multiple times over the decades and I've put stuff including whole beds by the sidewalk. They were usually gone within the hour.
A neighbor, a few years ago, had stuff disappear fairly regularly. He had an outbuilding that wasn't in very good shape & was easy in break into. He saw lights flash past a window 1 night so he snuck out, knifed the car's tires. He waited nearby & heard a lot of cussing when the owner came back. The next day a sign was posted in the neighbor's yard that said, I don't have a sense of humor but I need batting practice. If you doubt these words, show up & find out. A few months later he was behind the thief in the local convenience store. He spoke just loudly enough for everyone to hear, I haven't seen you at my place for awhile, did you get your tires fixed? Funny thing, all thefts quit!
I HAVE once seen someone put a set of precast concrete porch steps at the side of the road with a "free" sign on it. And I get it, the disposal costs for something that big and heavy can be a chunk of cash.
An attempted neighbor on neighbor crime that happened to me was that I came home from work one day and found a tarp full of broken up sheetrock and plaster in my driveway. Further investigation revealed a trail of plaster dust going down the alley from a neighbor's yard about 4 houses away to my driveway. I dragged the tarp back to their driveway and never heard anything about it again.
@@craigclose125 I assume that he didn't want to pay to have it hauled away and hoped that I'd be forced to dispose of it for him. Unfortunately for him he didn't cover his tracks very well.
Someone's drywall in a dumpster at work. Address from when it was delivered in marker on the back of a piece. Cops came, crook paid for our dumpster for a while.
Just yesterday there was a story out of Spokane, Washington, of a couple who dressed as firefighters and looted several homes in the area that's being hit by wildfires. Not quite the same thing, but it's amazing just how low some people will go. "Let's spend hundreds of dollars on costumes so we can steal from people who have lost everything."
@@CantankerousDave -- But it was the real fire fighters who were stealing stuff. I live in wildfire country; this happens all the time. I used to donate to the firefighters "fill the boot campaign." Where firefighters in uniform would stand at intersections with a boot and solicit donations. Then one time I observed one of those firefighters walk behind a fire truck, take a hand full of bills out of the boot and stuff it in his pocket. I never donated again. It's bad enough that I get "robbed" every year of thousands of dollars in property taxes that goes to just the fire service.
I worked at a camp years ago that had an issue with one of the neighboring properties putting up no trespassing signs on the camp's property. The neighbors always argued that land was really theirs and were nasty about it to camp counselors and even campers (who were under 16, by the way) who were using the trails on camp property. The camp finally had to take a couple neighboring property owners to court because they were putting up signs and calling the police about campers trespassing on their property, when it was actually camp property. It got to the point where a survey had to be done, and the neighbors were literally ACRES into the camp property (which the camp knew, but the neighbors were words not allowed on TH-cam and the police wouldn't do anything when it came to the camp) but were placing signs up and calling the police to report trespassers.
@@stevenstrain283 I worked there about a year, and it was a couple months after that the camp took them to court. So it didn't go on too much longer than a year. Not sure what the final court statement was, but the neighbors got real quiet after that from my understanding.
They were trying adverse possession (squatters rights), we had a neighbor try that with our wood we owned, on the side of the creek that we farmed on we made a little camping area in the woods used by us, scouts, cub scouts, girl scouts, church youth group. It was far enough from a street that you could hike back or take a dirt access road back, but basically anyone that wanted to camp but be close to home, we would keep the undergrowth cut down and had a nice fire ring and each year have wood available or the people that used it would pick up dead limbs and branches, it was a nice set up. Well on the other side of the creek we owned the woods over there too, but we wanted to keep that as old growth woods, untouched, although we would hunt in it from time to time or allow very close friends to hunt there, so basically the other side of the creek was untouched almost year round. The people that bought some farm land to build a house on that abutted our woods kept wanting to claim those woods as theirs, even putting up their own no trespassing signs. We ended up having a surveyor from the county come out and put up stakes where the property line was, we already had stakes up but they had "mysteriously" disappeared. Well we spent a lot of money just to keep someone from taking our land and claiming as their own. We finally built a house on the farm land which already had 2 barns on it that we had built years before. But the area on the other side of the creek gave us issues for 5 or so years.
I worked in an office and found that, no matter how many signs you put up and no matter how clear you make them, there will be some oblivious jerk who will ignore/overlook them!
The "how many" might be the problem. Too many places have so many signs and notices that the human brain will tend to filter them out as background noise.
Had our land surveyed, put up t-posts, neighbor claimed it was her land and took my posts up. Deputies say it is a civil dispute. Put posts back up, ran stringline till next day, but meanwhile ductaped 'NoTrespassing' signs to the posts. Neighbor cut the string, took the signs. We are suing her now. She is 22 ft on our property. Suing for our time and aggravation, and that includes the dozen calls to the sheriffs dept and taking me to court to have me arrested,(the deputies wouldn't arrest me), for trespassing on "her" property. attorney fees and court costs. She went to court WITHOUT an attorney. She claimed she had to fire him cuz he was working for us. I'm guessing that he told her that the surveyors property line is the same on every survey for over 40yrs, and it is our property. And that a fence is NOT a property line. But she already knew that. She put it there between owners.
In Colorado, it’s a crime to remove survey markers. Worth checking with your surveyor, might have to provide the relevant state law with number, etc. to police. (Though in your case, you’re probably past chasing that detail.)
I used to have a place with acres of woods on it. No Trespassing signs posted as per local law. Hunters would come in on it and when I'd catch them there, some of the excuses they'd come up with. "Someone told me I could hunt here", "It's public land" (no it wasn't) were the usual ones. The one that really sticks in my memory was "My dogs chased a deer here, I'm just following them". That guy really believed that he could legally go wherever his dogs went and refused to leave. I called the sheriff's office but by the time a deputy got out there, the hunter (and his dogs) were long gone.
IIRC, there was a TH-camr (Goldshaw Farms?) a year or so ago that was dealing with a hunter whose dog had treed a bear on his property. The hunter wasn’t very nice, but he was legally allowed to follow his dog and the bear.
Many states allow people to retrieve their dogs from private property. Not supposed to linger though. (Steve has even mentioned that at least once on this program.)
On the canoe story, and it being a 'common misunderstanding,' would the canoe have been recovered if the other neighbor hadn't seen what was going on, or if the owner hadn't confronted the person taking it? I'm betting it wouldn't have.
I dunno, a 17 foot canoe would be at least a few hundred dollars, right? And I bet these people lived in some nice areas. The kind of place where a $300 robbery is something the police would look into.
@@phiddlephart7026: Just make sure that your tracking device/s are firmly fastened to your aluminum, wood, or fiberglas canoe! Hint: magnets won't do the job on any of the three materials ^^^^^^ . 🙂
My gf has several of those bright yellow No Trespassing signs in her yard. As early as 2 days ago a man parked next to the sign and proceeded to fish in her lake. When asked about it the man claimed he didn't see it. I WOULD FEEL LESS PAIN IF I GOUGED AN EYE OUT WITH A DULL KNIFE AS TO HEAR THESE PEOPLE CLAIM THEY DIDNT SEE THE SIGN!!
Steve, you have far more patience than I do. Explaining the law to someone playing stupid is not my job. My response to that trespasser would've been, "You have 30 seconds to get your ass off my property, starting right now." I've done it to solicitors that pressed the hard sell.
My daughter-in-law hand painted a beautiful "No Soliciting" sign for us so I built a nice self standing post for it out of a 4x4 and we placed it in front of our door. Every once in a great while someone would knock on our door and I would point to the sign and they would apologize and leave. One day a woman came up and wanted to have someone climb up on our roof to inspect it for storm damage so we could have it replaced and paid for by our insurance company. I politiely told her I wasn't interested and pointed to the sign at which time she began argruing that she WAS NOT soliciting. She would not shut up and had no "OFF" switch. Not exactly the kind of company I would hire to work on my house.
I remember an entire bridge was stolen in Pennsylvania. Thieves could probably make good money if they put their hard work towards earning an honest living.
