My dog was killed on my property by dogs whose owner had permission from the previous to walk his dog there. We made it very, very clear his dogs weren't welcome on our property anymore. It was almost 10 years ago, and I'm still upset about it

My parents could have written this post word for word. Unfortunately, within the past 15 years they've had to post the land. The farm has been in my dad's family for 200+ years. Gates opened, fences cut and squashed, a hay field used for off-roading, unsafe hunters, you name it. It's really sad. Long-time neighbors know they're always welcome (and always ask), but unfortunately use of open land is becoming more and more abused.

Well. We have 122 acres in Franklin County. It’s fairly isolated. 95 acres are forested and we only post a 15 acre wood lot and the signs are ripped down almost as fast as we replace them. We’ve had game cameras vandalized/stolen. In the past few years in walking through we found 3 unmarked deer stands along with a total of two construction bags worth of trash, bottles, and cans we toted out. Sometimes I stop snowmobiles racing around in the hayfield. Last year I stopped some guys who cut down maples on the edge of the property. They had already cut and loaded their truck. Don’t even ask me about the trash people have dumped. It’s freaking discouraging.

Sorry people are abusing the fact you open your land up. It is amazing that you do so and I hope a few sour apples don't spoil the bunch.

It could be helpful to see if there is a municipal recreation committee or a local trail organization that could help you communicate your needs to the public.

Many folks are simply ignorant of whose land they are on and how best to use it. With a little Help and communication they could be educated about when and where they can use the land. These organizations might also help you put up signage explaining when and where to recreate if that's something you'd be interested in.

I want to reiterate that opening your land up is a tremendous service to the community. I'm sure there are many people who use it respectfully and certainly don't mean you harm or annoyance.

Hopefully you can come to a reasonable solution! Best of luck

I’ve lived in rural vt my whole life and have never seen posted signs as rude, you shouldn’t feel bad at all about posting your stuff. People need to learn some respect that is crazy what you’ve had to deal with.

There is tons of public land in VT. My land is posted and will be strictly enforced.

Once upon a time the only people doing much outside were hunters, and most were trained on the ethics and courteousness that you describe in regards to asking permission and paying back with some sort of good deed.

Nowadays with people recreating it many other ways, many don’t even stop and consider getting permission to be somewhere on their skis or whatever. Not to mention a lot of hunters are new age hunters who aren’t privy to the old ways

Here’s the problem: word spreads, even signage is overlooked. “oh they don’t mind, it’s fine!” Until it’s way out of control. First it’s just adjoining neighbors, then their friends come, then their friends, etc. You might have to start having a conversation with some of these unwelcome guests.

I think, in Vermont, these things are handled best by word of mouth. Tell a trusted friend you are not happy and ask them to spread the word of what’s ok and what is not ok.

Show up in town meeting to announce it. Put a post on Front Porch Forum.

I’d suggest Permission Only signs along your entire perimeter.

http://vtfishandwildlife.com/learn-more/landowner-resources/private-land-and-public-access/what-posting-means

I recently let my dogs out to do their business for the night and was calling them back in... someone in my woods yelled out, "Fuck you!".

I've been sick and unable to find my property stakes, let alone post my property, but once I recover I'll be posting my property. My neighbors and anyone who cares to ask me know that I'm okay with hunters. But now they'll be forced to ask... not that it'll stop some of them.

Just to be pendantic, if they gain access via the unposted 50 acres, they are not trespassing and are just dicks

If people are abusing the privileges it's time to post the land for trespassing. If anyone complains you can direct them to the rude neighbors who ruined it for everyone.

I’ve been wondering what’s the best way to ask someone for permission to go on their land. Do you have to know them personally? If not, how do you go about it—do you just knock on their door? Mail them a letter?

I’m sorry people are being so disrespectful!

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Personal opinion that requiring an owner to post every so many feet on their land every single year to prevent trespassers is onerous and as VT's population ages, not a reasonable bar to set for a home owner.

Also, people walk/ ski across our lot but last year people started snowmobiling on it to reach VAST trails & signs are going up this year.

I feel for you and your land and everyone else here with similar issues. My parents' property doesn't even have any sprawling fields and people still loiter all over our yard because they have one of the nicest access points to the battenkill. We give permission to people that ask, but I can't believe the audacity of some. Not just tourists either. The area obviously someone's front or side lawn, idk why so many think any open area is public. I always make sure I'm not trespassing when I'm out and about, why can't others do the same?

What would be a preferred means of contact for permission to cross your (OP or anyone else) property? I’m always looking for new routes/connections for trail running and xc ski, and have had some luck bumping into landowners in person but never quite sure how to best reach out without being bothersome. Postcard with my phone number?

