My parents use it for deer and turkeys in the vegetable garden.
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Captain Obvious question: how come he doesn’t have a fence?
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Because he’s not trying to move any stolen goods?
Also, bc he seems to be a jerk who wants to make people bend to his will without giving them any visual cues…
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Probably because fences are expensive. I’m with @Gary_Williams on this. Maybe because I grew up on a street with a curve in it, which meant three families had corner lots. To proceed down the street, kids, adults, and folks on bikes could’ve cut across two people’s lawns, but we didn’t. Nobody had a fence, because folks didn’t walk on other people’s lawns unless they needed to retrieve a stray ball or something.
It’s a nuisance issue, but the source is not the person who owns a corner property. It’s the people who decide to walk across it, instead of using the sidewalk or the street. Could the owner have done something differently to discourage this? Sure. I can’t imagine what inexpensive solutions I might try in the same situation.
Although I’ve never owned a corner lot, I remember living in a row home and getting pissed (along with my neighbors) at people who decided they wanted to sit on, play on, and walk on other people’s cars, front steps, and front porches - for reasons. When they fell off, it was suddenly a huge problem - for the owner of whatever they fell from. The worst was when this happened in the wee hours of the morning. This guy’s methods might seem over the top to some, but I understand how frustration over a situation like that can come to a head.
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Fair point. I can’t help thinking that some kind of visual cue would’ve helped, though. We had to do that after the aforementioned guy in the truck tore up our land. We put up a little sign at the entry point, problem solved.
Or, for this guy, even just not mowing the border and seeing what kind of wildflowers come up. (If that’s allowed.)
Admittedly, I’m definitely not a fan of monoculture lawns like this, so I’m biased.
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Weird thing is I see so much potential for fun in this, depending on peoples’ attitudes. I spent most of grade school trying to find new shortcuts around the neighborhood and I think I would have found something like this to be awesome sport. Kids like to play, and dodging sprinklers is fun. If I were one of those kids, I wouldn’t think the homeowner was an asshole, I’d just think of it as a fun challenge. (ETA after watching the video, it would be trivial to get across without getting wet, just takes a little planning. Not really seeing this warranting the criticism. )
I guess maybe a sign might help but his description says…
Asked nicely everyday to stay off the lawn but people just keep coming.
Interesting… I have noticed that ever since we bordered our front garden with Heather it has had far less dog damage. Happy coincidence since we just liked the bumblebees it attracts.
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Does not equal “visual cue.”
Which is what I was talking about.
I agree that this would be annoying, but we don’t even know if some of those people getting sprayed ever got asked nicely not to cross the lawn. 
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Agreed. Visual cues can go a long way to disocurage behaviors you don’t want. The majority of our corner is a large garden bed with trees. To cut through the yard you have to come pretty far in. The only people who cut through are the mail delivery person (cool) and the occasional person who seems to think our lawn is a public dog park (less cool).
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Some cities (mine for e.g. ) do have special restrictions on fence height / location for corner lots to prevent loss of visibility for drivers. Usually you can just inset the fence into your property a few feet or keep it low (white picket style) and problem solved…
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I don’t want to go back and forth and I think this is all I’m going to say…
You should not have to be asked to not trespass.
We have property and in one part it is hard to tell who owns it. We had trespassers. Some are fine, others tore up the land. Maybe I shouldn’t have had to ask them not to do that, but I did (with a little sign) and they stopped.
There are plenty of less expensive ways to give people a clue that they shouldn’t be walking somewhere before one goes full on “alarms and spray” on them.
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Maybe it’s just the wide angle camera but that looks like a very large stretch of grass. In my area there are some houses that have empty bits of public land adjacent that people will cut through. I wonder if perhaps there is a chance people simply don’t understand they are walking on the person’s lawn? Just a thought.
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Sprinklers for people walking across your lawn? That’s petty.
There are a couple twenty-somethings that have been cutting through my back yard in the middle of the night for years when they come home from partying/drinking a couple streets over.
They’ve repeatedly damaged the fence in the back corner while climbing it because they’re fat. The only reason I haven’t done anything is because it isn’t my fence. The guy from the lot behind me who owns it says he’s called the police but they refuse to do anything.
Especially since he’d be waging an asymmetrical form of warfare that would put him at an inherent disadvantage to his foes.
If teenagers decide to retaliate they can vandalize his property and retreat long before they are identified or arrested. They can strike at any time, day or night. For the property owner to fight back he has to be ready 24/7 and retreat isn’t an option. Even if he catches one it might just further infuriate others.
Far smarter to find ways to avoid attracting the attention of potential vandals in the first place.
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Sad, but true. I’ve seen escalation happen just from one side, probably because the folks doing it were bored - or trying to get a reaction. After cleaning up and repairing property damage for several months, I thought about using water to retaliate one night, but talked myself out of it for the reasons you mentioned. Instead, I saved enough money to move and let the place go. That cost a lot, but peace of mind and safety were worth more to me than dying on that hill.
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do Americans hate hedges? this is just my impression from watching lots of shows set in suburban USA. Plant a border hedge, something spiky, problem solved.
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there’s an upcoming project to put in proper crosswalks/sidewalks and a multi-use path at/along the corner and up the road/hill that is adjacent to my backyard.
There’s currently no sidewalk but it is a primary link between the state highway that I live on and the neighborhood with the local college and a very large free-to-the-public, private-park.
the phase 2 project is finally starting now and will be done in 2-ish years.
my corner was supposed to be part of phase 1 which finished up last year,
current intersection with no sidewalks/crosswalks of any kind:
future intersection, which will have two new crosswalks with lights, and sidewalks all around:
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