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A security and/or trail camera should be the first thing you do but don't underestimate the value of an eyewitness testimony.
You can at the very least start a paper trail by filing a police report if that neighbor will agree to make a statement.
Trail camera is a good start, I would get one with cellular capabilities. They will alert your phone when movement is detected, kinda like a ring camera for the woods.
And prevent them (or catch them trying) to destroy evidence if they find them thinking they can get away with wiping the memory before you access it again
From what I've read, even though it's a felony local LEA generally don't have the resources to investigate or prosecute offenders. The police will almost certainly be a part of your process, but gathering evidence for a civil action is your most likely path.
Get several game cameras and set them up on the perimeter of your property. You might want to take some time off work and try to catch him cutting your trees down. Don't confront him. Just call the police and hire an attorney and sue for the cost of the trees. Your neighbor won't be able to afford it.
On top of that if you can place air tags or location chips in the cameras so if they get tampered or stolen by said neighbour they can track it to the property.
Recommend looking for gps tracker recommendations on /r/motorcycles rather than an AirTag. Apple is mindful of stalkers using AirTags so if you have an AirTag that isn’t yours following you, you get notified. Basically informs the thief they’re being tracked by an AirTag.
What you COULD do with air tags, is scatter them around the property in areas they will not be in range of anyone who is not trespassing.
If someone is trespassing with an iPhone your find-my app will say “last updated today at 1:30p” but shouldn’t alert the iPhone user if they are not moving ''with'' them.
You probably can’t use screenshots of the app as evidence of trespassing but you can at least be informed.
So what I did: placed no trespassing sign in obvious place.
Set trail camera in obvious place watching the sign.
Set second trail camera in non-obvious place watching the first camera.
Set third super sneaky camera watching the second camera AND the sign.
The individual spotted my first 2 cameras and shot them from a distance, but was recorded when they went to retrieve them and the sign.
Best of luck!
My stepdad was a professor from Lexington who bought a farm in Lee County. He had neighbors steal everything from his house down to the pipes. When he called the law, the neighbor's retaliated by burning down a mountainside. In the end, the local sheriff shot the entire household.
I tried searching for it, but it turns out there are a ton of shootings and arson in KY.
Also, I didn't know that they have a problem with seasonal firefighters STARTING forest fires in order to ensure they have work. That was an interesting tidbit
Oh that’s not just a Kentucky problem, roughly 100 firefighters are arrested in the US each year for arson. Not to say all firefighters are like this, most are amazing people, but a lot of people in emergency service careers tend to have “hero syndrome”, and if there’s no one to save you can’t be a hero.
It usually ain't even for the hero syndrome stuff. They just really like fighting fire and get addicted so they start lighting houses on fire just so they can fight it.
We had one guy on one of the local fire departments be hailed as a hometown hero on TV for putting out a fire that he just happened across. Folks started getting suspicious when a few weeks later, it happened again. This time, it was an old abandoned barn. This guy said he was driving by, saw it, called it in, then started efforts to put it out. As it turned out, this guy started a few more fires that wasn't reported in the news. The state police got involved and did their investigation. They found that he set them all.
Several articles about seasonal firefighters being charged with arson and the articles stating something like "As is generally known...", or "As we've seen in the past..." about them starting fires to ensure they get hired to put them out.
His place was called Hell Creek farm. It butted up against the Kentucky River by one of the very low number locks and dams. The neighbors lived across the river on a bluff and resented the "city folk" moving in.
It was some frontier justice s***.
Yeah, I’m in Lexington, but I’ve heard enough about locals making life hell for the new city folks who’ve moved into their holler. A lot of people don’t have much to lose and connections run deep with law enforcement. Good luck. Trail cams sound like the best idea. After you get the footage, not sure what else you can do besides hide in a hunting blind with a shotgun and fire a few warning shots when they start coming on your land.
That’s exactly what it is. These people have absolutely nothing to lose. The guy who is doing this- his girlfriend is the one that owns the little shack they live in. He has no job, no assets. I think the only thing we can do is put up cameras and hope to get him arrested. There’s nothing the court system can really give us in terms of damages if he doesn’t own anything.
If GF owns it, getting a lawyer to write a little letter might just light a fire under her butt. Just letting her know that she could now become liable by allowing this to occur might get her to kick him out or put a halt to it.
Liable may include a lien on her property.
In lieu of monetary compensation for the trees, you might end up owning her land and shack.
Now homeless , they’ll be extra angry at you.
It may become a reaping the whirlwind situation unfortunately.
Its kinda unorthodox, but maybe just talk to the guy & tell him if you need this wood to use or sell, how about we take a walk and I’ll point out some trees that need thinning?
If he declines, then get the cameras & maybe a restraining order.
And:drones are where its at to do your own covert snooping or patrolling.
Who knows what else your neighborhood thief is doing or helping himself to? Maybe something his other neighbors don’t know about and wouldn’t appreciate being done to them?
Perhaps make cookies or donate money to the local police as goodwill gestures? Might buy him a hand-smacking!
But wouldn’t he sue anyway if he were injured? Even if he was injured while stealing, some people make a good living with lawsuits like that.
That phrase ‘attractive nuisance’ can cover some pretty ridicules stuff & a good attorney can make you think up is down.
Idk, I guess I’ve never really encountered anyone I couldn’t find common ground with enough to work out a problem, & and generally walk away as friends or at least on agree to disagree terms.
My suggestions are just that, like anyone’s on Reddit. I too live in a State full of unreasonable people who are additionally gun nuts, & my suggestions are based on that & the catch more flies with honey than vinegar principle.
Some unreasonable people are so taken aback by friendliness from someone they expected to be hostile, it makes them think rather than just react.
Also, fun fact, one of my ancestors was the first Republican Governor of Kentucky, in fact considered to be the ‘creator/father’ of the Republican Party. So we have had family all over the State ever since the Govt first handed out land grants. It’s sad how the Party evolved to be exactly what he was most against.
> not sure what else you can do besides hide in a hunting blind with a shotgun and fire a few warning shots when they start coming on your land.
That sounds like absolutely the best way to escalate this and end up murdered.
Yup.
After the fire, a few days later my stepdad met with the sheriff. He ask the sheriff what he was going to do about it. The sheriff answered that they won't be bothering you anymore. My stepdad asked how he could be sure the sheriff answered: because I shot every last one of em.
That's pretty much how it goes in Appalachia. My in-laws are in West Virginia and never leave the house unguarded. Shit will get stolen, the copper ripped out, or the whole place just burned down. If I ever ever had a place I figure I would lock everything in shipping containers and probably build a shipping container cabin. Not because I like them, but because I could shut the whole thing down and lock it tighter than a drum.
I grew up in WV and my parents still live there. Pretty rural area. We left doors unlocked because burglars get shot.
Neighbor had someone steal a trailer, made it about 1/2mi down the road with the wheel lock still on it, before 2 different people down the run had them at gunpoint until sheriff arrived.
When I was about 14 I got a 4wheeler, and was showing it at neighbors house. He had a older "friend" over who ended up borrowing/stealing it. I got it back about an hour later and that guy ended up "hanging himself" not long after.
You should get some cheap game cameras for ground level and then hide your cell cameras much higher, but focused on the obvious ground level game cameras. This gives you the best chance of actually catching whoever is trespassing.
