Part-time neighbor trouble, stealing signs

Sometimes. Sometimes not. There are some people who believe the world owes them and unless you're willing to let them walk all over you and thank them for doing so you will never please them.

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Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

I am with Farmergirl...if I had one of those cabins I would be very pleased to get your newsletter and an opportunity to have apples like that.

Hope it gets better for you.

Your signs are beingf stolen?

My neighbor, who has her house fore sale, is putting her for sale signs in my yard, LOL

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I think I might start 'planting' the sign posts in 5-gallon buckets filled with cement to make them seriously inconvenient to pick up or toss. Can you convince a skunk to spray the signs? lol - something like a skunk too make the signs to stinky to handle to disuade these nuisance folk from taking after your signs?

Do you have a local paper that might cover the story and can the police make a statement that they intend to prosecute?

Does your area have any free classifieds? Either print version or online?

I like the idea about getting the local paper to do a story.

If you have a local farmers market, could you pick some in a doable quantity for you, but have fliers with you about the U-pick option? Or places in town where you could post flyers about the U-pick? Especially with absentee owners, doubtful they could find and remove everything.

I hate "neighbors" with attitudes like those. Sorry you have to deal with that.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...for you are crunchy and good with ketchup!

Poison ivy is your friend...

It is a game. You will keep getting all that you will put up with until you end the game.

Cameras make the game more interesting and fun for some, the game will continue.

There is a solution.
Since you seem to be surrounded by a bunch wou would deprive you of your livelyhood, the solution may need to be a bit drastic.

The next time that you put out a sign have someone drop you off, and drive away. then place the sign and hide in the brush nearby. When someone comes along and tampers with your sign, just shoot them. The body will be easy to identify if it does not move. If it does move shoot it again.

This should stop all the sign tampering, and help to protect your income.

If this does not work the start burning cabins down, one at a time until the tampering stops. You did not say how many cabins there are but soon the problem should be solved.

exactly, this sign game is "bad karma" (if you will) that you are putting out there which will def bite you in the butt someday--regardless of the fact that you are "right", the signs have become a game/war that will go nowhere and/or escalate to YOUR disadvantage. Seriously, go ahead and prosecute(if you can) and see what the neighbors will think of you then(and fun tricks that go with). Spend your effort and money in a POSITIVE direction, finding and making better connections with people who want to pick your apples--or do other crops that you can physically manage better yourself if you have to.

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5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

I am reading this post, seems to me, YOU are the problem. Your neighbors see you as a "city slicker" that has came out into the country.

Did you even meet your neighbors when you moved into the "neighborhood"?

if you wish to pursue this, get better signs, cemented into the ground.

Unless you got the land patent to that property, I don't give a dam who "legally" owns the land, you and your neighbors must work together.

I would suggest installing some heavy duty anchors and chain them to the signs.

It seems you are not reading it quite properly....
The OP is living in an area where he/she owns the land....the neighbors only own the dwellings and only use them as a vacation spot as they are not allowed to live in them full time as they are on public land...( the concept is bizarre to me as I'm sure it is to many) . I'm not convinced it's the neighbors if they are not there full time as it would be some local bunch of kids that roam around looking for trouble.

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SuzyHomemaker
rtfmfarm.com
LaMancha & Nubian goats

Why not give the cabin dwellers complimentary free pick coupons or host a once a season cook out and orchard field day for the forest lands cabin folks.

Your in the land of the Californuts. They can get warm and fuzzy as easily as they get full of wiz and vinegar. If you can offer them some little special aspect they can brag to their normal neighbors about they will eat it up and you may gain some cabin dweller support.

If you can establish some sort of warm fuzzy nature outing angle AND start a small commercial cider, winery and vinegar production operation , you could possibly get the interest of the In Wine Country program to air an episode on your operation and open up an even wider advertisment media and potential market for your business.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Vern's making me scratch my head too. The OP is a problem just because why? Last I knew city slickers are allowed to purchase property. They're not allowed to make unreasonable demands on their fellow residents, but they are allowed to live in peace, and make a living doing so.

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Wise enough to know I'll never be wise enough to know it all

One place I worked road construction, flashing warning lights were stolen about as fast as you put them out. We ended up coating everything with axle grease that stopped it. I guess theives don't like to get dirty.

I would load up my apples into a hay wagon or truck and sit right at the end of the road on Forest land and sell them!

