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No Trespasing Signs


Jenny16308

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I've encountered several caches that would require breaking trespassing laws to reach them. Sometimes the signs aren't really close to the cache, but it's apparent to a thinking person that the area of the cache is within that "No Trespassing" region.

 

I thought that it was against the guidelines to hide caches in such areas. Perhaps the signs are put up after the cache has been placed. Giving this benefit of the doubt, I always post a note about the sign on the cache's site if I encounter one. Personally, I will not trespass for the sake of finding a cache, and I find it very frustrating and disappointing when I encounter this situation.

 

What are other opinions? What if you can't find a creative way around the trespassing law? Do other people also get frustrated and annoyed by this? Or do you stealthily disregard the law and consider the no trespassing sign part of what heightens the difficulty?

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I would never knowingly trespass to go to a cache.

 

We had a similar thing happen here once. A person put up a cache in a very heavily signed area, not really any way that person could not have noticed. The first several cachers to go to it said that they couldn't get to it without breaking the law. It got to the point where a reviewer was involved, and the cache was archived. Other bad things happened in that situation, but are probably not relevant to this thread.

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No. You should not trespass to hunt a cache. Period.

 

If the person got permission then it's not trespassing and it should say on the cache page--possibly with a name or position of the authority giving the permission.

 

Don't trespass and cause land owners to go to their elected officials for remedy. :laughing: Your fellow cachers will thank you.

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When I see posted land or otherwise am nervous about trespassing, the first thing I do is ask myself if I'm making a mistake on how to access the cache. Check the page in my PDA for any parking coordinates or instructions. Check my maps to see if I can circle around for an approach from a different direction. Plenty of parks back up against private property! If and when I concluded that there was *no* legal way to access the cache, I would abandon the hunt, check with the owner and go from there. I would log my experience as a DNF on the cache page. One time my report was about the fifth report about posted signs. In that case, I logged a "Should be Archived" with pictures of the signs, and a reviewer archived it.

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Costs for crossing a posted area to find a cache:

 

Call to police officer by land owner: $.25

Cost of handcuffs placed on cacher by Police Officer: $25.00

Call to Spouse to pick you up at the Police Station: $.25

#$%^&*( from Spouse on the way home regarding your stupidity: $1,000,000

Fired from job for now having a criminal record: $45,000 per year

Payment to attorney for representation at hearings: $20,000.00

Meeting with cellmate for signing the log: priceless

 

It is not worth breaking the law to put your name on a log.

Edited by LadeBear68
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Trespassing to find a cache is wrong. Often if you encounter a "no trespassing" sign there may be another, legal way to access the cache.

 

Also, at least in my area, there are many old "no trepassing" signs that are no longer valid. The state or county purchased the property and never bothered to remove the old signs.

 

Your cacher reviewer would not knowlingly approve a cache on private property unless it has aproval of the owner.

 

If the cache owner misrepresented the cache location to the reviewer then your beef is with the cache owner. Discuss the issue with him. If his answer doesn't satisfy you, then you can take it to your reviewer or Geocaching.com.

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"no trepassing" signs that are no longer valid. The state or county purchased the property and never bothered to remove the old signs.undefined

 

Totally agree with above statement, but I am in the same area-

I recently placed a cache where there was a no tresspassing sign designated to cover one side of a paper road only, but it appears to cover the entire end of the road. By going and getting a tax map, it was clarified. I also explained that other access areas were available. But on the same cache, I did move the final site, because of the clarification of the tax maps, showed it to be private land. These maps often times are far more detailed than Topo or any of the online maps. The tax map also gave me another hiding spot. These tax maps are sometimes available online through the town website. In the above instance, the topo map had the county and town boundaries wrong. The google and rand mcnally showed incorrect parkland boundaries.

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Back when I was a n00b, I ignored a No Trespassing sign. There was really no excuse for it. There was a newly erected barbed wire fence at the edge of a park. I thought for certain the cache was in the park, but the GPSr told me it was about 250 ft in the forbidden area. I figured some jerk was trying to mark park land as his own, so I went around the fence (it ended at the shore of a river a few dozen feet away) and walked to the cache. Signed the log, left a note saying I would notify the cache owner about it being on pvt property, and left. Got home, logged my find, and notified the owner about the cache being inaccessible (at least not legally). He archived it, but never noted picking the thing up. For all I know it's geotrash. I checked a parcel map later, and it confirmed the cache was on private property. I should've known better than to ignore the sign. If I came across a similar situation today, I wouldn't go around the fence.

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Are you kidding? To me, No Tresspassing translates as, "there could very well be big dogs backed up by big guns held by big people who probably have a bad attitude about strangers."

Exactly what I realized when trespassing that time I mentioned earlier. The thought of wild animals or an armed property owner crossed my mind, but in the heat of the search I exhibited poor judgment. If you don't know what's on the other side of a fence, be ready for the worst. And if it says No Trespassing, don't climb/cross the fence.

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On one of my very first caches I found it ok and logged it. When we got back to the car and drove 50 feet down the road, we saw that the drive to the area was marked No Trespassing. It seems that some people don't mark their stuff very well.