@mikezupancic2182 it may have happened in Ohio as well. It definitely happened in Pennsylvania in 2010, two brothers cut a steel bridge apart with torches, to sell for scrap. They made $5k and became felons
In Wisconsin landowners don't have to put up signs (many do anyway) also we've had people argue with us that utility rights of way are public access. One woman was taking hickory nuts off of the right of way and when told to leave she insisted that she had a right. She finally left and then returned with a copy of a law from Michigan and insisted that it pertained to our Wisconsin land. Some people just make me shake my head. I've also had a neighbor that was giving people permission to hunt and forage on our property. One of our authorized hunters has sent away more than 5 people. Had to make it clear to that neighbor that he was not authorized to give permission for our property. His family continued to trespass but law enforcement would not enforce. Our problem was finally solved (sadly when the neighbor died) when the property got sold.
A bully once stole my prosthetic leg. I will always and forever cherish the look on his face when he was arrested for felony theft. And what the judge said after he was found guilty and sent to prison. I think he got 2 years, but I'm not sure he spent that long behind bars.
I've got the the canoe story topped. When I got new duplex neighbors, I politely welcomed them, gave them my phone# and email, and told them if they had any questions about anything to get ahold of me. I was home 24/7 for their first 3 weeks, and then left one afternoon for 3 hours. By the time I came home, they had stolen my bean poles and compost pile from my back yard (they had a separate side yard instead of backyard), and took them completely off the property. The husband's cousin had brought a trailer to take the compost pile the last tenant had left next to their driveway, and they decided to help themselves to mine. The wife quickly identified that she knew the property had a 50/50 dividing line, while the husband complained about how much effort it had taken him to move a bunch of my property to steal my compost pile, which was 18 feet past the dividing line (2/3 across my side) and weighed many hundreds of pounds. Didn't even think about calling me… I was too stunned to demand he bring it back, and instead erected a fence.
Had a folding table in the front yard in neighborhood loaded with fresh garden produce. Big sign that said, Free vegetables, take what you can use. Somebody took the table.
In my area if you leave something out on the curb people will come up and grab it. To avoid any misunderstandings, we put a free sign next to anything we leave out. One time they even took the free sign
Yep. Something on the curb means you're done with it. No sign necessary. If there's a city clean-up truck in the area, they will scoop it up [usually, though, these neighborhood clean-ups are 1-day events, scheduled weeks in advance].
That's my issue, didn't have signs up & I lost an $800 self supporting enclosed deer stand sitting just behind my shed out back. As well as a $75 trail camera, but that was on my neighbors property that IS posted. Yes, I & my buddy have written permission to be on my neighbors property. Another issue I had, a push mower on the side of the road - next to someone's driveway. No sign saying "FREE" or "TAKE IT, BROKEN". So I was looking it over to see what's wrong with it. Woman ran out of the house & demanded I explain myself. I told her that because the mower is on the side of the road that maybe it's not working & she was getting rid of it. She spouted off "NO! IT'S OUT OF GAS!" My husband went to town to get more gas. I then calmly said " its a push mower, why not pull it back to your house then? Most people put their mowers to the side of the road indicating they don't want it".
One of the best I ever heard was someone pulling up new sod from a house being built and re-laying it at their house which if I remember correctly was a couple houses down 🤣
While hurricane Wilma was passing through Miami, a neighbor stole a fence I just placed a day before and I found him installing it on his property just one block away. He claimed he "found it on the road after the hurricane knocked it down, and it was finders keepers"
My husband was moving (we were dating at the time, so boyfriend) and I went to help him finish up moving the last bit of items. Things left were a patio fire-set on the back deck and a canoe. We pulled up and the canoe is gone and 1 of the chairs to the firepit/patio set is missing. As soon as we start hauling the items the neighbor came over ( he was acting squirrely) My husband asked him if he knew where the chair and canoe were? Nope. He leaves and we continue to pack up. On the way out we drive past this neighbors large shed and I spy something Red behind the shed. I asked my husband to stop. I get out and there under a tarp behind the shed was my husbands canoe!!!! I told my husband we probably interrupted him taking the patio furniture and he was shocked we were there and that is why he was acting squirrely. This still makes me laugh when I think about how we stole my husbands canoe back from his thieving neighbor.
I was cleaning out my garage a few years ago, had stuff in front of and beside my garage. Went inside to get a cold drink, when I came back out there were half a dozen people walking around my drive carrying my property. Apparently they assumed it was a garage or estate sale or something so they were just helping themselves to my things. There was absolutely no sign indicating this. Told everyone to put my stuff down and get the hell off my property.
If you've watched those Ring Doorbell vids, you'll see people taking whatever they want. Mail, plants, packages, lawn furniture, lawnmowers, bikes, you name it. It's unbelievable, and to me it's distressing.
The statement that got me was: "Some people may shrug their shoulders and say that it is not a big deal." WHAT? That attitude blows my mind. Just like some other commenters in this section, we also live in an area where items placed by the side of the road are usually available for free. Most people also put out a "FREE" sign to make it clear. In town, it would be the grassy area between the curb and the sidewalk. But, when in doubt, you ASK. No Trespassing signs mean Not Available. End of story.
This reminds me of the guy that stole a bridge a while back. Hired cranes to load it on a flatbed trailer right on public property and nobody batted an eye because they thought it was just a construction job. I’m not sure if you covered that one or not.
Which one? Back a while ago (2011) in Lawrence County in Pennsylvania (Outside of Pittsburgh), two brothers stole a railroad bridge. Sadly, this is not the only one. There is a more recent one in Hammond.
I knew a roofer who had his ladder stolen from the front of a house while he was working on the roof on the back side. I had to move my ladder to that house so he could get off the roof.
@@machintelligence gutted, I bet that was an expensive ladder too! Roofing ladders aren't cheap! I do know an I.T. guy who climbs onto rooftops without a ladder, satellite dish in tow - little guy, but he's a freaking monkey.
People really don’t take in a lot of what they see in their environment. It’s absolutely believable that they didn’t notice the sign they walked right past, but there’s no excuse for failing to admit they were wrong, apologize, and promise not to do it again while they leave immediately.
In a small parking lot, 20 spaces, I parked closest to the door. 1 hr later found a ticket on my windshield for parking in a handicap slot, looked up & saw the sign for the first time.😨
I missed the delivery of a washer/dryer combo. They sat them on the porch. I got home, made a snack and heard someone one the porch. Low and behold a man with a dolly was grabbing up my washer. I got my Sears and Roebuck 16ga, ran out the door, swung the barrel 1/2" from his ear and pulled the trigger. Having a shotgun go off that close to your head is an attention grabber. I've enjoyed the use of the free nearly new dolly for over a quarter of a century now.
Another perspective on trespassing... Last week, I was at a public park, just at the edge of the middle of town, walking through the woods, saw a cool trail, crossed the river via a fallen tree. Poked around a bit, and my friend I was hiking with (who did not cross with me) called me and said "by the way, you're on private property". I was absolutely surprised, but after walking about 100 yards, I got to where he was, and he pointed to about five signs, each about the size of my hand, that were on various trees that said "do not enter". There's no way I would have seen them from the way I was going, and there wasn't any purple anywhere. We looked at the map, and there was a house maybe a quarter of a mile away that looked like it might be associated with that chunk of land that looks exactly like the rest of the park trails.
Btw, purple paint is not mandatory here, but it really should be used if you want to keep people off of your property, because the color doesn't occur naturally, sticks around, and even if someone doesn't know what it means, they'll at least be curious to Google it if they see enough trees with purple paint.
Not quite the same thing, but... when I was a little kid (back in the early 1960s) every doctor's office had a "No smoking" sign. Fast forward to the 1990s. I had worked in doctors' offices since the early 1970s, and as time passed it had become (one would think) such a well-known thing that medical offices no longer needed to put up signs prohibiting smoking. One day in the early 1990s I smelled smoke coming from the waiting room. There was a guy, certainly old enough to know better, sitting there smoking away. I said, "Sir, you can't smoke in here!" He looked surprised. I wondered what rock he'd been hiding under for several decades.