We post "hunting by permission only" signs along with our cell phone number. Most of the time we're fine with it. But we just like to know in case we walk our dog out there.

Anybody leaving trash out there, cutting trees, putting up tree stands, etc would severely piss me off though.

Get trespassing signs.

They don’t have to be obnoxious yellow ones. They make small metal ones. Use a bunch of little ones to cover the majority of the border, with one larger and more explanatory one at a main entrance point.

I had a similar issue in a smaller scale. Live in a development. My neighbors' kids played in our yard. At first it was just occasionally crossing over, then full on playing in the yard. If they had just said "is that OK" I would have said yes, as they were being respectful. But they acted entitled. Soon enough they were leaving trash in our yard. So we got a fence.

Our property borders a national forest on one side. We’ve had people try to camp or hike through our property before. And , of course, the illegal poachers/hunters/vandals/thieves

We didn’t do anything besides chase them off until about 10 years ago. Our property has a small pond. Several pairs of geese decided that our small pond makes a great year round home. They don’t bother us or our dogs/animals , but will aggressively chase anyone else. They are big, make a lot of noise & look insane when bothered. The original pairs have long since passed, I’m sure. There are sometimes more than three pairs. We are respectful & give them space during nesting.

We’ve not had any issues with hikers, looters, vandals or campers since the geese decided our pond makes a great home. Raise some geese for your property

I share your pain. I've seen trespassers making complaints to the ministry of environment because the landowners where they were walking installed frost fencing at great expense and they couldn't walk in the forest anymore. I would ask them "did you get permission to walk there" and they looked so suprised by my response as if i was a birthright to be able to freely walk thy neighbors property. I categorize these people as entitled bitches.

I have land and have seen it all: trash, poaching, people cutting trails, vehicles doing donuts, just outright rudeness, etc, etc. Just post it. People are shits. I lived in my area growing up and bought a large piece of property and found out the neighbors were actually the biggest pieces of shit ever. They didn't care about my privacy and they didn't care about their dogs harassing me or my critters. They had used the property through the years and the fact that someone bought it (even a local) and built a house didn't matter to them. In fact, it seems to have angered them. It's almost like they considered themselves to be the defacto owners, although many of them could have bought it at certain points through the years. The fact that the house was there didn't matter to them. They would go right through my yard in front of the house to access the property even though they didn't have to. Just rude.

Add to that all the people who want to use the property from just random places. It's like they (especially hunters who have paid for a license) have a sense of entitlement. It's like when you see a tourist who's just being a complete shit. You wonder if they behave the same way when they are home. Do they throw trash on their own property? Do they respect their neighbor's privacy? etc.

So up went the signs. It's an onerous task by design. But you should check your property lines every year anyway. It's never happened to me, but I know of other property owners who have had their lines moved. Anyway, I was just done with it. I'm not going to be treated like shit on my own property.

In terms of signs near houses, I have the same situation with signs going right by someone's house. I don't feel bad about it though. This guy wants to hunt on the property and I tried it twice with him. He won't follow the rules. The rules are simple. Text when/where you enter. Same when you leave. Only deer. And stay away from the house. I have others who do fine with this. Anyway, he wouldn't even see the signs except he cleared every tree on his own property. So screw it. I tried.

Anyway. just post it. You can just do no trespassing signs. They don't have to be dated or signed.

I'll start off with a personal story, and then offer a few things to consider.

Story:

When I was a kid, there was a long trail that ran behind a bunch of neighbors houses. I used to walk this trail for years. When I grew up, I left and came back on a visit at one point years later. I was walking the trail one day and a guy came running out of his house, waving his arms, and explained very firmly to me that this was no longer allowed. In a similar vein, this was because a different neighbor had been getting drunk and riding his quad around this guys property late at night. I was incredibly angry at this rebuke, but told him I'd stop. I wasn't angry at him because I felt like the trail was "mine", but instead because I had this kind of connection to it. You know? It was a very special feeling of being able to walk the same path for my entire life. It was his choice, and his call...it was his land after all. I just felt this terrible anger about it because I felt like it was kind of like taking back a statue that had been put up in the center of town. It wasn't owned by me or the town, but the loss of that thing hurt in a very personal, sentimental way.

Considerations:

1. If you'd like to institute some sort of compromise, perhaps you could put up signs explicitly saying what people should do, rather than assume they know what not to do.

   "Before entering, call this number... Unwelcome guests and trespassers will ... Do not damage the land in the following ways ..." Something like that. If you cut out the excuses people dish up, then hopefully fewer problems would occur. I suppose depending on how egregious things got, you could escalate things from there. Personally, I would have demanded the person word that they would pay for the damage, if they had purposefully destroyed my fence.