 

So I guess I've geocached a no tresspass without meaning to. :)

 

I never mentioned that little tidbit in the logs. I probably should have. :lol:

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One of my caches is on public land that in the hunting season, hunters put up "no Trespassing " signs.

Which brings up a question that I have. Is a creek, stream or river that runs through private property, considered to be part of that private property? I thought that by maritime law, all waterways are open to public from high water mark to high water mark. In other words, you could float down a river and get out as long as you did not pass the high water mark on the banks of the river. Any input?

 

edit out the extra "s's" in tressssspass. hehehe

Edited by zoltig
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I own a cache that you have to go past large no trespassing signs to get to.

 

It is on a canal, and the canals have been used all my life by the community for biking, walking, walking dogs, etc. Even though there are these bigs signs at each entrance, it was proved in a local court recently that people in the community could have the rights to the road along the canal.

 

I am very specific on the cache description that you can walk to the cache, and ignore the signs, but cannot drive you car to the cache.

 

I know that sometimes people from out of town can get nervous going past these signs, even after they have read my disclaimer. But when you do the cache, it can be difficult because of all the non-geocachers walking their dogs, etc. :)

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Is a creek, stream or river that runs through private property, considered to be part of that private property?

 

My example only applies to a specific area, I can't speak for sure in other areas, but I imagine that the laws are at least similar.

 

Here in Central Ohio, the Scioto River runs through my parents backyard. They own the land about 1/2 way across the river, and the neighbors on the other side own the abutting property. The way it's been explained to me is that while they own the land under the water they, of course, do not own the water. Somehow it's state owned or something like that. So if someone came boating along, they're fine because they're not on private property, if they stepped out of the boat and were wading around in the river they would then technically be on private property.

 

Along with that, when my parents bought the house there was a stipulation in the land deal that they have to allow people access to the river bank in certain cases. Something about if a person was in a boat that sank then my parents can't try to arrest someone for going to safety. So it's not a right-of-way, where someone could just come along, sit in their yard, and go fishing there if they wanted, but they do have to allow access in some situations.

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Are you kidding? To me, No Tresspassing translates as, "there could very well be big dogs backed up by big guns held by big people who probably have a bad attitude about strangers."

 

I try to avoid those situations.  :)  :lol:

"Are they going to send the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths, so when they bark they shoot bees?" -Homer Simpson

 

I'm reminded of a No Trespassing sign on a fence at the top of Stone Mountain in Georgia. It warned against crossing the fence (which was RIGHT on the edge of the "cliff") and said "Violators will be Prosecuted". My wife read it and said, "Are you kidding? Violators will be DEAD!"

 

Those signs may not just be there because Joe Nextdoor doesn't want you on his lawn...

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In my opinion "NO TRESPASSING" means "NO TRESPASSING". And as for the question about the streams. Not all streams and waterways are open to the public. You need to check your local laws to find out what is and is not open to public use. I know in my area there has been caches put out along some country roads where it is wooded. Now I would question whether or not these caches are actually on private property. Just because there is a stand of woods on the side of the road does not mean it is our playground, it probably belongs to someone.

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Four finds after your post, Miragee. Hmmm, maybe a little night time covert caching is in order.

You'd stand a better chance of avoiding trouble by just walking in during the day like you actually belong and hope no one really checks. It seems to have worked so far for those ignoring the No Tresspassing signs.

 

There was some discussion among some of the first month finders as to why or why not the signs may not be valid. The best reason mentioned is that the homeowners association (maybe) improperly marked land really belonging to the local utility company. There is a pretty big powerline in the picture, so that might not be a bad theory.

 

If anyone in the region is really worried, they can always hit an SBA and cause some explaining and researching (and arguing and angsting and other forms of ill will) to occur. :ph34r:

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The best reason mentioned is that the homeowners association (maybe) improperly marked land really belonging to the local utility company. There is a pretty big powerline in the picture, so that might not be a bad theory.

That wouldn't be too unrealistic. Homeowners associations are notorious for posting misleading signs here in Southern California--for example, all those poor rich people in Malibu who have been illegally chasing beachgoers off public property. In this case, it's entirely possible that the signs themselves might be on the association's property, even though the trail might not be their property. In that case, it would probably be technically legal, though not entirely accurate.

 

So don't trust the HOA to tell you what's legal or not. They'll never fess up if you have the right to be on that land. Go to the source--the legal documents. If the county required the developers to include a utility easement there, or stipulated that established hiking trails must be publicly accessible, that's where you'll find it.

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There was some discussion among some of the first month finders as to why or why not the signs may not be valid. The best reason mentioned is that the homeowners association (maybe) improperly marked land really belonging to the local utility company. There is a pretty big powerline in the picture, so that might not be a bad theory.

 

QOCMike is correct about the power lines. I had noticed them yesterday on the Google Earth. This feature will really zoom in tight to the cache location.

You can copy and paste the cache coords in to the search and it will take you right to it.

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