Can you believe we used to put up with it? I worked at FMCC, and my boss smoked cherry cigars all day long. I sat right outside his office. I could go into my closet at home and smell that odor on my clothing. So gross.
some people will ignore the sign if it exists. every once and awhile you still see reports of people trying to smoke on planes despite the fact its a federal crime
That reminds me of a Jerry Clower story where a man hired somebody to paint his porch. The painter came back in a few minutes and said he was done. The owner was surprised he finished so fast!!! The painter said, "By the way... it wasn't a Porch, it was one of those Mercedes!!!"
I have that same bright yellow NO TRESPASSING sign at the bottom of my stairs. At the bottom of my 150-foot driveway, I have a BEWARE OF DOG sign. Half-way up the driveway I have yet another BEWARE OF DOG sign. At the bottom of my stairs, right below the no trespassing sign there is yet another sign that reads, GUARD DOG ON DUTY. DOG WILL BITE, etc. Yet dozens of people (meter readers, solicitors, deliverers, etc) completely ignore those signs and come right up to the house. BTW, my dog will bite! I don't know what else to do to get the message across to people.
On a sorta-of related note, where I live, there is a unwritten rule that if you leave something near the road in your yard it is free to take, and it will promptly disappear. Not sure how or when this practice started or if it's a regional thing but it definitely exists and you can't leave anything in that portion of you yard as it will be taken.
@@chuck-ep2yrSame thing where I live. Washer,dryer,stove,fridge,shelves etc....gone within 24 hours. They NEVER take anything they shouldn't and are a huge benefit to the neighborhood.
My friend helped me roll my old washer and drier into my driveway, for him to take home. He went to get his PU and I went inside for a glass of water. When I came out there was a dude trying to load the washer on his truck. He argued with me for 20 minutes about how they were now his, including the rented dolly, because they were "on the curb".
lol. One morning at 4am, I saw a guy roll a washer to the end of his winding driveway. He went back inside his garage to get the trash cans. I had the washer quietly in my truck bed before he got back to his garage. I chuckle when I think of him getting to the end of the driveway with his trash cans wondering where the washer went. This was 12 years ago but I still enjoy picking up scrap metal. My finances have improved nicely since then so I don't pick up scrap as often as I used to.
That's not exactly true where I am. Maybe if doing meets and bounds only by one of the line holders. If they want to put a fiducial mark down - they can't just walk on. Oddly - just about anyone can drop a corner claim marker though. Mappers can also (Geo) come on to property, but they cannot take samples of leave marks (core holes). I'm in the SW US though. Some state laws are different. WHen I was in OK - I saw core holes every place, even signed in sharpie.
There was a guy that was trespassing on my property (which is particularly odd because we live in a pretty rural area) Dude was on a scooter but was sitting at the picnic table under the oak tree in my backyard... My step dad said something like "who are you?" The guy said, "my name is Wino" 😅 Well get the heck out of here Wino (How appropriate that he was riding what I call a liquor-cicle/liquorcycle)😂 The only thing I can figure is the guy was drunk and probably seen a cop in the area and figured he better get off the road.
I patrolled an area near an open pit mine. The business had no trespassing signs all along the property. People got the idea the area was very photogenic and would stop and have their pictures take there. As I would catch them I asked the appropriate questions and they claimed they didn’t know they couldn’t be on someone else’s property. Some people walked past a minimum of 13 no trespassing signs. They just don’t care until something goes bad, then they want to sue.
Your comment on the wording of the signs brought back a fond memory. Up at my mom’s cottage I was walking with my nieces and nephew to the community playground. An undeveloped parcel along the road had no trespassing signs up. My 3 year old nephew pointed to the sign and asked if I saw it. Then he proceeded to tell me “That sign says You stay out of here!” It actually said no trespassing, but he knew at 3 what it meant and NO ONE in the family knew how he knew because none of us had told him! 😂
I really wish when i was younger, that I responded to everyone parroting 'possession is 9/10 of the law' that yes, thieves do indeed say that. I never wanted to get punched though. 😂
The biggest thing with trespassing is that the trespasser must be informed they are trespassing( sign or verbally) and then if they don’t leave further action can be taken. The sign removes the burden of confronting the person before you have police intervene. I believe it was set up that way so some little old lady doesn’t have to go confront a huge burly man to have her property rights protected.
Uh? I don't have a "no trespassing" sign in front of my house--no one in my neighborhood does. That absolutely DOES NOT mean that people can trespass on my property willy nilly.
@robertmiller2831 - You are incorrect. What you are describing is the threshold between simple trespass and criminal trespass. Any time you enter on private property without permission, it IS trespass. It becomes criminal trespass if you have been given notice that it's private property, and you enter anyway, or refuse to leave when asked to do so.
My neighbor has a steel cable tying down some rocking chairs on his property, so that people don't steal them. It's strange to me, because I don't steal people's stuff, but I understand it.
I lived in a county that had a sheriff who didn’t understand trespassing he thought me complying with county building ordinance and permits was more important than my mothers rights. Context: my mother bought a 12.5 acre peace of land and parked a 5th wheel on it while developing the property a few months in she had heavy rain, the property was in a valley and had 0 wind protection because it was a field, the trailer flipped onto the door and I had to the jaws of life to get her out she was going to by another trailer and I said no looked at the county building laws and built her a non permit structure aka a tiny house one day the sheriffs came to speak with her “someone called that she was abusing her horses” he not only violated trespassing laws by passing 5 signs and entering a gate withou a warrant but he entered her home took pictures and then came back with an order for her to permit the building or move because the county “ does not allow non permitted structures for living corders” the result: he was sued then took my mother to court over the building stuff and ended up being reprimanded for not only trespassing but gathering evidence without a warrant and he ended up paying for my mothers new house to be built by contractors instead of ourself. Know your rights do not bow to intimidation for monetary or political gain.
In suburban Melbourne, a whole lane was stolen. It was laid with bluestone, probably around 1880 and the massive blocks are valuable. (and heavy). Basically a couple of guys with a truck and wearing fluro vests loaded the truck. Problem is if the bluestone is recovered, you can never get the old lane to look that way again. I think it became a bitumin lane which is a shame, I bet the council redeployed the bluestone elsewhere.
Steve, me, ex-wife (we get along fine), and my son's girlfriend were in a hospital room with my oldest son (44 yrs old) who had a medical problem. I am retired. My son & I share the house. He "ordered" me home to watch after things. I sent them them a message that said, "my security force consists of me, 3 cats, 3 dogs, a derringer, and a 9 mil semi-automatic, oh, and a possum that keeps a close watch on things".
In my expert opinion (as a screenplay writer), the thief stole the porch to make his wife happy, or, she made him do it, and/or, she helped him move it (reluctantly or bossily), and that’s why he threw rocks at his own house with his wife inside it. “ The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” Good writers put their heroes through hells of their own makings.
I had a neighbor that borrowed his Fils very expensive rototiller to prepare a bed by the road for hedges, he ran out of gas and while he was getting his gas can someone stopped and snatched the machine, likely thinking it was out for trash as it was trash day and the tiller was within ten feet of his cans. To this day I laugh when I think about it.
@copcuffs9973 No actual guns are involved. There are so many more creative ways to handle problems. Said family member also has more "official" signs. But thank you, sincerely, for your advice. Please note that I am not making an anti-gun statement; just being realistic about what we are comfortable with.
2:51 This is what we call locally as compounding stupidities. The idea being that if you do something stupid, there is a chance to be caught doing it. If a person is doing more than 1 stupid thing, the chance of being cause rises exponentially with each act and will in all likelihood get you caught for all of them.
Can you imagine the look on the person working at the hardware store being ask,where do you keep the "Trespassing Allowed"signs. Behind the "No Trespassing Allowed"sighn.
For the person that said they were going to leave. That's a given, they only thing that's to be determined is vertical or horizontal. Some states have a period of time between when property gets posted and the trespass warning goes into effect. If you have enough property, a perimeter signage and a second perimeter 50 yards of so in establishes intent on the I didn't see the sign folks.
