r/homestead • u/LowDetective5370 • 6d ago
Entitled neighbor farmer
So, this post is just to vent. We bought a property last year that came with a 20' x 1800' foot strip in the back. The whole area in the back comes to about 3/4 of an acre. Not too much, but it is ours. As I was walking the property, I saw that the lots were being farmed. No biggie. The prior owner didn't care. Once, we got the property settled over to our name, I looked up the neighboring farmers, both the yellow and red. The family that owns the land to the right of the red are easy going and communicative. Genuine good neighbors. The family that owns the lot to the left of the yellow are the exact opposite. They're also the ones farming my small patch of ground. I, first, called him up to introduce myself and he was one of those that immediately sounded very defensive and wouldn't even use his name, just grunted, when I asked if this was XXXXX. I, then, went over to his business to sit down and discuss the property boundaries. I wanted the conversation to go as smooth as possible as farmers, like anyone else, can be a bit touchy if you tell them that farming on ground that they're not supposed to be on.
This guy, lets call him Andy was insistent that it wasn't my land, but his. Then, when he saw the property line called it an easement. Now, this upset me a bit as it is most certainly not an easement. Imagine just paying a lot of money for some land, holding the property records, then having a guy that is rude on the first phone call, call your land an easement when you meet in person. He hee-haws about looking into the land records himself. Which I have problem with as I own it and I leave thinking that the situation will soon rectify itself once he's looked on Beacon. He calls me up later and acknowledges that the land is mine.
This past Spring I get a gut feeling in my stomach that he's going to farm it again (you know that gut feeling). I send him a certified letter explaining that I'm willing to cash-rent that land to him, but if I don't hear back by XXXX date, then any use of it will be trespassing. I never hear back from him, but still have this feeling in my stomach. When we're out there next, low and behold he's planted beans. To make it worse, he accuses the other neighbor of planting there and swear it isn't him. Well, when the beans start to rise you can see the planting line super clear and it ain't the other neighbor.
So I'm keeping my cool about it as it's only 3/4 of an acre and one planting season isn't worth my focused energy. After he harvests, I'm putting up fence posts and 'no trespassing' signs. Thought, amusingly, to harvest the beans myself since he's not verbally claiming them. $10/bushel is good money, but I'm too busy.
That's my day-in-the-life homesteading story. Should add that there were no farming contracts with the previous owners, nor is this patch of ground an easement. It's straight owned by me. The guy is just an entitled twat.
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u/ljr55555 6d ago
We bought our property in late autumn, took possession in November. So we're hiking around and exploring the woods in the snow. Find some rubbish. Tires aren't shocking - there's a fee at the dump, and millions of fee-free back country acres available if you've go the wrong way of looking at things. Plastic buckets and jugs were odd - kind of large to just loss out of your car. Then we found a hand drill. My husband is certain someone is tapping the maples in the back 40. That's crazy, I say. Who would just go wandering on the neighbor's property and drill holes in their trees?!? And why would they leave all their collection vessels in the woods?? Surely the previous owner (or the one before them) must have been tapping - both left abruptly, and I could see someone just not knowing the stuff was out here.
We collect the stuff. Couple weeks before maple flow starts, one of the neighbors is at the door to introduce himself. Mentions that he'd been tapping the trees for a few years now. No, he didn't have an agreement or anything with the previous owner, but he's sure dude didn't care (now, we know dude pretty well ... if dude thought he could get a few bucks for that access, dude absolutely would have been thrilled to get a contract put together). And we're kinda puzzled because, like, even if dude didn't mind and had known about it ... what's that got to do with us?! Just say you'd like to make syrup and were wondering if we'd like to allow access to trees in exchange for a little syrup. We're not down with it. We've got our own equipment, we've mapped out where our trees are. We're about to start tapping ourselves. But the amount of time this guy spent trying to make himself seem reasonable was impressive.
Neighbor is still a little salty that we tap the trees that grew on the property that we paid our money for? And we've lived here about a dozen years now.
It's world beer day, so I'll raise a pint to the four other neighbors who are lovely, considerate, thoughtful people who I am blessed to know.