should people living on unfenced corner lots just accept / expect that young people will cut cross?

[Demovictory9]

TikToker shows how he keeps people from walking across his lawn, sparking debate

https://www.tiktok.com/@tgunz81/video/7010913418592947461
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tiktok-man-keeps-people-off-lawn-sparks-debate/

According to Lyon’s post, the sprinkler is automated, and seems to be triggered by motion. So every time someone gets to a certain point in the yard, it turns on.

Some viewers were seriously pressed about the method, with many insisting it shouldn’t be a big deal to let strangers walk on the lawn because it’s “just grass.”

“Never understood why walking on the lawn was such a bad thing,” wrote @wolf_man89. “It’s grass.”

“Girl let those kids get home a minute faster,” another viewer commented.

Another complained that it’s actually “rude” to stop strangers from trespassing on your lawn because they may need to “go somewhere fast without access to vehicles.”

But others pushed back, with the reminder that it’s disrespectful to intrude on someone else’s property and that so much traipsing across the grass can cause pricey damage that the owner will be responsible for.

“It isn’t just about walking on the grass. We owners have to clean up the garbage they drop, replace grass that is killed by constant foot traffic,” @doggo_mom_life pointed out.

“You just know the ones saying it’s no big deal it’s just grass…still live at home or are renters,” said @itdude2020.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/i-love-this-level-of-pettiness-tiktoker-shows-how-he-keeps-people-from-walking-across-his-lawn-sparking-debate/ar-AAP4FRV?ocid=msedgntp

[PoliticAverse]

1. And depending on where you live, if they do it long enough it may become legally public property.

Bottom line: A fence or wall appears to be necessary.

[Wounded Bear]

4. Or a hedge...nt

[Rorey]

2. If they were to fall and get hurt, the owner would be liable

No, it's absolutely not okay to walk on someone's property without permission.

[LakeArenal]

7. You can't be trespassing and sue a property owner.

It’s not a land mine. It’s a sprinkler.
“Kids” aren’t the only ones trespassing.
Adults, pets, bikes, hot wheels, skates,


People throw all kinds of trash at stop signs and traffic lights on corner stops. Cigarette butts particularly.

It’s rude and selfish to use another’s yard as a shortcut.

[Rorey]

11. I'm not disagreeing with you about how rude and selfish it is

The property owner is doing what they can to keep people off their property, and I don't at all blame them. If you allow them to repeatedly cut across your property without saying anything, it could be argued that you're giving permission. Sure, the trespasser would probably lose, but I wouldn't want to waste money having to fight this in court. These days people try to sue over just about everything.

[uncle ray]

33. depending on local law, trespassing usually begins when you are told to leave.

so you can technically be on someone's property without their consent, get injured and sue. usually, the better a property is posted and physical barriers constructed, the better the case for the property owner. it would not be wise to have unposted, unfenced booby trapped property.

[LakeArenal]

34. Not true where I lived. Trespassing was illegal.

If you are on land for recreational purposes and are hurt you can’t sue. Walking is recreational.

[Kaleva]

39. In MI, you have to have the property posted letting others know that trespassing isn't allowed

"Michigan: Fast Facts on Trespassing

Trespass Law Covers: Buildings, Dwellings, Land

Crime Class: Misdemeanor or Felony

Fencing Required?: Yes, if verbal notice to leave not given

Signage Required?: Yes, if verbal notice to leave not given

Verbal Notice Required?: Only if farm property is not fenced"

https://www.survivalsullivan.com/michigan-trespassing-laws/

[LakeArenal]

40. Truly tho, people crossing could care less what the law is anyway.

It’s really a civil matter that most people will not pursue.

Incivility is rampant in US.

[Kaleva]

42. I agree with you.

I wouldn't cut across a person's lawn, sign or no sign, unless there was a dire emergency.

[JoeOtterbein]

3. If you live in such a place near DC...

...Matt Gaetz would like to buy your house!

Cash, or even a Venmo payment made instantly!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I like the sprinkler. Unlike razor wire or land mines, it won't get you...

sued or arrested.

But, we have all seen the dirt paths over a lawn that have become thoroughfares, so something should be done.

I would think of thorny bushes, like roses, or some other reasonably quick growing shrubbery. Bamboo?

I might even experiment with a camera and an automated "GET OFF MY LAWN" message.

[hlthe2b]

6. Sprinklers only about a 4-month solution where I live. Maybe go the fence route.

[LisaM]

8. There doesn't seem to be a sidewalk there.

And the street doesn't seem wide enough for pedestrians (from what I could tell). So I don't think this is cut and dried. Either way, the walkers kind of need to walk in the yard.

[Darwins_Retriever]

9. In Florida

Home owners who live on water front and the property is not fenced, must permit people to cross their property to get to the water.

[Mariana]

18. That is known to them when they purchase the property, yes?

This is not the same.

[meadowlander]

10. I like it.

I don't live on a corner lot but in a newish subdivision where no one has put up fences in their front yard yet so you have a straight shot across all the lawns if you're too lazy to walk to the other side of the road where there's a sidewalk.