I left my seized lawnmower by the edge of the street. That's where it quit. The next day was the monthly municipal 'junk' pickup - so the day before "scrap" collectors go around looking for stuff, mainly metal. By the time I got back from the h/w store with a new (battery electric) - the lawnmower was gone! (Fine with me - but never leave stuff near the street the day before junk day.
Having worked as a tow truck operator for 10 years, I've heard every permutation of the "There was no/I didn't see the sign" imaginable - and I too am more curious as to how you can misinterpret a 10 foot tall "NO PARKING AT ANYTIME" sign than I am mad you ignored it.
Before the pandemic, the GTOger channel was one of my faves for all of the towing videos posted there. I don't know why he's not posting again now everything is back to semi-normal.
A porch pirate got arrested.
A porch pirate's purloined porch was plundered by police
Clever
Davy Jones' porch.
Porch pirate gets greedy.
You win.
It takes the phrase “porch pirate “ to a whole different level. 😅
I came here to say this. But you beat me to it.
Well Played.
Dang it! I knew I would be too slow to post this first 😂
He needed the stolen porch. for his stolen rocking chair and swing.
Yep, that's what I wanted to post.
Several (many) years ago one of my coworkers was visably upset when she arrived in the office. When I asked why, she told me someone had stolen her yard. Your yard? Someone took something from your yard? NO! They took the whole #$% yard!
She had moved to a new townhouse, and the night before someone took her entire freshly laid lawn. It must have taken a crew to roll up and steal all the new sod.
LMAO what! That's a new one. Those are some hard working thieves.
There was a problem in Colorado with folks posting Forrest Service land (which is open to the public) with "No Trespassing" signs and threatening hikers and fishermen.
The government agencies were forced to put up "Open Access" signs and arrest some of those involved. I think marijuana grow fields were the problem.
People buy lots that border government land knowing that no one will build on them then try claiming the land as theirs to keep people away including calling the cops
Worst the cops show up and think the land is theirs not government
I worked on the Kalamazoo River oil spill in Southwest Michigan back in 2010. The river was closed to all entry except by remediation crews. Two 60+ year old gentlemen came down the river in a canoe right past our staging site. I hailed them and informed them the river was closed. They were amazed. This was several weeks into the spill cleanup and was the news item of note everyday on local news. The very physically fit gentleman had ridden bikes to the river pulling the folding fabric hulled canoe on a trailer. Very neat setup. When we took them back to their entry point after decontaminating their canoe we found they had chained their bikes to the signpost that displayed the ‘’RIVER CLOSED DUE TO OIL SPILL’’ sign. ‘’We didn’t pay any attention to the sign’’ was their response. Some folks…………
Not a boat guy here, I know nothing about boating laws, etc. Is it even legal to close a river due to an oil spill? If so what statute does it come down to? I've always thought waterways were considered free passage to anyone / anything as long as you're not in a motorized device or over a certain weight. I'd always assumed in a scenario like that it'd be at your own risk to go into the contaminated site.
Very early, I was at the Kzoo release, stationed just a couple hundred yards from ground zero. What a wild operation. Somehow I ended up in charge of supplies for our crew of 20. I once traded 6 meat lovers pizza's for 4 pairs of size 11 rubber boots. I worked 13hr shifts 28 days in a row. Insanity.
@@linuxguy1199 *Good point, just like a sign on the road that says flooded, but it's up to you to determine if it's safe or not. Everyone has a different level of what's safe and what's not.*
*I'm sorry but those guys had a very valid point, With a billion signs all around us the majority of people don't read them. Only when doing things like pulling up in a parking spot and making sure you can park there will people usually look for a sign to make sure they don't get a ticket or towed away, otherwise why the heck would you waste your time reading billions of signs everywhere you look?* *You'd look like an idiot, wait I need to read that sign, wait I need to read that other sign, wait I...*
@@linuxguy1199 State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality shut it down. Not sure what statute was cited. Local Sheriffs office was the enforcing body. River was closed from Talmadge Creek / Kalamazoo River confluence westward to Morrow Lake. Waterways are closed all the time for safety’s sake.
I almost have no words... a whole porch...
The humor lies in the utter stupidity of humans.
I'm glad the porch & canoe were recovered.
Thanks Mr. Lehto 🙂
Plot twist: it's rural georgia.....they dropped the s, the guy ACTUALLY stole his neighbour's Porsche lol
(alluding to the old joke about a guy painting a home owner's porch "btw, it's not a Porch it's a mercades"
Someone once did something worse. When a family went on vacation, some jerk took out an ad in the paper stating that all items on the property had been seized by the police and were being offered for free to whoever wanted them. A lot of people showed up and started taking all his stuff. A neighbor saw the huge crowd stealing his stuff--one of them was taking the horse--and when he tried to stop them even to the point of screaming the ad was fake, he was threatened with violence--people refused to believe the ad was fake. Eventually the police arrived and dispersed the crowd, but by then most of his appliances and valuable items were gone. The owner of the home rented ad space in the same paper for weeks, begging people to return his stuff, but almost none of it was ever returned. People--probably many of them ordinarily law-abiding-- felt they were entitled to whatever this man owned simply because they fell for a fake ad.
All I had to do to move mine was jack up one end, back a trailer under it, lower jack and strap it down. Took maybe maybe 20 minutes to do.
The guy got a felony charge too. You do NOT mess with a man's porch
@@paulh2981 that is just plain cruel. Some sort of vendetta? Just gross how mean people can be 😥
People can be so oblivious and entitled sometimes. I live next to a Dr’s office, I can’t have anything in my backyard such as a picnic table because the Dr’s patients will sit at the picnic table. The worst was went they sat there changed their baby’s diaper and left it on the ground. There is a dumpster that would have been 20 feet from the picnic table. Working on getting a fence put in to keep the entitle oblivious disgusting people out.
You really need a fence
You need an Orbit - Yard Enforcer (TM) motion activated sprinkler.
Doctor office is responsible for the patients actions while there. They need to put up a fence.
With no Trespassing sign and big Yellow letters and keep out dog guarding 24 hrs or even better a jar with a sign in the picnic table saying donation accepted for seating in the table.
Chicken wire and t post temporarily, whatever the next strength up from chicken wire is.
My friend was out "Dumpster Diving" during Spring Cleaning one year looking for freebies, saw a leaf blower and string trimmer sitting at the end of a driveway, pulled over and grabbed them. He got home and checked them out, both ran perfectly, and he started thinking about it, "they were warm when I picked them up?" Someone had been doing yard work and probably just took a break and sat the tools down where they were working. He took them back and the person was very happy, he thought that he was going to have to buy new tools.
I wait until night. Then, I know it's unwanted. Got a nice jogger stroller. Great for when I broke a wheel off my own right before a zoo trip.
Your friend is a good person.
The tool owner was definitely not street smart or just not aware what anything left by the curb means.
My GF did that with a puppy in the road. Sure enough the nearest house had pup's owners when I went back a few days later.
Me and my mom grabbed some empty boxes for moving from behind a strip mall once. When we got home and opened the boxes-they were taped shut but that's common behind stores to keep the packing material from blowing out-they were full of very nice gift bows. Turns out we were behind the Hallmark store and they had just gotten a delivery. We called the store and told them what had happened, they were very happy to trade the full boxes we had for some empties for us, lol.
@@zafarsyed6437No fooling! I've changed residences multiple times over the decades and I've put stuff including whole beds by the sidewalk. They were usually gone within the hour.
A neighbor, a few years ago, had stuff disappear fairly regularly. He had an outbuilding that wasn't in very good shape & was easy in break into. He saw lights flash past a window 1 night so he snuck out, knifed the car's tires. He waited nearby & heard a lot of cussing when the owner came back. The next day a sign was posted in the neighbor's yard that said, I don't have a sense of humor but I need batting practice. If you doubt these words, show up & find out. A few months later he was behind the thief in the local convenience store. He spoke just loudly enough for everyone to hear, I haven't seen you at my place for awhile, did you get your tires fixed? Funny thing, all thefts quit!
Never in my life would I have imagined someone seeing someone's porch and thinking "That's a really nice porch. I think I'll take it".
