No Trespassing .. ( Purple Paint Law)

[Gunbelt]

Property rights are weird. For example, if you have a beach house, and people walk along the fence or through your driveway to get to the beach, it may be considered 'common right of way' or something like that, and the property owner has no recourse. Same for personal property that abuts parklands.

I have never knowingly gone onto someone else's land (w/o permission), but I have been deep in the woods and been the recipient of a "get off my property!" scream. I am in the middle of the woods...how the eff would I know whose property it is?? But I just shrugged, apologized, and made my way.

If you don’t know who’s property it is you shouldn’t be on it.

 

[Gunbelt]

I grew up near extensive experimental forested land where trees were marked with a variety of colored ribbons or paint to indicate different diseases, disease treatment, or cutting status. Before reading this thread, it would have never occurred to me to question why paint was on a tree and certainly not imagine that paint was a substitute for No Trespassing signs.

The main point being if you don’t own the land or have permission to be on that land you shouldn’t step foot on that land. Pretty simple concept honestly.

 

[RR]

What is the appropriate course of action if you’re hunting on land with permission and you shoot an animal but it still bolts into another person tract of land? Do you just go track it or is it a “sucks to be you” situation? I’m sure you could find the property owner and ask permission to look for the animal but what if it takes a day or two to get permission?

Contact the property owner and ask to retrieve your animal.

 

[Charlie]

The technique is a high quality outdoor paint (not spray paint). Take a draw knife and shave off the bark (don't actually cut into the cambrium) then paint a nice wide band. Find some of the smaller diamond shaped "No Trespassing" signs and hang them with a 20d aluminum nails. Hammer them in at an angle, and only hammer them in half way, so as the tree grows, the sign is pushed forward, the nails straightened, instead of being torn out of the nail hole.

I have seen aluminum nails mentioned several times in this thread and figured some might not know why you should use aluminum. My take on it has always been that aluminum nails are soft enough not to destroy saw blades if that tree is ever cut for lumber. Long haired hippy weirdo freak tree huggers have been known to spike trees with steel nails to disrupt timber harvest operations. Some people even promote spiking trees on your land to try to keep future generations or future owners from cutting the trees. We have several large walnut trees near our home in Tennessee that are not very valuable because they are near a house and might have nails or bullets in them.

 

[georgel]

The main point being if you don’t own the land or have permission to be on that land you shouldn’t step foot on that land. Pretty simple concept honestly.

Reminds me of being a kid and picking something up.

"Put that down. It's not yours!"
"Who's is it?"
"It doesn't matter. It's not yours!"

I think there is still this Disney like illusion, that as we drive in the beautiful countryside, there is still plenty of open free land for people to have or play on. When in reality, it's all owned by someone. I ran across this with prepper types that were going to "bug out" if things got bad. Bug out to where? I would ask. Who's land are you going to park yourself on to homested and forage and what makes you think you will be welcome?

 

[RR]

Today I painted our gate and gate posts and painted a tree every 50 yards. The law says at least every 100 so I should be doubleplusgood protected. Installed two cellular trail cameras 15 feet off the ground. One aimed at one of my feeders and the other aimed at the property gate.

 

[gc70]

The main point being if you don’t own the land or have permission to be on that land you shouldn’t step foot on that land. Pretty simple concept honestly.

That's not the way things have generally been in the past, which is why common law and statutory law do not have an automatic assumption of trespass.

 

[Charlie]

That's not the way things have generally been in the past, which is why common law and statutory law do not have an automatic assumption of trespass.

The past is gone. That is unfortunate in many ways. Laws have changed. That too is unfortunate in many ways. It is most unfortunate that the laws are often needed now to try to keep people from acting in ways that we once knew to be wrong.

 

[gc70]

The past is gone. That is unfortunate in many ways. Laws have changed. That too is unfortunate in many ways. It is most unfortunate that the laws are often needed now to try to keep people from acting in ways that we once knew to be wrong.

Yes, people being disrespectful and destructive has been a huge motivator in both changing attitudes and creating new laws. I don't remember my grandfather's farm ever being posted, nor any of the adjoining farms; then again, there were no DBs on four-wheelers or dirt bikes driving around tearing up the fields.

Nevertheless, free access is still the general basis of the law. While an owner can limit access to any degree they wish, they have to act specifically to do so in the vast majority of cases.

 

[ProfMagoo(ret)]

That's not the way things have generally been in the past, which is why common law and statutory law do not have an automatic assumption of trespass.

These issues go back to Enclosure (Inclosure) Laws in England. It is probably not surprising that both common and statutory law systems lag (decade or centuries) behind changing trends in land ownership (e.g. in this country where even lower income rural families can own property).

We may be going full circle, eventually, given what we read about land accumulation by billionaires not to mention foreign holdings ::cough:: China.