How do you make gates trespass resistant?

I’m a big scared e cat. In fact, I’m sooooo scared that I’m in fear for my life. I make sure everyone knows “I’m in fear for my life”. When you’re in fear for your life, the law is on your side during a confrontation.

"NO LISTEN DON'T USE CABLE!! I got bolt cutters! cable is a "snap" to get thru! I would seriously sugest to Dig the Ditches deep and at the entrance, have it chained, with HEAVY chain.
BTW cable will rust thru faster than chain.

Dean(a Tresspasser, and proud of it!)"

Pay attention. The self proclaimed trespasser doesn't want you to use cable. Cable doesn't cut with bolt cutters. It wants to turn sideways and you get a few strands at a time. A padlock hasp is a "snap". Chain is a snap.

Also the sign should read" Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again" IMHO

"Pay attention. The self proclaimed trespasser doesn't want you to use cable. Cable doesn't cut with bolt cutters. It wants to turn sideways and you get a few strands at a time. A padlock hasp is a "snap". Chain is a snap."

LoL got me. :P

I feel that WE ALL OWN THE LAND AS ONE, and together we can share it.

You know, if I pay the taxes, and I care for the land and live on the land, I do think I have the only say as to who can be on it and what they do on it. If a trespasser thinks that they have any right to be on my land, they are greatly mistaken and if it take me making them lay face down on the ground with a gun muzzle to their skull to get that point across, so be it.

If "We all own the land as one," does that mean that "We all own all private property as one?" That logic would clearly mean that there is no private property, only public property and therefore no need to tax anything as it all belongs to the people. That would also mean that I can take anyone's property and use it without limitation. I wonder how Oilpatch197 would like it if I wanted to use any of his property, such as a vehicle, home or such at any time of the day or night.

The biggest reason I have a problem with trespassers is that they do not respect my land like I do and also have no regard for safety. One, had they not hit the deer that was between them and my bedroom window, would have hit me with the bullet. I also have a problem with people who litter on my land and destroy my driveway and damage my gates by ramming them. There is a simple solution to the issue of me needing to use aggressive force against trespassers. All they have to do is leave me and my property alone and I don't bother them. I leave those alone who leave me alone. If you want to hunt on land, then buy land for your use or ask permission from someone else to be on their land. Stay away from mine. :yeeha:

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I would challenge anyone here to think of a question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one. – Sam Harris

Sweet sainted mother of Alyssa Milano. That has to be the most selfish and ignorant thing I have ever heard. What is yours is mine because I believe it to be so. I don't care about the law, tradition or common decency. I want what is yours and I will take it whether you like it or not. Don't protest. I'm just going to do it anyway. Sounds suspiciously like the old "I'm gonna rape you honey so you might as well lay back and enjoy it.".

Funny I don't see you working on my land. I don't see you paying my taxes. I don't see you doing anything except STEALING and violating someone else's property. Don't you have your own property? Why do you think you have a right to what is mine? I love how people - usually the lazy, shiftless and mentally deficient - want to share what isn't theirs.

I shouldn't be surprised I guess. Is Brother Stair out of jail yet? Underage girls, fondling, herbal abortions, communes, kid-touching, death cover-ups, missing money and lawsuits oh my!

Its fairly easy to make a sturdy gate which will stop ALL from entering. I see them all over the place and they are very suitable for absentee landowners.

The gates are built of heavy duty 4" & 6" pipe. The gates swing open when unlocked. What really makes the gate "break-in" proof is the heavy duty steel cover which surrounds the padlock. The cover is rounded, and would easily withstand a direct hit by a bullet. The heavy duty padlock is only accessible from the bottom.....making it impossible to use bolt cutters.

I have never seen or heard of one of these gates being breeched. The US Forest Service uses them extensively, and private landowners have followed suit.

Of course, nothing is absolutely, totally secure. One could take a portable welding torch and cut through the pipe. And I suppose someone could drill into the padlock or find some other way to destroy it.

The bottom line is......these gates work.

If people want to have a very secure gate, it isn't rocket science.

carry bolt cutters if you want you had also better be wearing body armor,you want to come on my land whenever you want i'll give you 6 ft of it

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LIVE FREE - DIE WELL

"The biggest reason I have a problem with trespassers is that they do not respect my land like I do and also have no regard for safety. One, had they not hit the deer that was between them and my bedroom window, would have hit me with the bullet. I also have a problem with people who litter on my land and destroy my driveway and damage my gates by ramming them."