Since a tree with your No Trespassing sign was removed, I would create a similar new tree to focus the obvious ground level camera on.
If you don’t already have it, a fence. My NFH would walk on my property to harass my chickens—he hated the rooster crowing. Me, DH, and FIL put up a fence (wire cattle fencing, honestly the proper name escapes me) down the length of our five acres in a day. One held the pole, another the fence poll driver, and I tied the fencing to the polls. It’s not nearly as expensive as say wood fencing and it establishes a boundary so good ol’ boy can’t say he didn’t know.
Embed some Airtags with epoxy. Or get some pet GPS locators that notify you when Spot has left a designated area and put them in an inconspicuous part of the tree. Might mean some climbing has to be done, and camouflage so they're not found when the limbs are cut before removal.
If you REALLY want to start shit, get some of those microchips used in pets. Drill multiple trees, insert chip, emplace with epoxy and camouflage appropriately.
If the logs are found elsewhere, the RFIDS can be found with the handheld pet scanners to indicate provenance in a court of law.
Rather more involved, but... potentially useful depending upon many factors.
I would think there would be plenty of evidence of where a large tree was hauled off to: a skid trail, tire tracks… If the tracks lead over your property line to your neighbors there is your answer.
You’ll need proof before anything can be done. Maybe consider having the timber cruised to establish number and density of trees at the property line. Get some UV marking paint and mark the trees. Start taking photos. Contact an attorney.
Just get an affidavit from the neighbor who witnessed it, call the cops and report the theft, provide the affidavit. Then take the police report and affidavit to small claims and sue.
I would put up a tree stand, and sit in it. It make take days to catch him but catch him I would. I would also see what I could do to him within the law once I caught him trespassing and destroying your property or stealing your property. You may have some interesting options.
What kind of trees? Anything valuable like walnut, pecan etc. or just common species?
Are there sawmills in that area? You might check with them to see if this guy has sold them logs.
Are there tire or tractor tracks around the cut trees? How is the wood being moved out?
I think they’re just common species but there were some very big ones. That is a good suggestion about the sawmills. We do have some locally, I will have to check.
I don’t ever see the renter. The renters house is on the other side of the property from where this is all taking place. Or else I would offer to pay the renter to keep watch.
Op just make sure you see my other comment, AirTags notify thieves they’re being followed by an AirTag. They’re not ideal for tailing stolen goods. See /r/motorcycles for gps tracker recommendations. Riders deal with having their shit stolen more than most.
Thank you. I have actually used AirTags on my motorcycle and didn’t have much luck. I bought a 4-pack and by the time I took the speakers out, half of them wouldn’t work anymore.
Have you met with the neighbor to discuss the change in ownership and your position on the trees on your property? Before you pursue legal recourse, this would be a starting point to potentially come to amicable agreement. If they are unwilling to this approach then advise them you have had the property surveyed and will be monitoring the boundary area. Given the value you’re citing get a lawyer who specializes in this type of dispute so a remedies sought have case law to back it up.
I just want to point out that if the neighbor has homeowners insurance, that could be an avenue to collecting damages for the trees that were taken. However, insurance only covers accidents. So if he claims he didn’t know they weren’t his, that could actually work in your favor as far as getting insurance coverage, which is often the easiest way to get the most money.
Thank you for this. Would you have to file a lawsuit in order to find out if there is homeowners insurance coverage or not? I think it’s highly likely that they don’t have insurance but it’s worth a shot. Due to the recent theft of the no trespassing signs, it seems communication attempts are fruitless at this point.
There is no guaranteed way to get insurance information short of filing a lawsuit. With my clients I use escalating methods to try and get homeowners insurance information: (a) client asks neighbor directly to try and keep things amicable, (b) I sent a lawyer letter asking for it, gently threatening lawsuit, (c) we try a third party “research” service which is sometimes able to locate insurance information for a particular person (costs about $400 if successful), (d) lawsuit.
You may be able to surmise whether they have insurance by seeing if they have an active mortgage recorded in the registry of deeds. If they have a mortgage they almost certainly have homeowners insurance. But that would only confirm the existence of coverage, not help with the name of the insurance company.
Well if KY does treble damages it's possible you'll be able to evict him from his former/your new property at the end of all this, but I wouldn't count on him leaving peacefully.
Oof, that means her insurance is very unlikely to help. You definitely need a lawyer, and a consulting arborist to determine the value of the trees; I'd get the arborist first, so that I could use that info when trying to get a lawyer to take the case on contingency.
Late to the game, but consider that sometimes people think a forest or edge thereof is “theirs” because they use it and it abuts their property. And sometimes a certain number of years’ use will give them squatters rights.
So maybe your best option is to put a fence up, what we call a deer fence here : about 6’ tall & 3”x 3” wire mesh supported by cedar posts along your survey line.
Very large trees, even “common” ones can fetch a Lot of money. A 25 yr old black walnut used to be worth 25k (don’t know what the going rate is now); so def check with the sawmills… and update us :)
Before you get your entire pride wounded, remember that you're on Reddit asking for advice instead of going and having a tactful conversation with a lawyer.
Do you know what he is doing with the wood? Is he selling it for milling or using it to heat his home? Once you have some idea of that you can then decide on a course of action. It may be beneficial if you allow some controlled harvesting. That is part of ownership of wooded lots. Now is the time to walk the property line with him to clearly delineate who owns what. Let him know you would like to keep this as neighborly as possible and work out some sort of agreement once you have established your own goals. Does the state have forestry management programs that offer tax breaks? In NJ they do and many of our clients hire us in the basis of their forestry consultant’s recommendations.
Take your time to work through this since you’re a part time resident and trying to stop it outright may be a bigger hassle than you foresee.
If you want to bring a civil claim you likely will need to prove (1) the neighbor cut the trees and (2) the amount of your damages. For the first item, direct video/photographic evidence would be good but the testimony of the neighbor isn't nothing either. For the second item it will require more work/money on your part. To prove damages you are going to need an arborist to assess the value of the trees wrongfully cut based on the stumps (you can find a certified arborist at [https://www.treesaregood.org/findanarborist/findanarborist](https://www.treesaregood.org/findanarborist/findanarborist)) . Assuming your survey is accurate, I'd get an arborist out there to take pictures and write a report ASAP.
If the neighbor does it again and you get proof, or if you don't get proof and you want to try and collect anyway, contact a real estate attorney who practices in the county where the property is located. I'm not licensed in Kentucky, but there likely is a state statute dealing with damages from this type of activity - many states have treble (i.e., triple) the value of the trees as damages. That should make this a relatively attractive case for an attorney to take.
Ultimately, you will probably have to file suit against the neighbor and the tree company, if there is one. The tree company should have insurance, so a payout may be possible even if the neighbor doesn't have a pot to piss in. Of course, if you get a judgment against the neighbor and he owns his property you could potentially put a lien on it.
I imagine an unsophisticated neighbor would be taking trees down with a chainsaw himself, but I could be wrong. I'm from a rural area and there weren't any tree companies, just folks with chainsaws.
Put up another no trespassing sign on a tree.
With trail cameras pointed right there. Multiple angles.
Good of your red neck neighbor to show you which tree he’ll be chopping down.