Come on, does this mean that I can go to the house where my grandma lived when I was a child and take the apples from the trees? Or, just because my grandma's neighbor let us go pick Transparent apples from their tree (and I do so miss Transparent apples) I can go pick apples from that same tree at will? No, my ancestor's relationships don't mean I can steal.

I get the impression from the OP that the larger problem is not trespassers but, rather, thieves.

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Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

I feel for the original poster, things are not right for them.

But - I can understand the cabin owners as well. This is a remote set of mostly abandoned cabins. There is not much at all protecting them. Get a bunch of people wandering around, happening across the closed up cabins, and they become easy pickings for folks out on a joyride to vaqndalize stuff.

These people would live some ways away - couple hour drive? So they don't care about fliers. What they want is privacy, and to keep strangers away from their property.

I do not agree with their actions, and they are in the wrong.

But - I can at least understand their fears & where they are coming from. In their situation, I too would not appreciate the added traffic & strangers wandering around empty properties. That does increase the risk of ddamage/ theft to their properties by a big percent.

The actual person(s) doing this must live there most of the time, and have an axe to grind with the original poster. No one is going to drive a few hours to vanalize some signs repeatedly.

--->Paul

Agree 100%

CT, is the road from the highway to your property a public road? If it is, the cabin owners have no standing to try and limit traffic, after all it is access to part of a national forest. My 2¢

of course not, you moved away, instigator people are dead, blah, blah--from what the OP said, apparanetly applepicking was an ongoing thing by the (part time) locals on this land up until when she bought it. Of course she has a right to shoot tresspassers(within "reason" I suppose). This is all about her relationship with her NEIGHBORS.

Good neighbors are worth their weight in gold. Most people lean "good" or "bad" depending on how YOU deal with them, and a tit for tat sign war just reaps more bad relationship. It's obviously unproductive on so many levels, except for entertainment value I guess.

But all this will be moot--the TREND is to get people OUT of "wilderness", and it's starting with the public/gov forest lands. THose leases won't be renewed on the cabins(It's already in place for leased cabins in WA and OR), and since the OP is the only landowner in a bubble surrounded by public land(I think) it's very conceivable her land could be seized at some point in some imminent domain "for the good of the planet"(geez, esp in CA, it's gonna happen SOONER in CA) and she'll get sent to the rez. Operations that show sustainable wise use and conservation are valuable to buck this trend, but it takes cooperation with the community and an eye to the larger picture of what is at stake. If it's just a Deliverance wasteland out in the bush, it's no big loss to clean that up now is it?

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

At various times, there have been times when there were threats to the lease land cabin program, I know Congress has discussed ending it at times.

While it may seem that we are the newcomers, messing with the status quo of the cabin owners serenity, that isn't quite the way I see it. This ranch existed in private ownership for decades before the Forest Service came into existence. It was in private ownership for at least 70 years before the first lease land cabin was built. The orchard was here before the cabins were built, and it was a commercial orchard at that time.

The cabins are the newcomers. Before us, it has been a Boy Scout camp, and an Equestrian camp. They created much more traffic on the road than we ever have. The folks we bought it from had tried to turn it into a conference center for even more people, and were stopped by the zoning folks at the County, so they let it sit until we discovered it, and spent two years pestering them to sell to us.

The cabin owners have long memories when it comes to their ancestors relationship to previous owners of our ranch, except that the previous owners never allowed willy nilly freeloading from their orchard. It was a business and their livelihood. I do know that some of the old cabin owners were hired on a seasonal basis to work here. So their ancestors were more respectful to the previous owners of the ranch than the current owners of the cabins have been to us.

I think being the newcomer is a matter of perspective. Nothing in the relationships of people who are now long gone justifies stealing.

When the game camera arrives, I hope to catch the thief in the act, and then I'll let the sheriff take care of it. I have no intention of personally confronting anyone, because that is a recipe for things to escalate.

As for the suggestion to have a gathering for the cabin owners, we have thought of that, and may try it next year.

For the suggestion that we introduce ourselves to the neighbors, I have done that, when I see a car at one of the cabins. I have probably met half of them now. I have never seen cars at some of the other cabins. Some of them live in California, I have met some who live in other states too.

I have already offered them a discount. I see no reason to give them apples for free.

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Popeye

Just wanted you to know that I forwarded your information to our homeschool group *chief* and she will get it out to our email loop. I don't really have a name for our homeschool group... we are pretty informal!!! We are the only group that I am aware of in Lake Arrowhead and I let her know to use my name for the offered discount. Thank you so much for this generous offer. If they don't plan a group outing, my kiddles and I plan to come in the next week or two ourselves!!

Carmen