Fences

My insurance guy said no matter what, I am liable if anyone gets hurt on my property. Since this is a business, I have more to loose than anyone else around here. A couple weeks back, my lady caught one of the kids climbing on my big service truck and yelled "get off there so you don't fall". The mother of this kid had a hissy fit saying " he can climb on it, he's not hurting anything". I said "no, he can't climb on it and he's not to be on the property at all." This lead to more of a hissy fit and I walked off before things got out of hand.

Despite the fact their sperm and egg doners are usless as "parents" and have no respect for other people's property, I need to put an end to this BS before one of these kids get hurt and I get sued.

I like the idea of chain link about 6' high but would also like some privacy as well. I heard that the vinyl slats used on chain link fence eventually cause the steel to rust, I assume from rubbing the zinc plating off. I need to cover a strait shot of 250' in order to eliminate the short cut paths these kids use. What's my best option for this purpose at the least amount of cost?

Just my thoughts.

Brad

A site break this system is not, but you could see who is tossing things over the fence. ;>{

HTH

Ok, there is the matter of types of tresspass. There are three basic types; invitees, licensees, and trespasser. The first, invitees are customers and general business guests. You are required to take reasonable efforts to seek out and remedy dangers for them. Classic examples would be keeping ice off the sidewalks. A person who slips and falls on sidewalk ice could hold you liable for their injury. This is the one that regularly gets business owners in trouble. You must be diligent in keeping their access safe, and limited.
The second, licensees are people like meter readers. There is an acceptance of some risk on their part, but you are still required to keep things reasonable safe for them. You can't put a piece of weak plywood across an open well for example
The third is trespasser, which is what these kids are. This is a person who has no legal right to be on the property. Now as a business, you've got a problem seperating this from invitees, but you can do so well enough with a fence and signs saying something like "no customers allowed beyond this point".

You also *must* start keeping a written log of activities, including police calls. As in you must note when the kids show up, that you did tell them they are trespassing and must leave, that you did report it to the police, etc. These things will go a long way to protecting you in a lawsuit by their parents. While you will always be liable for keeping ice off the sidewalks and parking lot of your business, you have much less responsibility for keeping the ice off the piles of equipment you keep behind locked gates with do not tresspass signs on them.

Lastly, there is the matter of an attractive nuisance. Be aware of this counter argument being raised. It varies in strength. If you have a swimming pool in the middle of the shop yard, that can be considered an attractive nuisance, increasing your liability for the kids hurting themselves *getting to the swimming pool*. It does not increase your liability for them simply climbing on your equipment incidentally, when not engaged in getting to the swimming pool.

Be very carefull with the notion of using dogs to protect your property. It is presumed that guard dogs are vicious, so if your dog bites one of these kids, or causes the kid to be injured while attempting to escape the dog, your liability is significantly increased. A pet dog is different. Guard dogs usually raise the stakes against you, the business owner.

Best of luck to you.

I got some prices on chain link from one of the local fence installers, end posts $15 ea, line posts $12 ea, 6' high fabric $2 per foot, post tops and end anchors $1.50 ea. All comes out close to $1000 just for materials not counting concrete to anchor the poles with, vinyl privacy slats at $1.20 each or our labor to install it.

I think most zoning laws allow for 8ft high fences on the sides of the property, may be the front too on commerical property, but think about installing the fence at a steep incline to the climbing side. Maybe that would stop them from climbing your new fence.

On young children the no trespassing signs along with the cops to explain it to the parents sometimes works.

Theres also balloon libility insurrance, I think thats what it's called, that covers for libility over standard libility and cost like $250/yr per million coverage. I don't know about commerical tho. The neighbor was looking into it to cut his auto insurrance cost down, 3cars & motorhome. Apparently the State will allow this to meet State required auto insurrance requirments and pays both parties. He commented that it would save him 2/3 of what he's paying now. The wealthy use it to protect there assets against law suits.

But maybe honey will work best. Find local activitys, baseball, football, icehockey, crafts, etc then supply them with the tools, gloves balls shoes,etc and get a highschooler to take them there and pick them up and keep them "busy". Of course the highschooler is supplying all the stuff and keeps you out of the picture.

T_Bone

Before the bus got there, two of the parents were outside, the one across street on her front steps and the other on the opposing street sitting in her car. The kids were picking stone up from my driveway and throwing them at another kid standing across the street. Neither of the parents said a word about it. I went out the door and spoke loudly to the kids to knock it off and that I have told them many times not to be on the property and not to throw stuff and told them to stand in the street where they belong. Going on about the cost of the damages done by them so far. Neither of the adults said a word to me but I was hoping for it with phone in hand ready to dial 911. The bus driver from the contracted company stopped the bus and got off explaining to the kids that I don't want them on the property anymore because they are acting up and causing damages and they need to stand on the street corner from now on. School distric did thier job so far, will see what happens later today when they get dropped off.

I hestitated to put up signs of any type in an attempt to maintain good neighbor attitude. Unfortunately, even tho I am with the local fire rescue and have come to the aid of many of them, they still show no respect for my property or maintaining control over their children. I know if this had been me doing anything even close to what these kids do, mom would have waffled me and then I would have been waffled again when dad came home. But then again, I have real parents that care about me enough to teach me respect for others and right from wrong. For the most part, these kids run free from the time they get off the bus in the afternoon till way past dark without one sign of the parents being around or even caring if they got off the bus or not.

I don't hate the kids, I feel sorry for them because their parents are butt heads and don't give a crap about them. That's the part that really hurts, the damages to the equipment and property can be fixed but the damage done to the minds of these kids can't be so easily fixed if at all.

The sings are going up in the next day or two as soon as the sign shop gets done cutting them from vinyl. Talking with both the lawyer and ins. company, they agreed that if the signs state "customers only, no one under 18 allowed" this limits the amount of liability we will bear especially if I make a police report each time they violate the signs. According to both my lawyer and the ins co. lawyer, if three or more police reports are filed, most liability suits will be dismissed because of willful trespass on the part of the plaintif.

I had a problem with some quads about 4 years ago coming in a ripping up the driveway and yard. Two of them were my cousin's kids who I warned many times over about it. The last time they did it, my cousin just laughed and walked away. Being family, I figured I'd give him a good taste of what it's like and if he got snippy about it, I'd waffle him. I got in my pick-up with the big cooper mud luggers on it and drove into his nice front yard and did about 10 doughnuts throwing grass all over his house and tow trucks while making some nice deep ruts. While I would not condone this method with non-family, it sure worked for me. He spent about $1500 and a weeks time fixing up the yard and never said a word about it to me nor have his quads ever came close to my yard or driveway again. Yep, we talk like nothing ever happened, he knows better. he he