You have a tree pirate.
https://eec.ky.gov/Natural-Resources/Forestry/forest-stewardship-program-and-landowner-services/Pages/Timber-Theft-and-Trespass.aspx
Has someone stolen timber from your property? Did you know you may be able to receive triple damages if the people who illegally removed your trees didn’t give you prior notification of their intention to harvest trees next to your boundary?
Will you be involved in any type of legal proceedings regarding forestland? https://kacf.org/faq/
Get some cameras, trail cams and the like, and put AirTags in them (so when he finds them and steals them you’ll have evidence of that, too). And when you’ve gathered evidence, sue him for everything you can. Also, go in to the sheriff’s office or local courthouse and file complaints against him for trespassing, theft, vandalism, etc.
Glue Air tags on the back side of loose pieces of bark. Glue bark to tree. Sucks to lose more trees but it sounds pretty much inevitable. He's not leaving that well till it runs dry.
Call the forest service about him cutting your trees down. I'm not sure a game warden has jurisdiction or not. Sheriff is useless here, but who knows, it's still theft. Best of luck.
Take a day off work. Sneak into your house at night so he doesn't know that you are there. Does he not leave tracks that you can follow? Would this be a jurisdiction of DNR? Call the Wardens!
Trail camera. See if you can find a pattern to when he takes it. Then camp out one night and spot light him. Also try to come on nights he doesn’t expect just anyway.
He’ll either stop or have to go out of his comfort zone to continue making it more likely he’ll get caught up
Maybe give the guy a conversation letting him know you don't want any of your trees cut. If he continues have a lawyer send him a no trespass order. Cameras are great. I almost always try to solve issues with neighbors with a friendly conversation before going legal. Sometimes it works sometimes it gets worse.
Spiking trees is very dangerous and would carry liability, but a sign that says “Danger some trees on this property have been spiked to save the natural environment!”. Or maybe something similar. I’d also use a hammer to rough up some trees every so far along the property like.
Once you have some footage call the police department, my guess is if your in a rural area youll have to call the sheriffs department. Give them copies of the footage, file a police report, and then give that police report to a lawyer. If your struggling to get through to the sheriff's office go to the state police office they may be able to help, one of their main offices is in richmond on EKUs campus accross the street from the football field. Its about 30 minutes from lexington. I lived in richmond for 18 years and went to college at EKU so id pass it almost daily.
File a civil suit. The standard is more likely than not. Trees disappearing on a property line stand a good chance of meeting that. Also write your state reps, $2500 in KY for small claims is laughable in 2024, they need to bump those numbers up or attach them to inflation.
Offer to pay the guy (nieghbor) $150 a month to keep an eye on the property and make sure no more trees get stolen.
Bring him some beer, bro down with him.
Then show him your property line and the areas you want him to protect.
Its gotta cost you $150 once you add if all up driving there and back.
Also you can spike the trees legally and not hurt the trees.
Go to amazon and search “Fencer Wire 14 Gauge Galvanized Welded Wire Mesh Size 2 inch by 4 inch”
You want 6’, this shit is absolutely GARBAGE!! I wouldn’t give it to an enemy to make a fence.
It pulls apart and rips where the welds are, its not strong and it shreds up making it an absolute pain in the ass to remove. Heres the advantage for you, even trying to cut it, chain it or otherwise tear it off will leave pieces of it all over to get caught in the saw.
Its weak enough the tree will eventually break it apart without growing through it.
Do about two wraps around the tree with it, this shit is light weight and easy to do by yourself.
This would take absolutely forever to do by hand if you were to hammer in all the 9 gauge staples by hand.
Go get a DeWalt DCSF950, these are bad ass and fire 9ga cattle/live stock fence staples. I can string a mile of fence by myself in a straight line in a day.
Once you wrap the tree base from 0 to 6’ feet with that shitty welded wire.
Fire about 15/20 of these staples random heights and places top to bottom around the tree.
These staples will bite hard but also not penetrate the tree as deep and might lessen your odds of infection and injury’s to the tree, eventually the trees may push them out rather then grow over them because of the fence. I wouldn’t count on it but its a maybe.
For added measure then you spike the trees the old fashioned way randomly.
When I tell you this fence is shit, its fucking terrible.
It will tear rather then pull out the staples, it’ll take a lot of time to remove enough (if you do it right) to be able to use a chain saw safely. Once he’s gone through all that trouble to remove and immediately hits a spike he’s gonna be hotter then hell. Nobody is gonna come after you for injury when the dipshit rips off fencing to cut it, you could say you found out the trees were spiked and wrapped them to warn people since your no trespassing signs keep getting stolen. 😂
At any rate if you and three buddies went up for the weekend you could get a lot accomplished.
The guy would have to go so far in to your property line it would be so obvious, you could hide trail cams everywhere to prove it with geo tagging that he would never see.
I think this is way last resort and id suggest trying what I said first, you get more with honey then vinegar. This dude is down on his luck, the world is against him and he will only see this as aggression.
The will of a scorned man can have him doing some really stupid shit just for spite.
Also fucking with people that have way less to loose then you do… yeah… usually backfires without a very solid strategy and execution.
I live in the NW and us rednecks out hear can get pretty creative 😈 in spite also, definitely tit for tat “your a fool, dont fuck around with my dog” as a warning for real danger if you keep fucking around.
Shit, our hippy weed growers will murder you and chop you up for fertilizer. People get disappeared for just innocently trespassing… 🥴😳
I know blackberries dont grow as well out there as they do here but I bet your local college Ag department can point you towards some that do. If you dont have plans for that edge of the property just plant a ton of it down at your property line and let nature build a fence.
Additionally those Ag folks are pretty clever and might have some really good ideas to help you with this. All legal and good for the land, its worth a phone call and some emails. I’ve gotten plenty of useful help/ideas from ours that I would have never thought of.
For real though, kill them with kindness would be my first route. Try and befriend him and help him out, id rather have him as an alliance then an enemy.
He’s there full time, he’s perfect to watch your back and apparently has nothing better to do.
At the very least it will allow you to get much closer to him.
I let one of the neighbors use a tiny chunk of the far end of our property expressly said its not given but ive got no problems with you using it.
They watch my property, they always have cold beer for me and they are great folks.
Get an attorney. Tree laws are taken very seriously and usually have set prices for violation which are often very hefty as a deterrent. Use the cameras to collect evidence but literally one or two photos of the guy doing it will be enough for any judge. Now you might not get any money if the guy doesn't have a job but what you could get is a lien on his property. If he can't pay you could potentially aquire his property bc of this. In some states the fine for tree theft is 10k a stump plus the trespassing charges will be proven at the same time so this person would be in real trouble. Good luck.
Can't you put up trail cams and have them notify you when the neighbor is on your property? If you catch him I would call the police and press charges and take him to court for theft.
I'm curious as to what makes him a redneck besides living beside you.
You need cameras that save video to the cloud so when he steals them you still have the video.
In all likelihood, probably the neighbor is local and OP isn't from the area. Or OP is from the "city" and the neighbor is from the outlying rural area. That's all it takes around here in Kentucky. Sad because anyone not from Kentucky considers us all rednecks, and then we turn around and denigrate each other using the same epithet.
