Private Property

We had a strange encounter of the angry idiot kind yesterday, right in front of our home. But first you need a little background:

In front of our property there is a private road, indifferently maintained, that provides access to several neighboring properties. None of these properties are currently occupied, though several of them have construction underway. This road is gated right next to our driveway. This sturdy steel gate is kept locked, with only the property owners, the fire department, and a few neighbors (like us) having a key. The property owners behind the gate share an easement for the road, so that all are guaranteed access. This gated road is an alternative route out of Lawson Valley, so in an emergency (such as a wildfire) someone with a key will open the gate to let people out. This is why we’ve been given a key, as we’re the closest residence to the gate.

For years the owner has been in a pitched battle with people who go around the gate to access the road and his property. When I’ve talked with the owner (and his son), they are not concerned so much with people walking on the road, or even riding horses on the road — but the dirt bikes and ATVs are definitely operating there against his desires. And they’ve been doing this for years.

But yesterday one of the property owners behind the gate decided to do something about the gate-crashers: he installed chain-link fence to block the path the gate-crashers had made through the chaparral around the gate. While he was finishing up the fencing work, a dirt biker — a 20-something man, by appearance — drove up through the open gate, and stopped to see what was going on. Right at that moment, my wife and I were driving by, so I stopped to see if my neighbor needed any help.

He didn’t, but I was “treated” to the dirt-biker’s angry diatribe about how wrong it was for us to put a fence up. Both my neighbor and I tried our level best to explain to this angry young man that the road was private property, and the property owners simply didn’t want him there. His retort was nonsensical, and driven by his rage, but it amounted to this: “It’s a road, therefore it’s public, therefore I have a right to be here, even if it’s private property. Just because you own a piece of land doesn’t mean you have the right to control who travels on that land."

This is far from the first time we have encountered this attitude or belief. Several other trespassers — all young — have asserted much the same thing.

I’m pretty sure that none of the trespassers were themselves property owners. In some cases, I suspect they never will be (can you spell “losers"?). All of them were most likely so angry at being denied access that they weren’t thinking all that clearly. But still…isn’t it disturbing that so many would make the argument that private property owners had no right to control access to their property? It seems so self-evidently un-American, that argument. And it makes me wonder what the hell these young folks were taught in school, not to mention at home.

Private property rights are one of the great principles that form the very heart and soul of this country. I wonder if any of these trespassers have ever even heard about that?