I usually just look for good strips in front of unoccupied houses
How do you know they are unoccupied? Looks are decieving, and a non responsive door knock doesn't mean someone isn't inside.
It just feels like we're splitting straws just a little. Seems to me that hunting curb strips in residential areas might need to be added to the metal detecting code of ethics as a general "don't do" to "protect out public image.
I've known people who will also drive around and quickly hit a high grass, unmaintained yard, not just the curb strip...assuming it's unoccupied. Where does it all end in these skews of perception? Curb strips are SOOO in the public's eye, it seems to me that the visual image many of non-detecting public gives us tectors already as vultures, will further generate.
It bites that we tenured American citizens don't have the priviledge to hunt city owned curb strips without needing to get any permission from the non-owner of that small strip. Will that homeowner then be allowed to discriminate what ethnic person walks on that sidewalk or steps on the city curb strip grass? No.
Why are we made to be red headed step-children for plucking a dime from the public grass next to the street? That's the way it is though so why not add to the MD code of ethics and say to leave curb strips off limits for the sake of the public's eye. That seems simpler in the long run.
martin