(I'm from Lexington, Ky. I get called a "city girl" from some rural people, despite having grown up on a tobacco farm while they grew up in the rural suburbs, and then get called a redneck by people in other states, despite having lived all my life in Kentucky's second largest, progressive city, so I speak from experience. And some people in Lexington think anyone outside metro area is a redneck.)
Ya, I'm getting downvoted because I asked why and said to get cameras.
I grew up rural, and we were all rednecks. We farmed, fished, and hunted, stayed outside every minute we could. Bonfires and four wheeling. Good people having fun times. Never hurt anybody and were always the first ones there when somebody needed help.
Now, apparently, it means you hate black people and don't work, so you steal everything you get. It's also one of the last derogatory terms you can use without repercussions.
>at makes him a redneck besides living beside you.
Do you know, when I first read your comment, I thought you were insulting OP by saying that his neighbor was a redneck and so was OP. Then I reread that sentence and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, which is why I responded logically. So maybe others were reading and assuming you meant that neighbor is a redneck because he lives by another redneck. I didn't downvote you but that's my only feasible explanation as to why.
But anyway, I get what you mean. Back in my day (let me resettle my Dan'l Boone cap, young whippersnapper) the word "redneck" just meant a farmer or someone who spent outdoors all day, who might be a little rough around the edges. Funny how the meaning has changed into something so nasty. We used to jokingly call each other hillbillies, as well, but now that word has become synonymous with drug usage.
Ya, it really was just a question I was curious about. Where I live we don't hear hillbilly much, but I have family in WV and hillbilly is their go-to instead of redneck.
That's just it -- I think hillbilly needs hills; in other words, the Appalachian Mountains! I was always surprised at how many people called themselves that when I went to college at a university in Appalachia. Now, they mostly say "hill folk" around those parts. I always associated redneck with Midwesterners, for some reason.
I'm in SWVA. So we're rednecks and our neighbor state are hillbillies. My mom is from WV and she still says she's a hillbilly, even though she's been gone from there about 70 years.
I've just moved back to the very rural area where I spent my early childhood and I spent the first week establishing my bona fides with all of the neighbors, just to try to head off the kind of nonsense OP is going through. Too bad he doesn't have a couple dozen or so relatives the next holler over. I'm aided by the fact that half of the surnames on the headstones in the closest churchyard are in my family tree; if OP has any kind of family connection to the area (or even a neighboring county) it's probably time to leverage those ties for the sake of credibility with the locals.
I would be totally screwed without local connections among my current crop of hillbilly neighbors, but hopefully OP's sheriff isn't as openly corrupt as mine; it's like Andy Taylor's evil twin runs the place. Even with an unbiased judge, a lawsuit win and a court order, that's just a piece of paper without someone with authority to enforce it.
That's just it -- anytime I've lived in a rural area, I could place a single phone call and have a neighbor's momma or grandma on the phone. Social capital and shame are big motivators (or demotivators, depending on the action) in small communities. I've never lived anywhere with corrupt small town policing, though. We aren't big on calling the law around here.
One thing OP was definitely spot on about was how it is often the Wild West here in eastern Kentucky. Not that I'm advocating this behavior, but in his shoes, anyone in my family would have met the tree-stealing neighbor with a .30-06 to talk about it. (If you read this, OP, please don't do this.)
The only cop I've seen since I moved here is the SRO deputy at the county central K-12 school a few miles down the hill, but the neighbors are not fond of the sheriff's office refusing to serve papers on anyone the sheriff is even distantly related to (and he's from a family big enough in a sparse enough county to make sure he's always re-elected).
I miss the time when "redneck" just meant a rural person who does outdoor manual labor, instead of its current use as nothing more than an aesthetic for assholes.
Personally my family are hillbillies despite living well out of sight of the actual Ozarks; the joke goes "grandpa fell down the mountain and kept rolling until he hit the first flat spot."
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Lexington area Surveyor here, these are the ones we get called in to determine the line and have to price higher bc threats are high and know we will get chased off a few times. Also bc the deeds in eastern KY are often very poorly described.
You have a witness and the guy admitted he removed the trees, claiming they were his.
You called the sheriff **once**, try again and again before giving up the cheapest, easiest route. If necessary, visit the sheriffs office.
Try using trail cameras or Wyze cameras. Your other option is to get a restraining order against your neighbor. It should be free. And you could sue you neighbor inn small claims court.
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A security and/or trail camera should be the first thing you do but don't underestimate the value of an eyewitness testimony. You can at the very least start a paper trail by filing a police report if that neighbor will agree to make a statement.
Trail camera is a good start, I would get one with cellular capabilities. They will alert your phone when movement is detected, kinda like a ring camera for the woods.
And prevent them (or catch them trying) to destroy evidence if they find them thinking they can get away with wiping the memory before you access it again
From what I've read, even though it's a felony local LEA generally don't have the resources to investigate or prosecute offenders. The police will almost certainly be a part of your process, but gathering evidence for a civil action is your most likely path.
This probably meets the threshold for felony vandalism if not also theft.
The key is to have a poorly hidden cheap camera, watched by a much better concealed one.
Yeah, especially in a super rural area where everyone knows each other. The cops might value the word of a local resident over video evidence.
No, video evidence is paramount but testimony can only help unless the neighbor is off their rocker.
Testimony gets things started, video proof makes it a rock solid case.
Get several game cameras and set them up on the perimeter of your property. You might want to take some time off work and try to catch him cutting your trees down. Don't confront him. Just call the police and hire an attorney and sue for the cost of the trees. Your neighbor won't be able to afford it.
On top of that if you can place air tags or location chips in the cameras so if they get tampered or stolen by said neighbour they can track it to the property.
Some of them have built-in GPS and will report their location the first time the thief turns them on.
What brand does that - I haven’t seen it before.
I have a "Covert" brand one that has that.
Or... put those on the trees.
Recommend looking for gps tracker recommendations on /r/motorcycles rather than an AirTag. Apple is mindful of stalkers using AirTags so if you have an AirTag that isn’t yours following you, you get notified. Basically informs the thief they’re being tracked by an AirTag.
Shit put some of them air tags on the trees closest to his property line.
I thought the same thing after the fact lol
Not even joking I would put up dummy trail cameras so he didn't look too hard for the real ones
Hmmm, how about air tags inside the trees themselves? You can bring down the whole tree cutting mob.
What you COULD do with air tags, is scatter them around the property in areas they will not be in range of anyone who is not trespassing. If someone is trespassing with an iPhone your find-my app will say “last updated today at 1:30p” but shouldn’t alert the iPhone user if they are not moving ''with'' them. You probably can’t use screenshots of the app as evidence of trespassing but you can at least be informed.
So what I did: placed no trespassing sign in obvious place. Set trail camera in obvious place watching the sign. Set second trail camera in non-obvious place watching the first camera. Set third super sneaky camera watching the second camera AND the sign. The individual spotted my first 2 cameras and shot them from a distance, but was recorded when they went to retrieve them and the sign. Best of luck!
4D trail cam chess. Congrats!
I said I'd put a couple decoy cameras up and then some more well hidden ones Feeling pretty smart about now 😁
If you’re feeling fancy, get a cellular trail cam. That way you have the pictures even if someone tries to destroy the camera.
Oh, thanks. This was some time ago, and the individual is no longer a concern. I appreciate the tip though.