2. On the flip side, it might not hurt to try and cut some of the more clueless people a tiny bit of slack, too. I would think that if I, say, asked the same fellow once a week for a full year, "Do you mind if I go through here?" And he says "Sure, yeah!" each time, would it make sense to keep asking? It wouldn't necessarily be me thinking "Oh, this is mine" but instead something more like, "Why am I going to keep bothering this guy with asking?" I suppose you might see things differently, but it might not hurt to think on it.

3. Also, do keep in mind that, unless these are people that know you pretty well, they might feel some apprehension about banging on your door. "The locals told me they go through this guys land all day, every day. Why am I going to check with him first? What if he isn't even home? What if he's in a rotten mood and doesn't want visitors?" Etc. I've noticed some of the younger generations can get very skittish about talking to strangers - even if those "strangers" happen to be only be a few roads down, and have lived there for years. There's a kind of assumption of "extreme privacy", people tend to assume they're "bugging" someone by coming up unannounced. I can't quite explain it.

Put those yellow signs up and register your property with the town! Unfortunately, it’s not the same world it once was.. A few bad apples can ruin it for us all…

I suppose once things have been a way for so long they feel entitled, which sucks because there's no appreciation. Then if you do stop being hospitable, your reputation suffers unfairly. I wonder if another kind of posted sign basically.politely stating your case and expectations for use that people.might abide? Like posted on a trail?

Have lived in Vermont since 09’ (I was 21). I would NEVER do any of the things people have done in this post, it’s crazy to think that people think this is rational. That being said, I’ve always thought Vermonters were too lenient with property rights for this reason- people are disrespectful, entitled jerks. A few ruin the bunch. It’s your property, lord knows you paid (and continue to pay) for it. Do with it as you’d like, don’t feel bad.

I have a 150 acre parcel, mostly woods and some fields. I kept it open for many years because most people were mostly respectful. Last couple of years I've had way too many yahoos leaving beer cans all over, dead deer carcass's (probably poached) and even a giant ugly couch. Now my driveway is gated and locked and I've had to put up no trespassing signs. At some point it's just not worth it. Too many people abusing the land.

This is the entitlement of the younger people whose families have lived here for generations. They don't know that the older generation earned their welcome. All they know is "this is the way it's always been."

The simple solution is to post your land. You can still offer permission to those that ask.

When you post, remember that you need to post signs at all corners of the property as well as every 400 feet. Additionally signs need to be updated annually and you need to register your land with your town clerk’s office and pay a $5 fee. The town clerk registration needs to happen annually too. It’s an onerous process here in VT, but it is what it is.

They can't be respectful then it's time to post it. Besides if it's getting used that much I'd be worried if someone got hurt they can sue you. Post it. They do make white signs. Lol

Put up signs.

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Post all your land clearly or be financially liable when someone gets hurt using it We’re not living in the 70s anymore and people will do unimaginable things for a dollar. Especially people with who fiercely advocate for animal rights Where is your property?

Because there's a concerted effort to abolish property ownership rights. There has been for a while. Look around, it happens all the time now. People rationalize being other's property, or why they are entitled to use an other's property "because it's here". Hell, just look at all the stories right here on Reddit about a neighbor jumping a fence, or cutting a lock to use someones pool because "it's not hurting anyone, bro".

Edit: Read some of the comments and damn there are some destructive people so understand at this point. It's too bad. So take what I say below as the perspective of someone who is nieve about idiots and a LNT minded person.

Posted signs were one of the few things that I actually hated about VT. Coming from ME they were few and far between so encountering them was always jarring. In maine there was a joke that you knew when an out of stater moved in. The for sale sign went down, no trespassing go up.

What I found frustrating is the law is the same. Open permission unless posted, and landowner absolved of liability.

Now I get no hunting, trapping or any sort of activity that damages or relieves a person of something on thier land.....but just blatantly posting land that is wild and never seen just seems stingy. I admit, i am one of the bad ones, I did trespass often but never hurt or took anything. I would often see a nice trek on a topo and go without regard for the 15-20 lands I would cross, especially if only one was posted. That said....it was usually once or twice a year, the posted signs were blank with no ownership so wasn't going to waste my time trying to figure out the owner if I was only passing through for 20min.

Maybe I should ask, why do you feel the need to post your land against all uses? Why not selective?

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I think this is part of the new Vermont. It also includes driving a luxury car in the most obnoxious way possible and talking loudly about all the great things you used to do on Long Island.

Call dnr on tresspassers. Do not get involved. All states requirecurrent permisiion, most in writting.