Yes, or no?

Rollie

Full Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2016
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190
Location
Ames,IA
There is factory here that has been idle for decades. It has a lot of land around it and a pond. There are no trespassing signs everywhere. So I met the son of the fellow who owns the property just the other day. It has been in their family since before WWI. I asked about it and mentioned the people fishing in the pond all the time. He told me that they have to put the no trespassing signs up for liability and that officially when asked, the answer is no, but that they don't pay any attention who goes in there and who doesn't. So is that a yes, or a no? Secondly, if they put up no trespassing signs to satisfy the liability issue, and then the turn around and encourage people to trespass, wouldn't that be worse from a liability standpoint than just doing nothing at all? I don't know. I think that I will just skip it regardless, but I thought that was an interesting answer.
 
I think it would depend on how good the fishing is.
For me a "Dad don't care" from the son of a property owner is good enough.
 
I think it would depend on how good the fishing is.
For me a "Dad don't care" from the son of a property owner is good enough.
Yes, I agree. As far as fishing, the drainage that empties into that pond has to have all kinds of fertilizers and herbicides in it. Besides, I don't have time for fishing. I'm too busy with my detector. And other things as well.
 
Hmmmmm,.........posted signs and if asked they would say no......

That guys son is gonna get you in trouble. Him saying he didn't think his dad would care is very farrrrr from a yes , under the circumstances. You need to get official permission from the owner.
 
Rollie, your post (and the answers thus far) have all the elements of a constant md'ing plague: Newbie wants to be "law-abiding" . He's read the md'r code-of-ethics. Perhaps read of someone else's hassles. Yet based on the facts you describe, this amounts to one of those "Can I spit on sidewalks?" type question. Anyone answering simply CAN'T say "yes, you can spit on sidewalks". Lest they be castigated for promoting violation of law.

Someone else and/or yourself can point out the "does anyone really care ?" attributes of it till the cows come home. Yet .... then someone ELSE will come on saying "how would you feel if someone were sneaking around on your front yard at night ?" (hence removing the "innocuous" aspect to it, but ... oh well)

You will ALWAYS get the "offical" answer (eg.: "Go ask the owner, and get it in triplicate writing", blah blah). Go figure: you're on a forum where some people think you need permission for public park sandboxes. So what did you expect ? And do you think those fishermen fretted this much ? Oh let me guess: md'ing is inherently evil, and fishing isn't ? :roll:
 
Rollie, your post (and the answers thus far) have all the elements of a constant md'ing plague: Newbie wants to be "law-abiding" . He's read the md'r code-of-ethics. Perhaps read of someone else's hassles. Yet based on the facts you describe, this amounts to one of those "Can I spit on sidewalks?" type question. Anyone answering simply CAN'T say "yes, you can spit on sidewalks". Lest they be castigated for promoting violation of law.

Someone else and/or yourself can point out the "does anyone really care ?" attributes of it till the cows come home. Yet .... then someone ELSE will come on saying "how would you feel if someone were sneaking around on your front yard at night ?" (hence removing the "innocuous" aspect to it, but ... oh well)

You will ALWAYS get the "offical" answer (eg.: "Go ask the owner, and get it in triplicate writing", blah blah). Go figure: you're on a forum where some people think you need permission for public park sandboxes. So what did you expect ? And do you think those fishermen fretted this much ? Oh let me guess: md'ing is inherently evil, and fishing isn't ? :roll:



You seem to gloss over the part about no trespassing signs up.....when anybody asks they are told no......and it wasn't actually the owner who gave the pseudo permission.

Normally you usually have valid points , however fraught with supposition and sometimes recklessness .....however in this case you are encouraging skipping past trespassing signs , knowing the official answer is no.....on the whim of someone who isn't really the owner saying it would be okay. You have gone off the deep end with this one :lol:

The property is POSTED , there is no gray area here. The owners son is not the owner. Ive been given the go ahead by family members many times before , only to be kicked off the property by the actual owner who didn't know they were giving permission and they cant speak for him.