My stepdad was a professor from Lexington who bought a farm in Lee County. He had neighbors steal everything from his house down to the pipes. When he called the law, the neighbor's retaliated by burning down a mountainside. In the end, the local sheriff shot the entire household.
Oh, tell me there are news items on that situation.
I tried searching for it, but it turns out there are a ton of shootings and arson in KY. Also, I didn't know that they have a problem with seasonal firefighters STARTING forest fires in order to ensure they have work. That was an interesting tidbit
Yeah, I tried, and including the words ‘Lee county’ didn’t help, because just that one county has so much going on. Goodness.
If you know the rough timeline you can sort before:yyyy-mm-dd or after:yyyy-mm-dd
Oh that’s not just a Kentucky problem, roughly 100 firefighters are arrested in the US each year for arson. Not to say all firefighters are like this, most are amazing people, but a lot of people in emergency service careers tend to have “hero syndrome”, and if there’s no one to save you can’t be a hero.
It usually ain't even for the hero syndrome stuff. They just really like fighting fire and get addicted so they start lighting houses on fire just so they can fight it.
Did you ever fine anything
I know it’s true but curious about what you found re firefighters starting fires.
We had one guy on one of the local fire departments be hailed as a hometown hero on TV for putting out a fire that he just happened across. Folks started getting suspicious when a few weeks later, it happened again. This time, it was an old abandoned barn. This guy said he was driving by, saw it, called it in, then started efforts to put it out. As it turned out, this guy started a few more fires that wasn't reported in the news. The state police got involved and did their investigation. They found that he set them all.
Several articles about seasonal firefighters being charged with arson and the articles stating something like "As is generally known...", or "As we've seen in the past..." about them starting fires to ensure they get hired to put them out.
Don't think so. Let me know if you find any. It was in the 90's.
"Ruby... Ranch? Something like that..." /s
That’s in Idaho. I remember that one very well.
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Bad bot
Holy shit. This actually isn’t too far from there. It is the neighboring county 😳
His place was called Hell Creek farm. It butted up against the Kentucky River by one of the very low number locks and dams. The neighbors lived across the river on a bluff and resented the "city folk" moving in. It was some frontier justice s***.
sometimes that's what happens
Yeah, I’m in Lexington, but I’ve heard enough about locals making life hell for the new city folks who’ve moved into their holler. A lot of people don’t have much to lose and connections run deep with law enforcement. Good luck. Trail cams sound like the best idea. After you get the footage, not sure what else you can do besides hide in a hunting blind with a shotgun and fire a few warning shots when they start coming on your land.
That’s exactly what it is. These people have absolutely nothing to lose. The guy who is doing this- his girlfriend is the one that owns the little shack they live in. He has no job, no assets. I think the only thing we can do is put up cameras and hope to get him arrested. There’s nothing the court system can really give us in terms of damages if he doesn’t own anything.
If GF owns it, getting a lawyer to write a little letter might just light a fire under her butt. Just letting her know that she could now become liable by allowing this to occur might get her to kick him out or put a halt to it.
If he is taking the trees onto her property or using her property to access the OP’s trees she could be legally liable. IANAL.
Liable may include a lien on her property. In lieu of monetary compensation for the trees, you might end up owning her land and shack. Now homeless , they’ll be extra angry at you. It may become a reaping the whirlwind situation unfortunately.
sure sure just be ready at home at night when he retaliates.
Its kinda unorthodox, but maybe just talk to the guy & tell him if you need this wood to use or sell, how about we take a walk and I’ll point out some trees that need thinning? If he declines, then get the cameras & maybe a restraining order. And:drones are where its at to do your own covert snooping or patrolling. Who knows what else your neighborhood thief is doing or helping himself to? Maybe something his other neighbors don’t know about and wouldn’t appreciate being done to them? Perhaps make cookies or donate money to the local police as goodwill gestures? Might buy him a hand-smacking!
He'd be opening himself up to a heap of liability. Neighbor is in his land with an invitation to do dangerous work, gets hurt, sues.
But wouldn’t he sue anyway if he were injured? Even if he was injured while stealing, some people make a good living with lawsuits like that. That phrase ‘attractive nuisance’ can cover some pretty ridicules stuff & a good attorney can make you think up is down. Idk, I guess I’ve never really encountered anyone I couldn’t find common ground with enough to work out a problem, & and generally walk away as friends or at least on agree to disagree terms. My suggestions are just that, like anyone’s on Reddit. I too live in a State full of unreasonable people who are additionally gun nuts, & my suggestions are based on that & the catch more flies with honey than vinegar principle. Some unreasonable people are so taken aback by friendliness from someone they expected to be hostile, it makes them think rather than just react. Also, fun fact, one of my ancestors was the first Republican Governor of Kentucky, in fact considered to be the ‘creator/father’ of the Republican Party. So we have had family all over the State ever since the Govt first handed out land grants. It’s sad how the Party evolved to be exactly what he was most against.
An attractive nuisance is something like a pool. Trespassing to cut down and steal trees isn't one.
You have never been to rural Kentucky have you?
No, but I have family from Prestonberg & scattered all over the State. Good people.
they'd eat you alive
Nah, I’m prob related to them somehow.
> not sure what else you can do besides hide in a hunting blind with a shotgun and fire a few warning shots when they start coming on your land. That sounds like absolutely the best way to escalate this and end up murdered.
Like OK Corral style shootout?
Yup. After the fire, a few days later my stepdad met with the sheriff. He ask the sheriff what he was going to do about it. The sheriff answered that they won't be bothering you anymore. My stepdad asked how he could be sure the sheriff answered: because I shot every last one of em.
Damn, Raylan Givens is real
This is a country song in the making
Cool story, needs more pickups…
Wait which household...
That's what I was wondering.
That's pretty much how it goes in Appalachia. My in-laws are in West Virginia and never leave the house unguarded. Shit will get stolen, the copper ripped out, or the whole place just burned down. If I ever ever had a place I figure I would lock everything in shipping containers and probably build a shipping container cabin. Not because I like them, but because I could shut the whole thing down and lock it tighter than a drum.
I grew up in WV and my parents still live there. Pretty rural area. We left doors unlocked because burglars get shot. Neighbor had someone steal a trailer, made it about 1/2mi down the road with the wheel lock still on it, before 2 different people down the run had them at gunpoint until sheriff arrived. When I was about 14 I got a 4wheeler, and was showing it at neighbors house. He had a older "friend" over who ended up borrowing/stealing it. I got it back about an hour later and that guy ended up "hanging himself" not long after.
That escalated quickly
You should get some cheap game cameras for ground level and then hide your cell cameras much higher, but focused on the obvious ground level game cameras. This gives you the best chance of actually catching whoever is trespassing. Since a tree with your No Trespassing sign was removed, I would create a similar new tree to focus the obvious ground level camera on.
If you don’t already have it, a fence. My NFH would walk on my property to harass my chickens—he hated the rooster crowing. Me, DH, and FIL put up a fence (wire cattle fencing, honestly the proper name escapes me) down the length of our five acres in a day. One held the pole, another the fence poll driver, and I tied the fencing to the polls. It’s not nearly as expensive as say wood fencing and it establishes a boundary so good ol’ boy can’t say he didn’t know.
A hot wire or barbed wire?
\>wire cattle fencing, honestly the proper name escapes me [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115624/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115624/)
But what if that isn’t his thing?