So your calling Trespassers Disrepectful, dickweeds, hillbillies that can't shoot a gun, careless, messy slobs, teenage party freaks, and 4x4 owners who rather rut up your field instead of the county road?

No I do not own propety, I rent it. Perhaps if I owned land, I would understand.

You could understand this even if you never "own" property. If I came to your rented place, kicked down your door (making you have to wait until your landlord could fix it), shot up your bedroom windows and tv set, smashed your some of the personal property you have in your rental, dumped several sacks of smelly trash about your rooms and put out my cigarettes on your couch, I think you wouldn't be happy. You'd have to pick up the trash, put out the couch fire, spend $$ to fix or replace the personal property I destroyed, and then call your landlord to fix that door before someone stole whatever else you had in your dwelling/surrounds. And since you don't know who did it, you'd foot the bill yourself.

And then let's say the whole thing happens again next week, and every week, or worse, day thereafter. You aren't telling the truth if you tell me you'd be absolutely okay with it. My guess is that after awhile, neither would your landlord be happy with it. To say "we all own it" means you better put your place on permanent open house as well. And what people are complaining about here is vandalism, I might point out. Most people who think along those lines mean it about someone else's property - they don't want it happening to their own, whether owned or rented. Its a glib opinion that means nothing until you have the experience, repeatedly, of someone trashing your establishment, regardless of its owned or rented status.

Vandalizing trespassers are just that. Whether they do it to land I own, or a place you rent. Here, we have people who ask permission and we have people who take what they want and smash what they please to smash. If they thought it was truly "OKAY" to behave that way, they would have the balls to leave their addresses, so I could respond in kind. Since they don't, I know they are two faced hypocrites.

Here in the hills of Tennessee there are people shooting day and NIGHT at anything that moves. Talking to your neighbors will get the word out FAST in a small town... I never realized how fast till we moved here. People I have never met know my wife and I by sight and come tell us what we have been doing on the old farm. It is like they use outsiders for entertianment! If it is happening regularly they are probably locals since people from out of state are usually seasonal trespassers. Talk to the Sherrif as well. They probably know every local hunter anyway.

True story. My neighbor came over yesterday...he has 300 acres and just had to sell all his cattle due to health problems so the deer moved in pretty thick. People have been shooting his calves for years illegally while hunting. He saw a truck driving in a field spotlighting deer and shooting! He went out with his big gun and shot at the spotlight. He said the person fell down in the truck, but thought he just shot the light...either way a sheiff car was parked by his driveway...I dont know if they are watching him or the poachers! If you cant hunt deer legally you are pretty lazy. Your risking your life for nothing. I got plenty of deer meat this year just from one hunt with my friend. People want something for nothing.

This spring I had someone not only destroy my gate, but they used their one ton 4x4 and chains to remove BOTH gateposts by backing up, then ran over the gate! Fortunately, the cops found the perpetrators (surprised the heck out of me).
A few years ago I was camping on my property and the gate was open. Someone drove by my camp (without seeing me) and went fishing on the river. I went up and locked the gate. When he passed the camp again to leave, I followed him to let him out and have a friendly talk. That's all it took in that case.
On a parcel I owned in Texas years ago, a tresspasser put up a bucket type nudge feeder in the woods to poach deer. I took down the feeder, pooped in it and put it back up. Another time someone in a $500 pickup stumbled into me while tresspassing (gate open) and claimed he heard the property was for sale (yeah, I bet). I scowled at him and took down his plate number.
A friend of mine has decals he puts on all his ranch gates that say "these premises monitored by survelliance cameras" and they are.

When on your property, lock yourself in and conceal your presence (hide truck) and you might catch the deadbeat red-handed.

"We have discovered that someone (we think a neighbor) has been removing a gate to get access to our 40 acres. Because we don't yet live at this farm (we are in the process of building a home) it is difficult to monitor it ata all times"