This issue is not at all like the familiar can I or cant I discussions seen on here. Nothing like " can I spit on the sidewalks " .....unless there are posted signs saying no spitting on the sidewalks and the mayors son says go ahead the mayor don't really care :lol:
 
You seem to gloss over the part about no trespassing signs up.....when anybody asks they are told no......and it wasn't actually the owner who gave the pseudo permission.

Normally you usually have valid points , however fraught with supposition and sometimes recklessness .....however in this case you are encouraging skipping past trespassing signs , knowing the official answer is no.....on the whim of someone who isn't really the owner saying it would be okay. You have gone off the deep end with this one :lol:

The property is POSTED , there is no gray area here. The owners son is not the owner. Ive been given the go ahead by family members many times before , only to be kicked off the property by the actual owner who didn't know they were giving permission and they cant speak for him.

This issue is not at all like the familiar can I or cant I discussions seen on here. Nothing like " can I spit on the sidewalks " .....unless there are posted signs saying no spitting on the sidewalks and the mayors son says go ahead the mayor don't really care :lol:

If there is a law that forbids spitting on sidewalks, there doesn't need to be signs forbidding it. In the same way that murder is illegal. Yet there doesn't need to be signs saying "no murder".

Technically speaking, yes: Everything you're saying is absolutely true. But think about it in-light of the analogy I'm proposing :

Just as in a person would be "glossing over" laws that forbid spitting on sidewalks in New York. And if you asked enough NY legislators, you would find one that says "no spitting". And if some low-rung clerk said "go ahead, no one will care", then they DON'T speak for the owner, eh ? They can't authorize you to spit, any-more-so than this OP's situation here, right ?

I don't disagree that with increased bolder signage, it ceases to be "innocuous". It's just that with the picture painted here by the OP (fishermen who are never hassled, owner's son saying the "signs are just obligatory", etc..., that this particular case seemed to be one of those "spitting on sidewalks" type caliber things. In the next post, I'll give an example of what I mean (in regards to "signs").
 
Re.: "obligatory" signs. Consider the following that happened to me:

There was a particular vacant lot in a small historic little burg. For years it was just vacant, with a short-cut trail across it. No signs, no fences, etc.... And we found a few old coins in the lot. Every other year or so, whenever passing through that town, I'd give it a whirl.

One time though, I noticed it was all plowed and tilled. Ahhh, perfect time to hit it, eh ? Might bring oldies to the surface eh ? So we hit it again. Found a few more coins :)

Eventually, someone had planted corn, melons, etc.... in this small lot. And ... like all the years prior, we still went. Still no signs, still no fence, still never anyone around, etc.... Each seasonal plow had the chance to reveal another coin or whatever.

One time however, I arrived to find a uggghhh, a "no trespassing" sign. :( But since we were already there, I decided it would be ok to check the dirt road along the side. Figuring that *technically* we would not be "in" the lot.

So as we were going along, flirting with a nebulous boundary, .... out of the corner of my eye, I saw a truck pull up to the curb. A man got out and was dealing with gardening equipment in his truck. It was clear that he must be the person tending this garden. Ooops !

So we slinked further back to the borders. And .... slinked back to our vehicle parked near his. He saw us, yet never paid us any mind. We put away our gear, and went somewhere else to finish our detecting day.

A few weeks later, I related this story to one of my employees who lives in that town. He busted up laughing because it turns out, that older man was his DAD ! :) He explained that his dad had permission to grow veggies on that lot. Which was owned by some sort of developer or something. So I asked my employee : "How come for a year or so, it was a garden, with no sign. Then a sign all of the sudden went up ?"

He said the ONLY reason his dad had put up a sign, was the following reason: A week or so prior to that, he had arrived to see someone stealing vegetables. He jotted down the license plate # of the truck, and called the sheriff. By the time the sheriff arrived, the veggie thief had already left. When the gardener showed the sheriff the lic. place #. But the sheriff said he couldn't do anything about it. WHY ? "Because the lot is not posted". Doh!

