Stay off my lawn!

[Reddinr]

So my wife and I live on a rural road and have made the road edge look better and easy to maintain with a strip of what we like to call grass. Our house is way back from the road. We are in an HOA and are responsible for keeping the brush cleaned up back to a certain distance from the roadway. Over the years, from time to time persons we refer to as "yahoos" like to have some fun with their 4x4's and do a little off-roading, usually at night, probably after a couple of weekend beers. We're not the only ones that enjoy cleaning up the ruts in the grass afterwards. Other neighbors have similar problems.

Because we're nice and lawsuit averse, we've ruled out elephant traps, spike strips, paint bombs and what have you. We've kept those ideas in a category of "fun to think about". A year or more can go by without incident or a just couple of weeks or months. We suspect teenage boys having some good fun, later replaced by other teenage boys that get to that same certain age. But our ~60 year old backs are getting tired of mowing over the ruts and filling them in. One year we put some manure piles out there for a while to ward them off. Then we spread it to kill two birds with one stone. It worked but it is quite a bit of work each time.

I thought about welding together some tank-trap like things but that got vetoed by dear wife. I guess I see her point.

Anyone have ideas for some low cost, low effort, safe and effective means of repelling yahoos? There's probably about 400 feet of it to protect. All the real ideas we have come up with require extra weed-wacking around barriers which, did I mention our 60 year old backs? Now the tie in to machining. The less effort I put into this problem means more lathe time I have.

 

[Reddinr]

Part of the problem area. The rest is similar.

 

[MontanaLon]

I had a friend, ahem, who had problems with people running over his mailbox. He made a nice decorative mailbox base out of steel that was shaped something like an upside down plow. The point of the plow was about 9 inches above the surface of the ground and the bottom of it was imbedded in concrete that went about 3 feet deep. It was all purely decorative of course, not designed with any mal intent. After the first couple of oil pan donations, the stupidness stopped.

 

[rwm]

How about stop strips? Not too dangerous. But that might just anger them and make them come back for more. I suppose a fence is the only conventional solution.
You could take the high-tech direct route and get a motion triggered camera and get the tag number.
Robert

 

[RJSakowski]

I can empathize with you. Over the years, I've dealt with a number of similar situations. I have a third of a mile of road frontage and we have to deal with beer and soft drink cans tossed on the roadside. More of an issue was when some (I assume) youths were making the rounds with paint ball guns. When that stuff dries, it is almost impossible to get off. They would hit the house and vehicles. I've also dealt with neighborhood kids stealing gas. Mailboxes take a hit, literally. I have mine mounted on 4" sch. 40 pipe so at least if they hit it with their baseball bat, there will be a repercussion.. It's been a while since our box was last hit, knock wood but if it happens again, I'll make my own from 1/8" plate.

I don't have a good solution. I have threatened to get a cougar to live on my porch roof. One thing that I have realized is that if you let them know that you are upset, it seems to encourage additional vandalism. I would suggest that you set up a trailcam or two and get some images that may help you identifying the culprits. When we used to deal with poachers, my advice to the was I know where you live and unlike the sheriff or the game warden, I don't need evidence. Any additional incidents and I'll just come looking for you. You will find that talking to the kids parents is an effective way to deal with the problem. If that doesn't work, the sheriff will help.

 

[Superburban]

How about a sign reading "Video surveillance in effect" or similar?

Or perhaps a motion detector solar powered light mounted in the trees.

 

[David S]

How about a sign stating the area is monitored by camera. But don't bother with the actual camera, or put up a fake one.

David

 

[Reddinr]

RJ Yes. It is frustrating. About 99% of the folks that live out here, including the teenagers are just great. It just takes the few to make things difficult. We've been thinking about the trail-cam idea.

 

[markba633csi]

Lighting, perhaps motion activated so you could make it portable, would probably work best. Maybe a sign too, for the ones who can read
M

 

[Latinrascalrg1]

I had a neighbor whose neighbor on the other side kept running over his very well manicured lawn on purpose so that he could park 2 vehicles side by side on a 1 car wide driveway with a sidewalk next to it. On top of driving on his lawn any passengers then walked all over his flowers through bushes to get to out of the car. Finally after repeated requests and being mr nice guy he buried a few semi sharpened (actually would be considered blunt but served its purpose) pieces of rebar under the surface. They were deep enough that a person walking across them would never know they were there but the weight of a car pushing down on that blunted tip was enough to cause at least 1 flat tire that finally seemed to have gotten his point across loud and clear!

As for your case maybe put up a few of those ranch style post fences with a large bolder or 2 placed strategically so that anybody driving across that area would be sure to cause damage hurting their parents piggy bank.