please- go to your local court house and to an office there called 'land records", research your own deed. dont trust what the seller tells you, whatever is legally recorded at the courthouse is what stands. also, trace back your deed thru the previous owners, sometimes if a parcel has beeen split in the past, this is harder to do but i knwo from exp it is definetly time well spent- dont count on a lawyer to do this timeconsuming work for you. you may find things that you didnt know about.
one thing to look for immediately is if your land has a "right of way" or an easement of some type granted to (who?- utility for access, or a neighbor?). if its there, certain people will have accese to that gate and it cant be legally blocked from those who have 'R.O.W." if its an agreement between you and one other neighbor, it could be lifted. or you could discuss your problem with said neighbor and get permission to block that path other than with a gate, if you provide other access (if necessary).
where does this path lead- was it an old road(anouther can of worms) or an access to a parcel that has no other access to a road (land locked)? there may be laws standing in ayour way then.
this stuff is not hard- even a ------ can do it. the staff there is paid to help you and there is a lot of stuff indexed on computer so its super easy to look up. still, go over to those dusty old deed books and get copies of the ORIGINALS- the stuff on hte computer is not LEGALLY BINDING since it is only an index (like an organized table of contents or a list of whats in the deed books, not the actual deeds.) besides, sometimes the stuff in the original deeds is vastly different ( i hesitate to say 'misleading') from whats on computer or int he index books.

"We have had buildings broken into in the past while away and vandalism done. When we were able to live here full time, and had various trespasser problems, making it clear that they needed to leave immediately, in no uncertain terms, got the point across to many. Those that insisted, and even tried shooting over my head to scare me only produced a very clear response from me...."

keep this quiet- you dont want to be a target for the police either.

"Also, if you don't try to keep people off you may be liable if someone does get hurt while on your land even if you aren't there and even if they had no permission to be there in the first place."

please, please dont let this happen to you. all this talk about leasing land, or giving permission, for some imagined benefit of the leaser 'watching' over your land- its not worth it if he or someone he accidentally injures sues you or the owner of the property. they will be able to take EVERYTHING if they have a sympathetic jury....
i agree, you have to discourage this. you have all sortsof good suggestions- heres one more.- figure out when this stuff is going on. then either you or a friend/nieghbor drive around all the back roads at those peak hours, usually late morning or certain time of evening(shining hours) . take a disposable camera with you, brand new. when you find a vehicle, with no one around, i would like to tell you to put t he wrapper of the disposable camera under that wiper blade and nothing else, but i dont want to encourage a dangerous confrontation- you do what you think best. oh, and at least, use the camera. you know what to do with the pictueres, make lots of copies.
other than that, i agree that large tree trunks down in the path is about the best deterrent- i have known of a big atv smash-in at a small country market, it had been broken in several times in the past, and the owner got a good locking security system, they just took theire expensive atv and drove it thru the front windows. obviously they were the kind of criminals that make a lot of money.
a tree trunk is abot as impassible as it gets, for vehicles. the rest of the way is walking.

i couldnt stress the liability thing enough- remembre- its not just the guy suing you, theres a lawyer behind that suit that is doing everything in thier power to make it happen- and if you were to look at the settlements, they and the associated court related costs get the lion's share of any settlement obtained. the suing party gets only a small % and they get to raid your insurance company of all that your policy can bear.
in fact, they will ask you how much you are insured for, that is probably on the first or second page of your questionarre.

a pit of vipers on the other side should do the trick Not sure how you would get in though.... Coating the gate in something really gross is the best solution. That and a good ole security camera. If you notify the local police they will also check in from time to time for you. Another idea is to put up a "Stallion in Pasture" sign. Hubby says use spray adhesive and then attach small glass shards to underside of the gate, they have to lift it to get it off the post ..right? had no idea hubby was so violent but it would do the trick...

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If you make it idiot proof,
someone will design a better idiot

If they're not hurting anything, why worry about it? These may be your future neighbors and friends, and it gives you a leg up on dispelling the idea that you are snotty city folks. It really seems like a losing battle, until you live there full time.

WHAT???!!! They are not my "future neighbors and friends"! These are poor, lazy, white trash, city folks who don't have any respect for those of us who have worked hard and saved a lifetime to buy acreage and build a farm for ourselves. I'm hardly a "snotty city folk" but I am just a country girl who will do whatever it takes to keep thieves off my land. This breed of trespassers are always the ones who drop their beer cans or bottles in the pastures and creeks, break windows out just for fun...shoot holes in the buildings for target practice....they're just hell bent on destruction! They wouldn't treat their own property like that...but don't mind trashing property that belongs to someone else. I have no use for these human beings...they are not the kind of people that most of us would want as a friends. I don't owe society a free pass to fish my ponds ...or use my timber to hunt deer or cut firewood! Our neighbors do keep an eye out for trespassers...however like most evil critters, these types are also the cowards that prefer to use the cover of the dark of night to trespass your property and mine. Trespassers in this area also need to be aware that Missouri just this year became a "right to carry" State.