Hence the gardener posted the lot. My employee said his dad could care less if someone were walking on the dirt road, or md'ing, or whatever. He just didn't want anyone stealing his veggies.

No do not construe this to an extreme where I'm advocating going in people yards, etc.... Just using this as an example of what the OP could be saying is the meaning of "obligatory". There are scores of signs that are put up so that if some numbskull slipped on a banana peel, he can't sue the school district, or sue the railroad Co (did you know RR tracks are private property?), and so forth.

The trouble with this question, is there are a million shades of gray. The minute someone suggests a spot is "innocuous", then someone else will envision md'rs helping themselves to front yards of obviously private homes, etc.....
 
Re.: "obligatory" signs. Consider the following that happened to me:

There was a particular vacant lot in a small historic little burg. For years it was just vacant, with a short-cut trail across it. No signs, no fences, etc.... And we found a few old coins in the lot. Every other year or so, whenever passing through that town, I'd give it a whirl.

One time though, I noticed it was all plowed and tilled. Ahhh, perfect time to hit it, eh ? Might bring oldies to the surface eh ? So we hit it again. Found a few more coins :)

Eventually, someone had planted corn, melons, etc.... in this small lot. And ... like all the years prior, we still went. Still no signs, still no fence, still never anyone around, etc.... Each seasonal plow had the chance to reveal another coin or whatever.

One time however, I arrived to find a uggghhh, a "no trespassing" sign. :( But since we were already there, I decided it would be ok to check the dirt road along the side. Figuring that *technically* we would not be "in" the lot.

So as we were going along, flirting with a nebulous boundary, .... out of the corner of my eye, I saw a truck pull up to the curb. A man got out and was dealing with gardening equipment in his truck. It was clear that he must be the person tending this garden. Ooops !

So we slinked further back to the borders. And .... slinked back to our vehicle parked near his. He saw us, yet never paid us any mind. We put away our gear, and went somewhere else to finish our detecting day.

A few weeks later, I related this story to one of my employees who lives in that town. He busted up laughing because it turns out, that older man was his DAD ! :) He explained that his dad had permission to grow veggies on that lot. Which was owned by some sort of developer or something. So I asked my employee : "How come for a year or so, it was a garden, with no sign. Then a sign all of the sudden went up ?"

He said the ONLY reason his dad had put up a sign, was the following reason: A week or so prior to that, he had arrived to see someone stealing vegetables. He jotted down the license plate # of the truck, and called the sheriff. By the time the sheriff arrived, the veggie thief had already left. When the gardener showed the sheriff the lic. place #. But the sheriff said he couldn't do anything about it. WHY ? "Because the lot is not posted". Doh!

Hence the gardener posted the lot. My employee said his dad could care less if someone were walking on the dirt road, or md'ing, or whatever. He just didn't want anyone stealing his veggies.

No do not construe this to an extreme where I'm advocating going in people yards, etc.... Just using this as an example of what the OP could be saying is the meaning of "obligatory". There are scores of signs that are put up so that if some numbskull slipped on a banana peel, he can't sue the school district, or sue the railroad Co (did you know RR tracks are private property?), and so forth.

The trouble with this question, is there are a million shades of gray. The minute someone suggests a spot is "innocuous", then someone else will envision md'rs helping themselves to front yards of obviously private homes, etc.....



Regardless of past experiences , with posted property you shouldn't just assume the actual owner is going to be okay with it....it is posted property afterall. The guys son might be a great guy and he might sound as if he knows what he is talking about but he isn't the one to possibly get busted if he was full of !!!!. There really is no shades of gray with posted property , unless you confirm with the actual owner.

Tread lightly and be aware it could backfire and be costly ......word from the son is not necessarily word from the father. If you are ok with the risk then go for it , just be aware the law is not on your side if you got busted and the unofficial permission wont necessarily help your case.