Probably you would also never think of someone throwing rocks at his own house😁
Likely some drug use involved. You’d be amazed at the things some of these folks will do to make a buck.
Would also explain the rock throwing.
Likely some drug use involved. You’d be amazed at the things some of these folks will do to make a buck.
Would also explain the rock throwing.
Not to mention it was a NEXT door neighbor!
I HAVE once seen someone put a set of precast concrete porch steps at the side of the road with a "free" sign on it.
And I get it, the disposal costs for something that big and heavy can be a chunk of cash.
An attempted neighbor on neighbor crime that happened to me was that I came home from work one day and found a tarp full of broken up sheetrock and plaster in my driveway. Further investigation revealed a trail of plaster dust going down the alley from a neighbor's yard about 4 houses away to my driveway. I dragged the tarp back to their driveway and never heard anything about it again.
*Message Received.* 😅
😆
You've got to wonder; why?
@@craigclose125 Probably gets charged an extra dollar for any bag on their curb that won't fit inside their garbage can.
@@craigclose125 I assume that he didn't want to pay to have it hauled away and hoped that I'd be forced to dispose of it for him. Unfortunately for him he didn't cover his tracks very well.
Someone's drywall in a dumpster at work. Address from when it was delivered in marker on the back of a piece. Cops came, crook paid for our dumpster for a while.
Just yesterday there was a story out of Spokane, Washington, of a couple who dressed as firefighters and looted several homes in the area that's being hit by wildfires. Not quite the same thing, but it's amazing just how low some people will go. "Let's spend hundreds of dollars on costumes so we can steal from people who have lost everything."
That was happening a lot during the California wildfires last year.
@@CantankerousDave -- But it was the real fire fighters who were stealing stuff. I live in wildfire country; this happens all the time. I used to donate to the firefighters "fill the boot campaign." Where firefighters in uniform would stand at intersections with a boot and solicit donations. Then one time I observed one of those firefighters walk behind a fire truck, take a hand full of bills out of the boot and stuff it in his pocket. I never donated again. It's bad enough that I get "robbed" every year of thousands of dollars in property taxes that goes to just the fire service.
Wow, that is bad.
Lowlifes. There would be some crazy fighting if I caught someone doing that. Real firefighters or not, I would be fighting them.
Spokane has been going downhill for a while now. Still, I'd rather live here than Seattle.
I worked at a camp years ago that had an issue with one of the neighboring properties putting up no trespassing signs on the camp's property. The neighbors always argued that land was really theirs and were nasty about it to camp counselors and even campers (who were under 16, by the way) who were using the trails on camp property. The camp finally had to take a couple neighboring property owners to court because they were putting up signs and calling the police about campers trespassing on their property, when it was actually camp property. It got to the point where a survey had to be done, and the neighbors were literally ACRES into the camp property (which the camp knew, but the neighbors were words not allowed on TH-cam and the police wouldn't do anything when it came to the camp) but were placing signs up and calling the police to report trespassers.
@@stevenstrain283 I worked there about a year, and it was a couple months after that the camp took them to court. So it didn't go on too much longer than a year. Not sure what the final court statement was, but the neighbors got real quiet after that from my understanding.
They were trying adverse possession (squatters rights), we had a neighbor try that with our wood we owned, on the side of the creek that we farmed on we made a little camping area in the woods used by us, scouts, cub scouts, girl scouts, church youth group. It was far enough from a street that you could hike back or take a dirt access road back, but basically anyone that wanted to camp but be close to home, we would keep the undergrowth cut down and had a nice fire ring and each year have wood available or the people that used it would pick up dead limbs and branches, it was a nice set up.
Well on the other side of the creek we owned the woods over there too, but we wanted to keep that as old growth woods, untouched, although we would hunt in it from time to time or allow very close friends to hunt there, so basically the other side of the creek was untouched almost year round.
The people that bought some farm land to build a house on that abutted our woods kept wanting to claim those woods as theirs, even putting up their own no trespassing signs. We ended up having a surveyor from the county come out and put up stakes where the property line was, we already had stakes up but they had "mysteriously" disappeared. Well we spent a lot of money just to keep someone from taking our land and claiming as their own. We finally built a house on the farm land which already had 2 barns on it that we had built years before. But the area on the other side of the creek gave us issues for 5 or so years.
I worked in an office and found that, no matter how many signs you put up and no matter how clear you make them, there will be some oblivious jerk who will ignore/overlook them!
The "how many" might be the problem. Too many places have so many signs and notices that the human brain will tend to filter them out as background noise.
Had our land surveyed, put up t-posts, neighbor claimed it was her land and took my posts up. Deputies say it is a civil dispute. Put posts back up, ran stringline till next day, but meanwhile ductaped 'NoTrespassing' signs to the posts. Neighbor cut the string, took the signs. We are suing her now. She is 22 ft on our property. Suing for our time and aggravation, and that includes the dozen calls to the sheriffs dept and taking me to court to have me arrested,(the deputies wouldn't arrest me), for trespassing on "her" property. attorney fees and court costs. She went to court WITHOUT an attorney. She claimed she had to fire him cuz he was working for us. I'm guessing that he told her that the surveyors property line is the same on every survey for over 40yrs, and it is our property. And that a fence is NOT a property line. But she already knew that. She put it there between owners.
In Colorado, it’s a crime to remove survey markers. Worth checking with your surveyor, might have to provide the relevant state law with number, etc. to police. (Though in your case, you’re probably past chasing that detail.)
"Good fences make good neighbours." If only...
@@paulperry7091 Some neighbors require tank traps, concertina wire, caltrops, and lots of concrete in the fences before they become good...
"Accidental theft". How totes adorbs are you?
Enjoy listening to how you explain the law.
Oh Steve, always bragging about how big your canoe is. 😂
There's a "motion of the ocean" joke in there somewhere
I used to have a place with acres of woods on it. No Trespassing signs posted as per local law. Hunters would come in on it and when I'd catch them there, some of the excuses they'd come up with. "Someone told me I could hunt here", "It's public land" (no it wasn't) were the usual ones. The one that really sticks in my memory was "My dogs chased a deer here, I'm just following them". That guy really believed that he could legally go wherever his dogs went and refused to leave. I called the sheriff's office but by the time a deputy got out there, the hunter (and his dogs) were long gone.
actually, that is legal in vermont
IIRC, there was a TH-camr (Goldshaw Farms?) a year or so ago that was dealing with a hunter whose dog had treed a bear on his property. The hunter wasn’t very nice, but he was legally allowed to follow his dog and the bear.
Many states allow people to retrieve their dogs from private property. Not supposed to linger though. (Steve has even mentioned that at least once on this program.)
People will steal anything.
I've had my mailbox stolen before
My folks had lawn chairs, plants, and new plant pots stolen.
Lots of folks live by the motto: "if it's not nailed down, it's mine"
On the canoe story, and it being a 'common misunderstanding,' would the canoe have been recovered if the other neighbor hadn't seen what was going on, or if the owner hadn't confronted the person taking it? I'm betting it wouldn't have.
I dunno, a 17 foot canoe would be at least a few hundred dollars, right? And I bet these people lived in some nice areas. The kind of place where a $300 robbery is something the police would look into.
I have one word to say, TRACKING DEVICES! Oh wait, that's two words. Dam... I thought I could count
@@phiddlephart7026:
Just make sure that your tracking device/s are firmly fastened to your aluminum, wood, or fiberglas canoe!
Hint: magnets won't do the job on any of the three materials ^^^^^^ .
🙂
@@daleallen7634 their are miniature tracking devices that can be easily hidden if you are smart enough
My gf has several of those bright yellow No Trespassing signs in her yard. As early as 2 days ago a man parked next to the sign and proceeded to fish in her lake. When asked about it the man claimed he didn't see it. I WOULD FEEL LESS PAIN IF I GOUGED AN EYE OUT WITH A DULL KNIFE AS TO HEAR THESE PEOPLE CLAIM THEY DIDNT SEE THE SIGN!!
😂🤣😂🤣
Steve, you have far more patience than I do. Explaining the law to someone playing stupid is not my job. My response to that trespasser would've been, "You have 30 seconds to get your ass off my property, starting right now." I've done it to solicitors that pressed the hard sell.