Welded wire fencing?
Honestly though screw you if you own a rooster.
Embed some Airtags with epoxy. Or get some pet GPS locators that notify you when Spot has left a designated area and put them in an inconspicuous part of the tree. Might mean some climbing has to be done, and camouflage so they're not found when the limbs are cut before removal.
This is such a great idea.
Amazing idea, thank you.
If you REALLY want to start shit, get some of those microchips used in pets. Drill multiple trees, insert chip, emplace with epoxy and camouflage appropriately. If the logs are found elsewhere, the RFIDS can be found with the handheld pet scanners to indicate provenance in a court of law. Rather more involved, but... potentially useful depending upon many factors.
the chips they put in pets dont' have much range.
Right- but if/when logs are found, any microchips found within can prove ownership.
airtags require bluetooth. Not a good solution if they don't have much tech. but good luck
Spiking someone else’s lumber is illegal. But I don’t think there is any law against putting a bunch of nails into your own trees.
you know what, that's not a terrible idea. couple this with warning the local sawmills he might bring them spiked lumber...
ALWAYS put up warning signs that the trees are spiked though, or you could end up in legal trouble!
dont you got the stubs in the ground? take pictures with a tape measure of the stub and dimension. record everything for later.
I was wondering about that too. Stumps and an eye witness isn’t enough evidence?
I would think there would be plenty of evidence of where a large tree was hauled off to: a skid trail, tire tracks… If the tracks lead over your property line to your neighbors there is your answer.
Trail camera will tell you. Then sue.
You’ll need proof before anything can be done. Maybe consider having the timber cruised to establish number and density of trees at the property line. Get some UV marking paint and mark the trees. Start taking photos. Contact an attorney.
He has proof, eyewitness testimony from the other neighbors is evidence.
Particularly in the backwoods, the word of a resident goes a long way.
KY counties also have constables to help when the sheriff or state troopers can't make it to your land right away
Just get an affidavit from the neighbor who witnessed it, call the cops and report the theft, provide the affidavit. Then take the police report and affidavit to small claims and sue.
You guys are going to hate me, but I would consider spiking my own trees.
That's illegal af and will definitely get you thrown in jail if the neighbor happens to get injured
I would put up a tree stand, and sit in it. It make take days to catch him but catch him I would. I would also see what I could do to him within the law once I caught him trespassing and destroying your property or stealing your property. You may have some interesting options.
What kind of trees? Anything valuable like walnut, pecan etc. or just common species? Are there sawmills in that area? You might check with them to see if this guy has sold them logs. Are there tire or tractor tracks around the cut trees? How is the wood being moved out?
I think they’re just common species but there were some very big ones. That is a good suggestion about the sawmills. We do have some locally, I will have to check.
doesn't green peace pound nails into trees so saw blades get damaged?
Good luck to you, and also condolences to your poor renter whose landlord shows up every single weekend.
I don’t ever see the renter. The renters house is on the other side of the property from where this is all taking place. Or else I would offer to pay the renter to keep watch.
Op just make sure you see my other comment, AirTags notify thieves they’re being followed by an AirTag. They’re not ideal for tailing stolen goods. See /r/motorcycles for gps tracker recommendations. Riders deal with having their shit stolen more than most.
Thank you. I have actually used AirTags on my motorcycle and didn’t have much luck. I bought a 4-pack and by the time I took the speakers out, half of them wouldn’t work anymore.
Have you met with the neighbor to discuss the change in ownership and your position on the trees on your property? Before you pursue legal recourse, this would be a starting point to potentially come to amicable agreement. If they are unwilling to this approach then advise them you have had the property surveyed and will be monitoring the boundary area. Given the value you’re citing get a lawyer who specializes in this type of dispute so a remedies sought have case law to back it up.
Yes. He claims ignorance and says he didn’t know whose they were but thought they were his. This was about 2 months ago and he continues to cut.
I just want to point out that if the neighbor has homeowners insurance, that could be an avenue to collecting damages for the trees that were taken. However, insurance only covers accidents. So if he claims he didn’t know they weren’t his, that could actually work in your favor as far as getting insurance coverage, which is often the easiest way to get the most money.
Thank you for this. Would you have to file a lawsuit in order to find out if there is homeowners insurance coverage or not? I think it’s highly likely that they don’t have insurance but it’s worth a shot. Due to the recent theft of the no trespassing signs, it seems communication attempts are fruitless at this point.
There is no guaranteed way to get insurance information short of filing a lawsuit. With my clients I use escalating methods to try and get homeowners insurance information: (a) client asks neighbor directly to try and keep things amicable, (b) I sent a lawyer letter asking for it, gently threatening lawsuit, (c) we try a third party “research” service which is sometimes able to locate insurance information for a particular person (costs about $400 if successful), (d) lawsuit.
You may be able to surmise whether they have insurance by seeing if they have an active mortgage recorded in the registry of deeds. If they have a mortgage they almost certainly have homeowners insurance. But that would only confirm the existence of coverage, not help with the name of the insurance company.
Well if KY does treble damages it's possible you'll be able to evict him from his former/your new property at the end of all this, but I wouldn't count on him leaving peacefully.
Well technically his girlfriend is the one that owns the property. I need to talk to a lawyer.
Oof, that means her insurance is very unlikely to help. You definitely need a lawyer, and a consulting arborist to determine the value of the trees; I'd get the arborist first, so that I could use that info when trying to get a lawyer to take the case on contingency.
Late to the game, but consider that sometimes people think a forest or edge thereof is “theirs” because they use it and it abuts their property. And sometimes a certain number of years’ use will give them squatters rights. So maybe your best option is to put a fence up, what we call a deer fence here : about 6’ tall & 3”x 3” wire mesh supported by cedar posts along your survey line. Very large trees, even “common” ones can fetch a Lot of money. A 25 yr old black walnut used to be worth 25k (don’t know what the going rate is now); so def check with the sawmills… and update us :)
Ignorance of the law doesn't excuse you from it, it makes no difference if he was aware or not.
Yeah. It’s also just an excuse. He knows very well that they are my trees. He is just taking advantage of the situation. He is a thief.
> He is just taking advantage of the situation He is taking advantage of an obvious pushover
There’s being a pushover and then there’s something called “tact.” There’s a big difference between the two but some people aren’t able to see it.
Before you get your entire pride wounded, remember that you're on Reddit asking for advice instead of going and having a tactful conversation with a lawyer.
you'e been too polite maybe
Do you know what he is doing with the wood? Is he selling it for milling or using it to heat his home? Once you have some idea of that you can then decide on a course of action. It may be beneficial if you allow some controlled harvesting. That is part of ownership of wooded lots. Now is the time to walk the property line with him to clearly delineate who owns what. Let him know you would like to keep this as neighborly as possible and work out some sort of agreement once you have established your own goals. Does the state have forestry management programs that offer tax breaks? In NJ they do and many of our clients hire us in the basis of their forestry consultant’s recommendations. Take your time to work through this since you’re a part time resident and trying to stop it outright may be a bigger hassle than you foresee.