Maybe it is ok , maybe its not. Are you sure about it ? Seems the question wouldn't be asked on here if you were....

Be careful out there.
 
I thought this one would provoke some discussion, and that is okay. Right now it is a bit of a moot point. I have plenty of places closer to work on, so I'm not going to drive all the way over there to go metal detecting right at the moment. But I've been thinking about it and if I do decide to, I'm going to call the father and tell him that his son said that it would be alright for me to go in there metal detecting, and just see what he says. Probably he will say sure, go ahead. It also might help if I had mentioned in my first post that I went to school with the son, and that the father is in his eighties. Also I don't know how much control the son has over the property, as I had not seen him for years before the subject just came up in conversation when we met. I don't know how much that changes the situation, but there it is. I mean, under the circumstances, how much effort does it take to call the dad? I don't even have to research it, I know who it is. If it weren't for the signs I don't think I would be all that concerned about it.
 
Rollie, yes, each of us has his own threshold of "risk-assessment". Personally, if a little girl on the swing set gives me the go-ahead to detect a yard, I never argue with a "yes". Haha

One time I got invited to check out the yard of an old tavern, by someone who was regaling us with the history. Saying "it's ok, come with me I'll show you, blah blah". It never crossed our mind about owner vs non-owner, since, by his conversation, he seemed to be plugged in to that locale. And it was his friend or kin-folk or something.

We md'd for 1/2 hr or so. When all of the sudden, someone pulled up and started griping that we were trespassing. Our "host" jumped in and explained how he knew the brother of the cousin or something, blah blah. To which this person, of course, said that this did not constitute authority to sub-invite, blah blah. My md'ing friend and I just stood there watching the 2 of them exchange. It was of no concern to us. The only one possibly eating humble pie was the one who'd granted us permission. It was not our problem , it was his problem. We just shrugged our shoulders, excused ourselves and left. And let them to talk it out after that.

It netted us a silver dime and a wheatie as I recall, so .... I guess it was worth it , haha
 
Here is my opinion. Let's say you take his response of nobody caring to mean you can go into the property. Let's say the cops show up due to your "highly suspicious" activity and the owner is called out. Who's to say he won't completely deny your conversation or implication that being there is ok? Then it's your word against his. Why chance it?
 
I would just hunt the property, and if the owner makes a fuss, then just move on.

Based on what you've said about people regularly fishing there, the dad doesn't seem to be too bothered about people being on his property.
 
Here is my opinion. Let's say you take his response of nobody caring to mean you can go into the property. Let's say the cops show up due to your "highly suspicious" activity and the owner is called out. Who's to say he won't completely deny your conversation or implication that being there is ok? Then it's your word against his. Why chance it?

Since when is metal detecting "highly suspicious" ? Any more-so than fishing ? I find detecting to be non-suspicious, educational, wise, safe, nutritious, etc.... :cool:

As for the string of events you describe: Sure. Anything's possible. It's possible you could walk out your front door tomorrow morning and get hit by a car. Why chance it ? Should stay home and not leave your front door ?
 
Since when is metal detecting "highly suspicious" ? Any more-so than fishing ? I find detecting to be non-suspicious, educational, wise, safe, nutritious, etc.... :cool:

As for the string of events you describe: Sure. Anything's possible. It's possible you could walk out your front door tomorrow morning and get hit by a car. Why chance it ? Should stay home and not leave your front door ?

I quoted "highly suspicious" because of all the stories you hear of people calling the cops on people detecting. What you find educational, wise etc is completely subjective. How many times do people thumb their noses at us for this hobby? If you haven't experienced that, I'm happy for you. I think a reasonable person would say that your comparison of detecting on property that has no trespassing signs and getting hit by a car is unreasonable. The proper comparison would be driving on a road you know is clear, and driving on a road with a sign " road flooded ahead". You might make it, you might not.
 
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I quoted "highly suspicious" because of all the stories you hear of people calling the cops on people detecting. .....