The irony being that's not the law for a trespasser to be removed. Of course, if they're a five second walk away from public space, it's moot.
Thanks for the reminder. I need to get no trespassing signs out. Ours down by the border need to be by-lingual.
My daughter-in-law hand painted a beautiful "No Soliciting" sign for us so I built a nice self standing post for it out of a 4x4 and we placed it in front of our door. Every once in a great while someone would knock on our door and I would point to the sign and they would apologize and leave. One day a woman came up and wanted to have someone climb up on our roof to inspect it for storm damage so we could have it replaced and paid for by our insurance company. I politiely told her I wasn't interested and pointed to the sign at which time she began argruing that she WAS NOT soliciting. She would not shut up and had no "OFF" switch. Not exactly the kind of company I would hire to work on my house.
tHAT'S WHEN YOU GRAB THE GARDEN HOSE :D
I remember an entire bridge was stolen in Pennsylvania. Thieves could probably make good money if they put their hard work towards earning an honest living.
From NE Pa , I remember that 😳 . Then again , Fetterman won the election , so....
Thought that was in Ohio
A bridge?
Wtf 😂
@mikezupancic2182 it may have happened in Ohio as well. It definitely happened in Pennsylvania in 2010, two brothers cut a steel bridge apart with torches, to sell for scrap. They made $5k and became felons
@@mikezupancic2182 I just looked it up, and one was also stolen in Ohio, and another one in some other country.
In Wisconsin landowners don't have to put up signs (many do anyway) also we've had people argue with us that utility rights of way are public access. One woman was taking hickory nuts off of the right of way and when told to leave she insisted that she had a right. She finally left and then returned with a copy of a law from Michigan and insisted that it pertained to our Wisconsin land. Some people just make me shake my head. I've also had a neighbor that was giving people permission to hunt and forage on our property. One of our authorized hunters has sent away more than 5 people. Had to make it clear to that neighbor that he was not authorized to give permission for our property. His family continued to trespass but law enforcement would not enforce. Our problem was finally solved (sadly when the neighbor died) when the property got sold.
A bully once stole my prosthetic leg. I will always and forever cherish the look on his face when he was arrested for felony theft. And what the judge said after he was found guilty and sent to prison.
I think he got 2 years, but I'm not sure he spent that long behind bars.
Steve remember an estimated 40 million Americans have an IQ in the range of 85. Just sayin.
Wow, they must have been the ones that voted for Biden!😲😲
@@wallychambe1587 By a ratio of over 9:1, indeed.
@@wallychambe1587 The republican debates got you hyped up? 😂
Is there an mean or a median average of 100 ?
Smart enough to lie and steal.
I've got the the canoe story topped. When I got new duplex neighbors, I politely welcomed them, gave them my phone# and email, and told them if they had any questions about anything to get ahold of me. I was home 24/7 for their first 3 weeks, and then left one afternoon for 3 hours. By the time I came home, they had stolen my bean poles and compost pile from my back yard (they had a separate side yard instead of backyard), and took them completely off the property. The husband's cousin had brought a trailer to take the compost pile the last tenant had left next to their driveway, and they decided to help themselves to mine. The wife quickly identified that she knew the property had a 50/50 dividing line, while the husband complained about how much effort it had taken him to move a bunch of my property to steal my compost pile, which was 18 feet past the dividing line (2/3 across my side) and weighed many hundreds of pounds. Didn't even think about calling me…
I was too stunned to demand he bring it back, and instead erected a fence.
M18 Claymore mines camouflaged poorly to funnel the neighbor into a double line of punji stake pits...
Sorry, what were we talking about?
Sometimes there will be people living next to you who don't know what a neighbour is.
The story Jesus told made it very plain, though,
@@20chocsaday OH! The MYTHICAL Jesus.
Yeah, some of his stories are really good guides for decent living in a society.
@@MonkeyJedi99 your mythical life.
@@MonkeyJedi99 one day you will stand before that “mythical Jesus”I hope you repent of your sins before you meet him.
Let he who has not stolen a porch cast the first stone.
Are you assuming the offending party was not already stoned?
Had a folding table in the front yard in neighborhood loaded with fresh garden produce. Big sign that said, Free vegetables, take what you can use. Somebody took the table.
Wait, was it his Porch, or his Ferrari?
Do you win you got the common in before me but we are of like mines. Congratulations.
😅😂😂😂
"I thought that sign was old!" -- damn near choked on my coffee when I heard that!! 😅
"Oh, that yellow sign? I can't read it."
"That's because you're on the wrong side of it."
🤣 laughed so hard, I may have snorted. At least once xD
In my area if you leave something out on the curb people will come up and grab it. To avoid any misunderstandings, we put a free sign next to anything we leave out. One time they even took the free sign
Yep. Something on the curb means you're done with it. No sign necessary. If there's a city clean-up truck in the area, they will scoop it up [usually, though, these neighborhood clean-ups are 1-day events, scheduled weeks in advance].
We live in the land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave.
So some coward steals a Free sign.
Wow.
Well, the sign did say "Free"
"The sign was old". Of all the crazy excuses that I've heard from trespassers, that's a new one on me.
A valid one. If your yellow signs are turned white, you must not care very much.
I repost every second year, because I do care, somewhat.
3:20 "Ain't that the porch we been lookin' for?"😂
There's a BOLO alert on that porch! Cuff him, Danno!
That's my issue, didn't have signs up & I lost an $800 self supporting enclosed deer stand sitting just behind my shed out back. As well as a $75 trail camera, but that was on my neighbors property that IS posted. Yes, I & my buddy have written permission to be on my neighbors property.
Another issue I had, a push mower on the side of the road - next to someone's driveway. No sign saying "FREE" or "TAKE IT, BROKEN". So I was looking it over to see what's wrong with it. Woman ran out of the house & demanded I explain myself. I told her that because the mower is on the side of the road that maybe it's not working & she was getting rid of it. She spouted off "NO! IT'S OUT OF GAS!" My husband went to town to get more gas. I then calmly said " its a push mower, why not pull it back to your house then? Most people put their mowers to the side of the road indicating they don't want it".
One of the best I ever heard was someone pulling up new sod from a house being built and re-laying it at their house which if I remember correctly was a couple houses down 🤣
This gives new meaning to porch pirates.
While hurricane Wilma was passing through Miami, a neighbor stole a fence I just placed a day before and I found him installing it on his property just one block away. He claimed he "found it on the road after the hurricane knocked it down, and it was finders keepers"
One of the few things that survived Hurricane Katrina at my mom's house was a metal spiral staircase. Someone stole it off her property days later.
Thank you
My husband was moving (we were dating at the time, so boyfriend) and I went to help him finish up moving the last bit of items. Things left were a patio fire-set on the back deck and a canoe. We pulled up and the canoe is gone and 1 of the chairs to the firepit/patio set is missing. As soon as we start hauling the items the neighbor came over ( he was acting squirrely) My husband asked him if he knew where the chair and canoe were? Nope. He leaves and we continue to pack up. On the way out we drive past this neighbors large shed and I spy something Red behind the shed. I asked my husband to stop. I get out and there under a tarp behind the shed was my husbands canoe!!!! I told my husband we probably interrupted him taking the patio furniture and he was shocked we were there and that is why he was acting squirrely. This still makes me laugh when I think about how we stole my husbands canoe back from his thieving neighbor.
I once gave a friend a sign that said, "No Tresspassing. Survivors will be prosecuted."
I was cleaning out my garage a few years ago, had stuff in front of and beside my garage. Went inside to get a cold drink, when I came back out there were half a dozen people walking around my drive carrying my property. Apparently they assumed it was a garage or estate sale or something so they were just helping themselves to my things. There was absolutely no sign indicating this. Told everyone to put my stuff down and get the hell off my property.
"This is my boom stick" now drop it & get off my lawn! ✌️
If you've watched those Ring Doorbell vids, you'll see people taking whatever they want. Mail, plants, packages, lawn furniture, lawnmowers, bikes, you name it. It's unbelievable, and to me it's distressing.