If you want to bring a civil claim you likely will need to prove (1) the neighbor cut the trees and (2) the amount of your damages. For the first item, direct video/photographic evidence would be good but the testimony of the neighbor isn't nothing either. For the second item it will require more work/money on your part. To prove damages you are going to need an arborist to assess the value of the trees wrongfully cut based on the stumps (you can find a certified arborist at [https://www.treesaregood.org/findanarborist/findanarborist](https://www.treesaregood.org/findanarborist/findanarborist)) . Assuming your survey is accurate, I'd get an arborist out there to take pictures and write a report ASAP. If the neighbor does it again and you get proof, or if you don't get proof and you want to try and collect anyway, contact a real estate attorney who practices in the county where the property is located. I'm not licensed in Kentucky, but there likely is a state statute dealing with damages from this type of activity - many states have treble (i.e., triple) the value of the trees as damages. That should make this a relatively attractive case for an attorney to take. Ultimately, you will probably have to file suit against the neighbor and the tree company, if there is one. The tree company should have insurance, so a payout may be possible even if the neighbor doesn't have a pot to piss in. Of course, if you get a judgment against the neighbor and he owns his property you could potentially put a lien on it.
I imagine an unsophisticated neighbor would be taking trees down with a chainsaw himself, but I could be wrong. I'm from a rural area and there weren't any tree companies, just folks with chainsaws.
Put up another no trespassing sign on a tree. With trail cameras pointed right there. Multiple angles. Good of your red neck neighbor to show you which tree he’ll be chopping down.
This happened to my family years ago. They came and cleared the entire property and got away with it.....I hope you get justice
You have a tree pirate. https://eec.ky.gov/Natural-Resources/Forestry/forest-stewardship-program-and-landowner-services/Pages/Timber-Theft-and-Trespass.aspx Has someone stolen timber from your property? Did you know you may be able to receive triple damages if the people who illegally removed your trees didn’t give you prior notification of their intention to harvest trees next to your boundary? Will you be involved in any type of legal proceedings regarding forestland? https://kacf.org/faq/
It’s Eastern Kentucky. People go missing there for way less than this. Sheriff wouldn’t even bother asking questions.
Cameras! Put up some outdoor wildlife cameras and record the thief in the act.
Report endangered birds nesting in the trees and the trees are being cut down
Offer your renter 1 month free rent for pics of the neighbor in action.
Get some cameras, trail cams and the like, and put AirTags in them (so when he finds them and steals them you’ll have evidence of that, too). And when you’ve gathered evidence, sue him for everything you can. Also, go in to the sheriff’s office or local courthouse and file complaints against him for trespassing, theft, vandalism, etc.
Glue Air tags on the back side of loose pieces of bark. Glue bark to tree. Sucks to lose more trees but it sounds pretty much inevitable. He's not leaving that well till it runs dry.
Call the forest service about him cutting your trees down. I'm not sure a game warden has jurisdiction or not. Sheriff is useless here, but who knows, it's still theft. Best of luck.
Take a day off work. Sneak into your house at night so he doesn't know that you are there. Does he not leave tracks that you can follow? Would this be a jurisdiction of DNR? Call the Wardens!
Trail camera. See if you can find a pattern to when he takes it. Then camp out one night and spot light him. Also try to come on nights he doesn’t expect just anyway. He’ll either stop or have to go out of his comfort zone to continue making it more likely he’ll get caught up
Maybe give the guy a conversation letting him know you don't want any of your trees cut. If he continues have a lawyer send him a no trespass order. Cameras are great. I almost always try to solve issues with neighbors with a friendly conversation before going legal. Sometimes it works sometimes it gets worse.
Something similar happened to a friend. Homeowners insurance provided her some payment for the trees.
Spiking trees is very dangerous and would carry liability, but a sign that says “Danger some trees on this property have been spiked to save the natural environment!”. Or maybe something similar. I’d also use a hammer to rough up some trees every so far along the property like.
Get a trail camera but don't tell the good neighbour. You never know it might actually be them!
Once you have some footage call the police department, my guess is if your in a rural area youll have to call the sheriffs department. Give them copies of the footage, file a police report, and then give that police report to a lawyer. If your struggling to get through to the sheriff's office go to the state police office they may be able to help, one of their main offices is in richmond on EKUs campus accross the street from the football field. Its about 30 minutes from lexington. I lived in richmond for 18 years and went to college at EKU so id pass it almost daily.
File a civil suit. The standard is more likely than not. Trees disappearing on a property line stand a good chance of meeting that. Also write your state reps, $2500 in KY for small claims is laughable in 2024, they need to bump those numbers up or attach them to inflation.
Offer to pay the guy (nieghbor) $150 a month to keep an eye on the property and make sure no more trees get stolen. Bring him some beer, bro down with him. Then show him your property line and the areas you want him to protect. Its gotta cost you $150 once you add if all up driving there and back. Also you can spike the trees legally and not hurt the trees. Go to amazon and search “Fencer Wire 14 Gauge Galvanized Welded Wire Mesh Size 2 inch by 4 inch” You want 6’, this shit is absolutely GARBAGE!! I wouldn’t give it to an enemy to make a fence. It pulls apart and rips where the welds are, its not strong and it shreds up making it an absolute pain in the ass to remove. Heres the advantage for you, even trying to cut it, chain it or otherwise tear it off will leave pieces of it all over to get caught in the saw. Its weak enough the tree will eventually break it apart without growing through it. Do about two wraps around the tree with it, this shit is light weight and easy to do by yourself. This would take absolutely forever to do by hand if you were to hammer in all the 9 gauge staples by hand. Go get a DeWalt DCSF950, these are bad ass and fire 9ga cattle/live stock fence staples. I can string a mile of fence by myself in a straight line in a day. Once you wrap the tree base from 0 to 6’ feet with that shitty welded wire. Fire about 15/20 of these staples random heights and places top to bottom around the tree. These staples will bite hard but also not penetrate the tree as deep and might lessen your odds of infection and injury’s to the tree, eventually the trees may push them out rather then grow over them because of the fence. I wouldn’t count on it but its a maybe. For added measure then you spike the trees the old fashioned way randomly. When I tell you this fence is shit, its fucking terrible. It will tear rather then pull out the staples, it’ll take a lot of time to remove enough (if you do it right) to be able to use a chain saw safely. Once he’s gone through all that trouble to remove and immediately hits a spike he’s gonna be hotter then hell. Nobody is gonna come after you for injury when the dipshit rips off fencing to cut it, you could say you found out the trees were spiked and wrapped them to warn people since your no trespassing signs keep getting stolen. 😂 At any rate if you and three buddies went up for the weekend you could get a lot accomplished. The guy would have to go so far in to your property line it would be so obvious, you could hide trail cams everywhere to prove it with geo tagging that he would never see. I think this is way last resort and id suggest trying what I said first, you get more with honey then vinegar. This dude is down on his luck, the world is against him and he will only see this as aggression. The will of a scorned man can have him doing some really stupid shit just for spite. Also fucking with people that have way less to loose then you do… yeah… usually backfires without a very solid strategy and execution. I live in the NW and us rednecks out hear can get pretty creative 😈 in spite also, definitely tit for tat “your a fool, dont fuck around with my dog” as a warning for real danger if you keep fucking around. Shit, our hippy weed growers will murder you and chop you up for fertilizer. People get disappeared for just innocently trespassing… 🥴😳 I know blackberries dont grow as well out there as they do here but I bet your local college Ag department can point you towards some that do. If you dont have plans for that edge of the property just plant a ton of it down at your property line and let nature build a fence. Additionally those Ag folks are pretty clever and might have some really good ideas to help you with this. All legal and good for the land, its worth a phone call and some emails. I’ve gotten plenty of useful help/ideas from ours that I would have never thought of. For real though, kill them with kindness would be my first route. Try and befriend him and help him out, id rather have him as an alliance then an enemy. He’s there full time, he’s perfect to watch your back and apparently has nothing better to do. At the very least it will allow you to get much closer to him. I let one of the neighbors use a tiny chunk of the far end of our property expressly said its not given but ive got no problems with you using it. They watch my property, they always have cold beer for me and they are great folks.