Literally every single Saturday when I'm mowing the lawn I'm also cleaning up garbage that people threw in my yard - plastic wrappers, used tissues, beer cans, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, take out food trays...

And kids ride their bikes deliberately over the flower beds and try to smash the shrubs I've been planting to keep them out of the yard. My neighbour parks their car in their front yard and drives over part of my yard so they can exit out of my driveway instead of backing out of their own. My other neighbour dumped their broken washing machine in my yard until I had to knock on their door and ask them WTF could you please turn your own front yard into a junkyard, not mine.

How is it that so few people seem to understand basic respect for other people and their property? I can confidently say I have never dumped garbage on someone else's lawn, deliberately destroyed their landscaping, driven over their lawn or trespassed on their property when there was a legal sidewalk ten feet away. I can't even begin to understand the mentality or someone who would or anyone that would enable them.

[Rorey]

15. It sounds like you have neighbors from hell!

Driving over your yard??? Maybe if you *accidentally* drop a few screws on your yard it would deter them.

[Notek]

12. Kids have been no problem.

I live on such a corner in a suburb with half acre lots. Occasionally kids cut across but never enough to make a path and rarely any litter.
The thing that bothers me most is irresponsible, arrogant dog walkers who poop their dogs here.

[ProfessorGAC]

38. Exactly What I Was Going To Post

We live on a T intersection.
But, most foot traffic comes from the Northeast. Walkers tend to stay on the other side of the street until they get to the T, so we don't get a lot of cutting across.
If it happens, it's rare and causes no lawn issues for us.
Besides, that side of the yard slopes quite a bit down toward the side street. Probably less convenient to cut across than stay on the walk.

[Enter stage left]

13. We're full time RV'ers...almost every RV park we stay at has rules...

Do NOT pass thru other RV'ers campsites...that is their yard (or words of that affect).

It's amazing, but I would say it is about 90+% when it is kids under 16 that do "invade" our space. I'm very tolerant, and enjoy kids in campgrounds, but if it gets out of hand, I'll go and very gently explain why it isn't appropriate. I've had parents come up to me and thank me for the way I've handled it.

Sometimes the gentle approach works best.

Unless they"re rePuq assholes. (sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

[Drunken Irishman]

14. My front yard is not divided at all from my neighbor's.

They have kids and their kids are always playing in the area that is technically my property. To be honest, I don't care. I also don't care when the mailman walks across the yard every single day to deliver the mail instead of going down the path in front of the neighbor's house, down to the side walk, to my steps and up 'em (especially since our houses sit pretty far back from the street - like 30 yards or so).

[Hortensis]

16. :) Imo, all the above. If it bothers the owner, do something sensible about it.

If landscaping could use improvement anyway, and maybe, say, an view of a neighbor's garage/driveway blocked, look on it as just another reason to plant something attractive and sensible around that corner.

If not and the owner can decide not to be bothered and enjoy seeing the kids and having the life of the neighborhood closer, don't do anything.

If it just bothers the heck out of the owner, and the very thought of doing something about it just increases the anxiety and aggravation, consider moving. Life's too short to live it like one of those people.

Homeowners liability insurance covers these situations, btw. That's not a problem to worry about. Unless the owner leaves a hazard untended to that could cause forseeable injury to an "invitee," like a hole in the grass that could break an ankle. But who'd do that? Uh, motion-activated sprinklers that shut off instead of watering the yard could conceivably be considered booby traps -- check local laws. They could also attract children onto the property in hot weather.

[Rorey]

17. If you have to make a claim against your homeowner's insurance, your rates will go up

It's just bad manners to trot across someone's yard without permission. Not many people seem to have them anymore.

[Hortensis]

20. Gee, if rates go up for an ordinary day-in-the-life-of-anyone claim,

I think the customer should get another insurer. It's been a lot of years since I handled residential and commercial liability claims, but in the agencies I worked for we only placed business with good companies, and no one's rates ever went up just because a policy had to pay out on a standard claim. That'd be outrageous. That's what people pay their premiums year in, year out for.

Can't argue that it wouldn't be bad manners in by far most modern neighborhoods, it would. Tough in lesser numbers these days, usually old neighborhoods, it'd be considered normal and shocking to object to.

But while crabbing about other people's bad manners is perfectly understandable, it's not the solution needed. Property owners can only address their own manners and their own attitudes and decide on action or inaction that'll both make them happy and (hopefully) their neighborhoods good places to live and kids to grow up in.

[Rorey]

23. That's the way insurance is these days

I don't know how it was years ago, but today, if you make a claim, your insurance is usually going to increase.

I don't live on a corner, and I live in the type of neighborhood where we're all very respectful of each other. If I did live on a corner lot, and people were ruining my yard by traipsing across it, I'd put up barriers. Landscaping is expensive and a lot of work, and I'm sorry, but I just don't understand the attitude that people should be expected to simply put up with someone ruining their property.

[Hortensis]

25. Again, they should find a better insurer.

Good insurance companies want good customers, the kind who keep their properties up, would never leave an old car bumper in their front yard to be tripped over, remain with them for years and decades, and pay their premiums on time. They compete for them. That hasn’t changed.