You have me laughing all the way down the freeway with these stories
The statement that got me was: "Some people may shrug their shoulders and say that it is not a big deal." WHAT? That attitude blows my mind.
Just like some other commenters in this section, we also live in an area where items placed by the side of the road are usually available for free. Most people also put out a "FREE" sign to make it clear. In town, it would be the grassy area between the curb and the sidewalk. But, when in doubt, you ASK. No Trespassing signs mean Not Available. End of story.
Ben in front of the SLEHTO plate.
Did you spot the hundred dollar bill? But don't tell me where it is 'k? I want to spend hours and hours wasting my time looking for it. 🙂
This reminds me of the guy that stole a bridge a while back. Hired cranes to load it on a flatbed trailer right on public property and nobody batted an eye because they thought it was just a construction job. I’m not sure if you covered that one or not.
Which one? Back a while ago (2011) in Lawrence County in Pennsylvania (Outside of Pittsburgh), two brothers stole a railroad bridge.
Sadly, this is not the only one. There is a more recent one in Hammond.
I believe he did.
I once had a wheel barrow stolen out of the back yard of our old house while I was taking a lunch break from doing yard work.
I knew a roofer who had his ladder stolen from the front of a house while he was working on the roof on the back side.
I had to move my ladder to that house so he could get off the roof.
@@machintelligence gutted, I bet that was an expensive ladder too! Roofing ladders aren't cheap! I do know an I.T. guy who climbs onto rooftops without a ladder, satellite dish in tow - little guy, but he's a freaking monkey.
I read the heading of the video and had to see if you spelled "Porsche" wrong. Thanks for the video.
People really don’t take in a lot of what they see in their environment. It’s absolutely believable that they didn’t notice the sign they walked right past, but there’s no excuse for failing to admit they were wrong, apologize, and promise not to do it again while they leave immediately.
In a small parking lot, 20 spaces, I parked closest to the door. 1 hr later found a ticket on my windshield for parking in a handicap slot, looked up & saw the sign for the first time.😨
He said it was Multiple signs.
I was fully expecting this to be in Florida.
in my state, the signs apparently have to have the landowner's contact information in order to be valid.
No it happened in GA, where a corrupt DA is locking up the political opposition and their lawyers....I wonder what Steve thinks about that?
Ben is keen to prevent Mr Lehto being associated with Virginia.
I missed the delivery of a washer/dryer combo. They sat them on the porch. I got home, made a snack and heard someone one the porch. Low and behold a man with a dolly was grabbing up my washer. I got my Sears and Roebuck 16ga, ran out the door, swung the barrel 1/2" from his ear and pulled the trigger. Having a shotgun go off that close to your head is an attention grabber. I've enjoyed the use of the free nearly new dolly for over a quarter of a century now.
Criminals rarely make good life choices.
Blue collar criminals*
And he would have gotten away with it... were it not for those meddling kids!
And their dog!
And all the meth he smokes
Ruh-roh. . .
I've heard of a yard sale but this is ridiculous
Another perspective on trespassing... Last week, I was at a public park, just at the edge of the middle of town, walking through the woods, saw a cool trail, crossed the river via a fallen tree. Poked around a bit, and my friend I was hiking with (who did not cross with me) called me and said "by the way, you're on private property". I was absolutely surprised, but after walking about 100 yards, I got to where he was, and he pointed to about five signs, each about the size of my hand, that were on various trees that said "do not enter". There's no way I would have seen them from the way I was going, and there wasn't any purple anywhere. We looked at the map, and there was a house maybe a quarter of a mile away that looked like it might be associated with that chunk of land that looks exactly like the rest of the park trails.
Btw, purple paint is not mandatory here, but it really should be used if you want to keep people off of your property, because the color doesn't occur naturally, sticks around, and even if someone doesn't know what it means, they'll at least be curious to Google it if they see enough trees with purple paint.
Porch pirates have upped the game... Not taking packages but the whole darn porch.
Not quite the same thing, but... when I was a little kid (back in the early 1960s) every doctor's office had a "No smoking" sign. Fast forward to the 1990s. I had worked in doctors' offices since the early 1970s, and as time passed it had become (one would think) such a well-known thing that medical offices no longer needed to put up signs prohibiting smoking. One day in the early 1990s I smelled smoke coming from the waiting room. There was a guy, certainly old enough to know better, sitting there smoking away. I said, "Sir, you can't smoke in here!" He looked surprised. I wondered what rock he'd been hiding under for several decades.
Can you believe we used to put up with it? I worked at FMCC, and my boss smoked cherry cigars all day long. I sat right outside his office. I could go into my closet at home and smell that odor on my clothing. So gross.
some people will ignore the sign if it exists. every once and awhile you still see reports of people trying to smoke on planes despite the fact its a federal crime
Steve, my god if everyone had your voice of reason, lawyers would go broke.
I heard of this happening in Philadelphia. The stoop was gone and the guy fell when he went out
I'm gonna use the ' I thought the sign was old' excuse in work tomorrow and see what sort of reaction I get..
That reminds me of a Jerry Clower story where a man hired somebody to paint his porch. The painter came back in a few minutes and said he was done. The owner was surprised he finished so fast!!! The painter said, "By the way... it wasn't a Porch, it was one of those Mercedes!!!"
Oldie but goodie’s
I have that same bright yellow NO TRESPASSING sign at the bottom of my stairs. At the bottom of my 150-foot driveway, I have a BEWARE OF DOG sign. Half-way up the driveway I have yet another BEWARE OF DOG sign. At the bottom of my stairs, right below the no trespassing sign there is yet another sign that reads, GUARD DOG ON DUTY. DOG WILL BITE, etc. Yet dozens of people (meter readers, solicitors, deliverers, etc) completely ignore those signs and come right up to the house. BTW, my dog will bite! I don't know what else to do to get the message across to people.
On a sorta-of related note, where I live, there is a unwritten rule that if you leave something near the road in your yard it is free to take, and it will promptly disappear. Not sure how or when this practice started or if it's a regional thing but it definitely exists and you can't leave anything in that portion of you yard as it will be taken.
@@chuck-ep2yrSame thing where I live. Washer,dryer,stove,fridge,shelves etc....gone within 24 hours. They NEVER take anything they shouldn't and are a huge benefit to the neighborhood.
My friend helped me roll my old washer and drier into my driveway, for him to take home. He went to get his PU and I went inside for a glass of water. When I came out there was a dude trying to load the washer on his truck. He argued with me for 20 minutes about how they were now his, including the rented dolly, because they were "on the curb".
lol. One morning at 4am, I saw a guy roll a washer to the end of his winding driveway. He went back inside his garage to get the trash cans. I had the washer quietly in my truck bed before he got back to his garage. I chuckle when I think of him getting to the end of the driveway with his trash cans wondering where the washer went. This was 12 years ago but I still enjoy picking up scrap metal. My finances have improved nicely since then so I don't pick up scrap as often as I used to.
Here in TX we always put stuff at the curb that we no longer want. Saves a trip to the dump and hopefully gets repurposed
@@KB-ql8cx Either gets repurposed or scrapped. Either option is better than the landfill.
I always love hearing your stories about stuff :)
Let's not forget that licensed surveyors involved in surveying activities cannot be charged with trespassing, even if there is a no trespassing sign.
That's not exactly true where I am. Maybe if doing meets and bounds only by one of the line holders. If they want to put a fiducial mark down - they can't just walk on. Oddly - just about anyone can drop a corner claim marker though. Mappers can also (Geo) come on to property, but they cannot take samples of leave marks (core holes). I'm in the SW US though. Some state laws are different. WHen I was in OK - I saw core holes every place, even signed in sharpie.
That depends entirely on how far they are onto private property.
If he's stupid enough to throw rocks at his own house, he's the type to steal a porch.
There was a guy that was trespassing on my property (which is particularly odd because we live in a pretty rural area)
Dude was on a scooter but was sitting at the picnic table under the oak tree in my backyard...
My step dad said something like "who are you?"