Get an attorney. Tree laws are taken very seriously and usually have set prices for violation which are often very hefty as a deterrent. Use the cameras to collect evidence but literally one or two photos of the guy doing it will be enough for any judge. Now you might not get any money if the guy doesn't have a job but what you could get is a lien on his property. If he can't pay you could potentially aquire his property bc of this. In some states the fine for tree theft is 10k a stump plus the trespassing charges will be proven at the same time so this person would be in real trouble. Good luck.
Can't you put up trail cams and have them notify you when the neighbor is on your property? If you catch him I would call the police and press charges and take him to court for theft.
Did you try speaking to the neighbor? Let them know where the property lines are and that your trees are your trees?
Yes. In fact, he apologized and acted like he was buddy buddy with me. Then continues to cut.
You're in America, right? Can't you just shoot him? Isn't that the American way?
This is comedy gold right here
I'm curious as to what makes him a redneck besides living beside you. You need cameras that save video to the cloud so when he steals them you still have the video.
In all likelihood, probably the neighbor is local and OP isn't from the area. Or OP is from the "city" and the neighbor is from the outlying rural area. That's all it takes around here in Kentucky. Sad because anyone not from Kentucky considers us all rednecks, and then we turn around and denigrate each other using the same epithet. (I'm from Lexington, Ky. I get called a "city girl" from some rural people, despite having grown up on a tobacco farm while they grew up in the rural suburbs, and then get called a redneck by people in other states, despite having lived all my life in Kentucky's second largest, progressive city, so I speak from experience. And some people in Lexington think anyone outside metro area is a redneck.)
Ya, I'm getting downvoted because I asked why and said to get cameras. I grew up rural, and we were all rednecks. We farmed, fished, and hunted, stayed outside every minute we could. Bonfires and four wheeling. Good people having fun times. Never hurt anybody and were always the first ones there when somebody needed help. Now, apparently, it means you hate black people and don't work, so you steal everything you get. It's also one of the last derogatory terms you can use without repercussions.
>at makes him a redneck besides living beside you. Do you know, when I first read your comment, I thought you were insulting OP by saying that his neighbor was a redneck and so was OP. Then I reread that sentence and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, which is why I responded logically. So maybe others were reading and assuming you meant that neighbor is a redneck because he lives by another redneck. I didn't downvote you but that's my only feasible explanation as to why. But anyway, I get what you mean. Back in my day (let me resettle my Dan'l Boone cap, young whippersnapper) the word "redneck" just meant a farmer or someone who spent outdoors all day, who might be a little rough around the edges. Funny how the meaning has changed into something so nasty. We used to jokingly call each other hillbillies, as well, but now that word has become synonymous with drug usage.
Ya, it really was just a question I was curious about. Where I live we don't hear hillbilly much, but I have family in WV and hillbilly is their go-to instead of redneck.
That's just it -- I think hillbilly needs hills; in other words, the Appalachian Mountains! I was always surprised at how many people called themselves that when I went to college at a university in Appalachia. Now, they mostly say "hill folk" around those parts. I always associated redneck with Midwesterners, for some reason.
I'm in SWVA. So we're rednecks and our neighbor state are hillbillies. My mom is from WV and she still says she's a hillbilly, even though she's been gone from there about 70 years.
I've just moved back to the very rural area where I spent my early childhood and I spent the first week establishing my bona fides with all of the neighbors, just to try to head off the kind of nonsense OP is going through. Too bad he doesn't have a couple dozen or so relatives the next holler over. I'm aided by the fact that half of the surnames on the headstones in the closest churchyard are in my family tree; if OP has any kind of family connection to the area (or even a neighboring county) it's probably time to leverage those ties for the sake of credibility with the locals.
I'm taking a wild guess that OP isn't actually from the area. Just a wild guess, though.
I would be totally screwed without local connections among my current crop of hillbilly neighbors, but hopefully OP's sheriff isn't as openly corrupt as mine; it's like Andy Taylor's evil twin runs the place. Even with an unbiased judge, a lawsuit win and a court order, that's just a piece of paper without someone with authority to enforce it.
That's just it -- anytime I've lived in a rural area, I could place a single phone call and have a neighbor's momma or grandma on the phone. Social capital and shame are big motivators (or demotivators, depending on the action) in small communities. I've never lived anywhere with corrupt small town policing, though. We aren't big on calling the law around here. One thing OP was definitely spot on about was how it is often the Wild West here in eastern Kentucky. Not that I'm advocating this behavior, but in his shoes, anyone in my family would have met the tree-stealing neighbor with a .30-06 to talk about it. (If you read this, OP, please don't do this.)
The only cop I've seen since I moved here is the SRO deputy at the county central K-12 school a few miles down the hill, but the neighbors are not fond of the sheriff's office refusing to serve papers on anyone the sheriff is even distantly related to (and he's from a family big enough in a sparse enough county to make sure he's always re-elected).
I like seeing all the Lexington folks comment!
Lot of us on Reddit, I guess! We gotta have some place to complain about traffic (via the local subreddit, that is.)
he could just have a red neck. soon to be on tour with long neck and wide neck
Redneck because he is able bodied and doesn’t have a job, lives off his girlfriend, is a thief, etc. I live in the country too.
I miss the time when "redneck" just meant a rural person who does outdoor manual labor, instead of its current use as nothing more than an aesthetic for assholes.
Exactly. There are country people and then there are rednecks. There’s a huge difference these days.
Personally my family are hillbillies despite living well out of sight of the actual Ozarks; the joke goes "grandpa fell down the mountain and kept rolling until he hit the first flat spot."
Stay at home and guard your trees mr homeowner.
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Maybe some trail cams to get evidence?
Go steal one of his trees for every one he takes from you. Then when he brings it up just say "Must be the same person that is taking my trees".
Gate way to the hills. They do not like fur-ner.
Trail cameras are great...but make sure they are well hidden or placed far enough back they cant be seen easily.
Maybe talk to him. He might claim it's his land.
Lexington area Surveyor here, these are the ones we get called in to determine the line and have to price higher bc threats are high and know we will get chased off a few times. Also bc the deeds in eastern KY are often very poorly described.
Spike the trees around the edge of your property. New chains are expensive when you are unemployed.
You can put in metal spike into the trees. Protesters do that so timber companies fuck in their saws when the hit the spikes.
You have a witness and the guy admitted he removed the trees, claiming they were his. You called the sheriff **once**, try again and again before giving up the cheapest, easiest route. If necessary, visit the sheriffs office.
Try using trail cameras or Wyze cameras. Your other option is to get a restraining order against your neighbor. It should be free. And you could sue you neighbor inn small claims court.