We do not worry that our insurer is a bottom feeding cheat that expects to lose customers as fast as it gets them and would raise rates just because we filed a normal claim. By the way, insurance can be shopped for quality these days just like any other commodity.

[Rorey]

28. Please send me some recommendations

Last edited Sun Oct 3, 2021, 12:30 AM - Edit history (1)

I shop around regularly for insurance on my own home and vehicles, as well as my investment properties. I have no problem switching companies, and even agents, when they fall short. Just want to note that the prevailing current advice is to review your policies regularly. Sticking with the same company and assuming they'll be consistent may have worked in the past. Not true today. Times have changed.

I can definitely tell you that the Limu Emu ads drive me up the wall because that company is the latest addition to my "Nope" list.

[Doremus]

19. It's not the pedestrians cutting across that bother me

although there are bushes on one side of the drive and it's sometimes startling to suddenly see a stranger walking up to cut across.

More irksome are the drunks who can't make the corner and end up halfway up my lawn in their cars. It's happened twice in our 29 years here. One had no insurance for the damage. The other one dug himself out in the middle of the night and left without a trace.

We've not felt a need to install any sprinklers for the walkers, but I still may have a couple of boulders placed in strategic locations for the drivers.

[Rorey]

24. A lot of corner lots around here have boulders

A few years ago, a drunk driver ran into a house that was on a corner lot. The couple who was living there were watching television in the corner room that got hit. The man living there was killed. The drunk driver wasn't hurt. A couple of weeks later, there were some huge boulders on the corner of the yard. I wish they'd put them in sooner.

[raccoon]

41. I've noticed it's not in frequent the drivers go crashing into peoples houses or businesses for that

Matter.

[sarcasmo]

21. Get off my lawn whipper snapper!

[Iggo]

22. I don't like booby traps.

[Hekate]

27. A sprinkler system is pretty harmless!

[Iggo]

30. Doesn't matter.

To my mind, once you set a booby trap, you’re in the wrong. You lose.

[LanternWaste]

32. Sprinklers are not booby traps. It's a sprinkler. You know... water.

Yours is the very example of hyperbole.

[LakeArenal]

36. ✔️✔️

This reminds a bit of the feral cat problem.
Neighbors barn cats with no shots or care care in our yard killing birds in my feeder.

The pushback that cats roam that’s what they do. Too bad so sad for your birds right here on DU was so surprising.

When did people start thinking everything they do is okay?

[Hekate]

26. Plant a hedge. Build a fence. Yeesh. Some bushes are considered a form of defense below windows..

… as their thorns discourage prowlers. When I was in college I dated a guy whose parents owned a motel. I forget exactly how he put it, but he made some comment about how their lush landscaping was “unfriendly,” and when I looked puzzled he explained that all the bushes were thorny to deter children from running thru them.

Anyway, there are certainly ways to control access if that is a problem — and I can see how it could be.

[Phentex]

35. You can't kill yucca plants here...

stubborn as hell and i wouldn't want to walk near one!

[Hekate]

43. I know. There are some plants I wouldn't use for a hedge (or even an accent), regardless...

I really don’t care for thorns myself! Moved into a house once where a pyracantha bush guarded the mailbox like an ill-tempered dog that bit me every time I tried trimming it back, and finally had it dug up.

Also, what I know is adaptive to the regions I have lived in, so I have no idea what the corner-house people need in that regard. If I were in that situation I’d have a fence put in first — who can object to a white picket fence, after all? That’s one chore done and out of the way.

[albacore]

29. You kids....

[Vinca]

31. That would annoy me, but I'd never buy a property in that sort of location either.

I might be inclined to plant a hedge and/or invest in iron fencing if I owned it. Then I'd call a real estate broker.

[Silent3]

37. The sprinkler doesn't stop people from getting on the lawn in the first place...

...but it does seem to do a good job of randomizing the traffic pattern leaving the lawn.

[Act_of_Reparation]

44. Young people?

What the actual fuck?

[Demovictory9]

46. i'm going by the video... seems mostly young people getting sprayed with his booby trap

[Act_of_Reparation]

47. Nevertheless the implication here is that one should have different expectations...

...for different age groups.

Taking shortcuts isn't the exclusive purview of the young. There are, perhaps, more young people crossing this person's yard because young people are less likely than adults to have other modes of transportation.

[progressoid]

48. They also have a "before the sprinkler" video showing a white haired lady walking across the lawn.

[Demovictory9]

50. ok... didn't see that. thanksl

[NickB79]

45. Plant an Osage orange hedge. You know those hedge balls in stores in fall?

Put a few in a bucket, add a little water, and let them sit over winter.

In spring, dig a trench a couple inches deep and pour the puree into it. They'll rapidly grow into a hedge so impenetrable with massive thorns it was used in place of barbed wire 150 yr ago.

[CrackityJones75]

49. JFC. Wave at them. Talk to them. Get to know them.

JFC. Wave at them. Talk to them. Get to know them. and then politely ask them to not cut across. Or just don’t make such a big deal about someone cutting across an overwatered unnecessary ridiculous resource hog such as a lawn.

We here in the US devote WAY too much time and money on our lawns and pump in chemicals and dump clean potable water on it.