Sure. Such stories exist. You're right: When you read forums long enough, you will read stories of "scrams", "bootings", "cops called", etc... I have no doubt.

But IMHO, the psychology of this is sort of like shark attack stories: You occasionally read in the newspaper of a surfer or swimmer being attacked by a shark. Right ? So guess what you'll fear the next time you go to the beach to swim ? Shark attacks, right ? But the reality is, they are extremely rare. Thousands of people swim in the ocean daily around the world. Yet only a few isolated attack incidents ever happen per year. You never see news on "safe swimmers". You only see news when someone's attacked. So it may SEEM that it's common, risky, imminent, etc.... When truth is, it's very rare.

Yes, I'm the first to agree that we're in a hobby with .... uh .... "connotations". That you might be about to "dig" or "take" something. Or that your lesche could be called a "weapon", etc.... The possibilities are endless.

But at a certain point, when someone chooses to do this hobby, they are going to have to realize that there's probably no where on earth that red-carpets are going to be rolled out for you. Ie.: 100% certain that you'll not get a gripe. I even had a lady on the beach tell me my detector was bothering her dog once ! (I think she thought it emitted a frequency that only dogs heard ? :shrug: ) Sure, we all need to use discretion in measuring & assessing. But on the other hand, it's possible to over-think risks as well.
 
You see people fishing all the time , in many places its so common that nobody gives it a second thought or even remembers seeing it. But as you know , someone swinging a metal detector sticks out like a sore thumb for some reason and almost always triggers some type of response , whether it be interest and curiosity or complete outrage :shock: :lol:

Yes I would call that highly suspicious activity :yes:
 
If someone is detecting in a yard, with the son who really said it's ok, i can do no more then send him away with the benefits of the doubt.






That is, if he has a son. If not you have a real problem.:laughing::laughing::laughing:
 
Sure. Such stories exist. You're right: When you read forums long enough, you will read stories of "scrams", "bootings", "cops called", etc... I have no doubt.

But IMHO, the psychology of this is sort of like shark attack stories: You occasionally read in the newspaper of a surfer or swimmer being attacked by a shark. Right ? So guess what you'll fear the next time you go to the beach to swim ? Shark attacks, right ? But the reality is, they are extremely rare. Thousands of people swim in the ocean daily around the world. Yet only a few isolated attack incidents ever happen per year. You never see news on "safe swimmers". You only see news when someone's attacked. So it may SEEM that it's common, risky, imminent, etc.... When truth is, it's very rare.

Except the topic here's isn't the psychology of the hobby or anything you just mentioned. The topic is whether or not hunting a spot with posted no trespassing signs is a good idea just because you get an indifferent reaction from the owner. My response was simply, why chance it? Clearly you're ok with it so have at it. Just have some bail money ready and a good lawyer on retention. As a police officer I can tell you that that rarely do two individuals have the same story when being contacted by the police. So if I show up and the guys got no trespassing signs everywhere and he tells me he never gave you permission to be there, you're probably going to jail. I don't know about you, but there's nothing in that ground that's worth my freedom.
 
.... why chance it? Clearly you're ok with it so have at it. Just have some bail money ready and a good lawyer on retention. As a police officer I can tell you that that rarely do two individuals have the same story when being contacted by the police. So if I show up and the guys got no trespassing signs everywhere and he tells me he never gave you permission to be there, you're probably going to jail......

I guess we're perceiving 2 different mind-sets of sites. I can agree with everything you're saying, when they're in the mind-set of a site where such things (jail, police, lawyers, etc...) were to happen. But I can also envision types of places where this would be over-thinking things.

Yes the current location of the OP did mention signs. I guess the reason I classified this as being amongst the innocuous side of things, is that A) he also mentioned fishermen, in a way that made the signs seem "obligatory" at best, B) That he had someone saying "go ahead, no one cares".

So it appears we're just envisioning different locations . Ft. knox versus a vacant weed-choked lot type scenario.
 
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