While peaceful solutions are best, sometimes use of decisive force is unavoidable. If you are being shot at, as I have had in the past, it is not intelligent to expect that you will never be hit. Sooner or later the idiots will improve their aim and unless you are armed, you aren't going to stand much of a chance. Most trespassers are only brave when they think that they have easy pickings or a weak-willed landowner.

As for depending on the local law enforcement agency, in my county this did not work and I reported all the incidents that happened until I saw that it did no good. No one ever came out to take a report or even investigate. Ok, ONE time a deputy came out, but even then nothing was done. Fortunately, I have a good neighbor who bought out the problem neighbor's land and now all is well. I work with that neighbor to make sure we don't have problems down our way and that is the best solution for us. Sometimes the best defense is working closely with your good neighbors and creating a kind of area defense group. If you have a neighbor or two to help you, and you help them in return, sometimes that will get better attention than just one person.

As for my responses seeming to be a bit much, I view each unknown person as a threat because the ones I have known as repeat offenders make it clear that I will be shot at even if I am unarmed. We have also had a few criminals that passed through our area over the years whose mode of operation was to kill rural landowners, take their vehicle and then find another rural homeowner victim. There were only a couple, but enough to give me pause. Just because someone appears to be paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get them. :haha:

In the last two or three years most of the people who have come up my driveway were lost and looking for the trout ranch which was closed for renovations by my new neighbor. It was open to the public for anglers to catch their own trout for a fee, but had been closed for a few years. Those people who were lost were politely told that it was under new management and would be open at X time to the best of my knowledge form what my neighbor had told me. Those people were honestly lost or confused and were treated well, but I still had a concealed weapon on me if case they weren't.

If I am out hunting, I am on the defensive just because sometimes one of my neighbors has someone hunting on them with permission and they might not realize where their shots are going or where the property line is. Besides, being careful while out hunting is just common sense.

The deed checking is a good idea, along with one of those special gates that are virtually impossible to have a lock destroyed on and doing the camera wrapper thing. If those methods work for you, they are the least confrontational and passive. If they don't, you may have to consider more forceful means. If you have a problem now with you not living on the land, it will still be there when you are living there and then you will be in the line of fire for trespassing hunters and will have actual property there to be stolen by thieves and destroyed by vandals.

We live in a sue-happy society and no matter how much we do to warn the terminally-stupid, it is often not enough. Sometimes when you have problems you have to deal with them in manners that are best left unsaid in public forums. The majority of ideas presented here are the ones that can be mentioned, but one's imagination can come up with ideas that are rather effective, but not for open discussion.

However one wishes to deal with a situation is up to that person. Some old-timers that are long gone now sometimes told me about the Triple-S philosophy of problem resolution when they had big problems. The shoot-shovel-shutup ideology I cannot condone or suggest. I only mention it because I have heard stories that I can neither confirm nor deny as I don't have much detail about them save that they were told to me by locals here that lived all their lives here in the backwoods where the law wouldn't come.

In the end, I just hope that the various ideas presented here will help you resolve your situation to your satisfaction. We all just want to enjoy our special place in the world in peace and harmony. It is the few that disrespect that enjoyment that are the thorns in our sides.

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I would challenge anyone here to think of a question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one. – Sam Harris

AGREED.
As long as they're not hurting anything.

"I'll never understand how that law stands up in court...but guess there are some cases documented."

your local laws may not be as you think they should be. locally, when being sued by a person who came on a property without permission (but- he wasnt hurting anything!!!!anything!) looking up the local tresspassing laws was suprising. i had heard that a person could enter a property , evne if there were no tresspassing signs up, IF the land wasnt "posted". Posted, meaning that two things were done- first, a notice of the land to be 'posted' no tresspassing was to be made at the sherriff's office or one of the related offices-basically a deed like paper that puts it on record that the land is posted against tresspass. then a 'posted' sign was to be put up x amount of feet apart, on the property itself with the owners name and some basic info on each sign. this law was lifted in the 70's here, i asked about it several times.
i am not a lawyer but this to my untrained eye leaves the less specific tresspassing law on the books as the only active one, a generalized thing that has a few loopholes that you could, literally, drive a truck thru.i bet changing that law to the amorphous one made a lot of money for the lawyers!

Get a couple head of cattle. When a person comes unto the property instead of charging trespassing, charge them with cattle rustling. Also, since it's a felony count in most if not all states, you can use ANY AND ALL MEANS NECESSARY to stop the intruders.

Just make sure about what your state laws state about cattle rustlers.

Will