The guy said, "my name is Wino" 😅
Well get the heck out of here Wino
(How appropriate that he was riding what I call a liquor-cicle/liquorcycle)😂
The only thing I can figure is the guy was drunk and probably seen a cop in the area and figured he better get off the road.
Weird!
I patrolled an area near an open pit mine. The business had no trespassing signs all along the property. People got the idea the area was very photogenic and would stop and have their pictures take there. As I would catch them I asked the appropriate questions and they claimed they didn’t know they couldn’t be on someone else’s property. Some people walked past a minimum of 13 no trespassing signs. They just don’t care until something goes bad, then they want to sue.
Your comment on the wording of the signs brought back a fond memory. Up at my mom’s cottage I was walking with my nieces and nephew to the community playground. An undeveloped parcel along the road had no trespassing signs up. My 3 year old nephew pointed to the sign and asked if I saw it. Then he proceeded to tell me “That sign says You stay out of here!” It actually said no trespassing, but he knew at 3 what it meant and NO ONE in the family knew how he knew because none of us had told him! 😂
He would have gotten away with it, without them meddling kids! and that ginormous great dane!
My Mama taught me one simple thing, "If it's not yours, keep your hands off."
I really wish when i was younger, that I responded to everyone parroting 'possession is 9/10 of the law' that yes, thieves do indeed say that.
I never wanted to get punched though. 😂
The biggest thing with trespassing is that the trespasser must be informed they are trespassing( sign or verbally) and then if they don’t leave further action can be taken. The sign removes the burden of confronting the person before you have police intervene. I believe it was set up that way so some little old lady doesn’t have to go confront a huge burly man to have her property rights protected.
Uh? I don't have a "no trespassing" sign in front of my house--no one in my neighborhood does. That absolutely DOES NOT mean that people can trespass on my property willy nilly.
In Florida any property 5 acres or less with a dwelling unit on it is considered posted.
@robertmiller2831 - You are incorrect. What you are describing is the threshold between simple trespass and criminal trespass. Any time you enter on private property without permission, it IS trespass. It becomes criminal trespass if you have been given notice that it's private property, and you enter anyway, or refuse to leave when asked to do so.
My only real question is if they, before stealing it, said, "Ooo, free porch!"
My neighbor has a steel cable tying down some rocking chairs on his property, so that people don't steal them. It's strange to me, because I don't steal people's stuff, but I understand it.
Now this is the news I've been waiting for
I guess people who come home by crossing a stolen porch shouldn't throw stones.
Same thing happened to my box of records. $6000 of records disappeared off our driveway.
That's got to be a record.
I lived in a county that had a sheriff who didn’t understand trespassing he thought me complying with county building ordinance and permits was more important than my mothers rights. Context: my mother bought a 12.5 acre peace of land and parked a 5th wheel on it while developing the property a few months in she had heavy rain, the property was in a valley and had 0 wind protection because it was a field, the trailer flipped onto the door and I had to the jaws of life to get her out she was going to by another trailer and I said no looked at the county building laws and built her a non permit structure aka a tiny house one day the sheriffs came to speak with her “someone called that she was abusing her horses” he not only violated trespassing laws by passing 5 signs and entering a gate withou a warrant but he entered her home took pictures and then came back with an order for her to permit the building or move because the county “ does not allow non permitted structures for living corders” the result: he was sued then took my mother to court over the building stuff and ended up being reprimanded for not only trespassing but gathering evidence without a warrant and he ended up paying for my mothers new house to be built by contractors instead of ourself. Know your rights do not bow to intimidation for monetary or political gain.
.
Un
Unfortunately, most elected officials do not have to pass a test. 😂
Please learn punctuation. Cheers.
Elected to positions without qualifications or ability to function in that capacity.
In suburban Melbourne, a whole lane was stolen. It was laid with bluestone, probably around 1880 and the massive blocks are valuable. (and heavy). Basically a couple of guys with a truck and wearing fluro vests loaded the truck.
Problem is if the bluestone is recovered, you can never get the old lane to look that way again. I think it became a bitumin lane which is a shame, I bet the council redeployed the bluestone elsewhere.
Steve, me, ex-wife (we get along fine), and my son's girlfriend were in a hospital room with my oldest son (44 yrs old) who had a medical problem. I am retired. My son & I share the house. He "ordered" me home to watch after things. I sent them them a message that said, "my security force consists of me, 3 cats, 3 dogs, a derringer, and a 9 mil semi-automatic, oh, and a possum that keeps a close watch on things".
Hardly anyone has a derringer anymore...unless they're a collector.
Possum is the real muscle there lol
This reminded me of a whole bridge that was stolen from a public park.
In my expert opinion (as a screenplay writer), the thief stole the porch to make his wife happy, or, she made him do it, and/or, she helped him move it (reluctantly or bossily), and that’s why he threw rocks at his own house with his wife inside it. “ The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” Good writers put their heroes through hells of their own makings.
As momma always said "Stupid is as stupid does."
Ben going Slehing, Steve's RHS
did you catch the reason for the rolled up Ben? It's at the end of yesterday's afternoon video.
@@terrancecoard388 Yep, And saw the pic of the guy who committed the sacrilege of rolling Ben, lucky guy😀
@@Bobs-Wrigles5555 I missed out on that drama.
@@user-no1cares No worries, there'll be plenty more to come in the future😉😊
@@Bobs-Wrigles5555 Good night Bob!
I don't care if the item stolen was worth $0.25. Stealing is wrong and should always be prosecuted.
I had a neighbor that borrowed his Fils very expensive rototiller to prepare a bed by the road for hedges, he ran out of gas and while he was getting his gas can someone stopped and snatched the machine, likely thinking it was out for trash as it was trash day and the tiller was within ten feet of his cans. To this day I laugh when I think about it.
One of my family members has a sign of a frog holding a rifle that states, "Hippity hoppity, get off my property." 😅😅
▶️Texas gun lawyers:
⚠️ funny gun signs will not always make the jury laugh when you are in court for shooting at trespassers.
▶️Texas gun lawyers:
⚠️ funny gun signs will not always make the jury laugh when you are in court for shooting at trespassers.
@copcuffs9973 No actual guns are involved. There are so many more creative ways to handle problems. Said family member also has more "official" signs. But thank you, sincerely, for your advice. Please note that I am not making an anti-gun statement; just being realistic about what we are comfortable with.
Of course the man that stole a whole damn porch is mentally unstable.
Now; just imagine how angry his wife will be since she no longer as a porch to sit on in Georgia!
I love your Barrister dog on the shelf behind you! He even has a powdered wig!
Imagine the look on other inmates faces when they tell them what they’re in for
2:51 This is what we call locally as compounding stupidities. The idea being that if you do something stupid, there is a chance to be caught doing it. If a person is doing more than 1 stupid thing, the chance of being cause rises exponentially with each act and will in all likelihood get you caught for all of them.
Can you imagine the look on the person working at the hardware store being ask,where do you keep the "Trespassing Allowed"signs.
Behind the "No Trespassing Allowed"sighn.
For the person that said they were going to leave. That's a given, they only thing that's to be determined is vertical or horizontal.
Some states have a period of time between when property gets posted and the trespass warning goes into effect.
If you have enough property, a perimeter signage and a second perimeter 50 yards of so in establishes intent on the I didn't see the sign folks.
I left my seized lawnmower by the edge of the street. That's where it quit. The next day was the monthly municipal 'junk' pickup - so the day before "scrap" collectors go around looking for stuff, mainly metal.
By the time I got back from the h/w store with a new (battery electric) - the lawnmower was gone! (Fine with me - but never leave stuff near the street the day before junk day.
Got me with 'I thought that sign was old' . . . That's a first for self justifying reasoning.
! Eesh !
Having worked as a tow truck operator for 10 years, I've heard every permutation of the "There was no/I didn't see the sign" imaginable - and I too am more curious as to how you can misinterpret a 10 foot tall "NO PARKING AT ANYTIME" sign than I am mad you ignored it.
Before the pandemic, the GTOger channel was one of my faves for all of the towing videos posted there. I don't know why he's not posting again now everything is back to semi-normal.
@@melkiorwiseman5234 Was wondering that myself.