Hambone Brown was a professional rodman in his 60's. He could look through the instrument and cut a straight line hundreds of feet and stop very close to the distance needed. He had a rep for knowing where every after hours bar and house of ill repute was in the state of Mississippi. He got bored one day sitting in the truck during a rain and wrestled a small bull to the ground and painted his testicles red. It was reported that the farmer demanded compensation from the company as his cows was never going to have a thing to do with that bull.
How was the survey firm responsible when the manhole was buried and its location wasn't disclosed in the title report?
This ainÛªt got nothing to do with surveying but here goes anyway...
So IÛªm at my local Publix supermarket with a list from SWMBO (I made a tragic verbal mistake many years ago suggesting to SWMBO that I could perform such a menial task in half the time it took her and have been doing the grocery shopping since). Note to self: KEEP MOUTH SHUT
In line at the checkout in front of me is a pleasant looking woman with her brand new Apple gtx6000i (or whatever Apple thrusts at the public these dayÛªs) yakking away about God knows what. She has one hand on the phone and is using the other to ÛÏunloadÛ the grocery cart; the cashier is actually waiting for more goods to be transferred to the belt thingy so she can scan them.
Well after a ÛÏfewÛ minutes her cart was emptied the total tallied, food or whatever all bagged and in cart, cashier waiting for payment, woman still yakking on phone. She then must have had a bright flash of the obvious and started an excavation process within some sort of ÛÏpocketbookÛ (looked more like a steamer trunk attached to her shoulder) in search of a credit card, apparently there were several, four of which were rejected for whatever reason. But alas!, the fifth one worked!!
Finally, I thought to myself, now I can get out of here. My stuff is already on the ÛÏbeltÛ and the beer is getting warmer.
But wait, the woman had gleefully discovered her ream of ÛÏcouponsÛ stuffed into something that resembled a large size ÛÏRoach MotelÛ. So out come coupons from every Merchant in the Universe and the sifting process started so as to find one which may work. None did. What seemed like ÛÏnine days later back at the ranchÛ the fiasco finally ended and she went on her merry way with some electronic device still attached to her ear completely oblivious to anything.
Oh well, IÛªm too old to let this crap bother me anymore. Except for warm beer. :excruciating:
If the neighbor sat and watched him build across the line then notified him 16 mos. later, he could possibly loose that land by laches and estoppel.
The thread has drifted from property situations to notable encounters with people, so I'll relate one of my strangest ones vaguely related to surveying.
Back when I first heard about geocaching about 2004 a friend told me about one he had hidden in a public park. I didn't have my Garmin at that point, but wondered if I could still use my knowledge of mapping to find it. I plotted his coordinates on the topo map and scaled some distances. I went out to the park to pace from the park boundaries to find the area for search. One "known" spot was where a street dead-ended at the park boundary under a power line.
While I was doing that, a guy came out from the house adjacent to the park and dead-end street and demanded to know what I was doing. I told him I was exploring the public park. That didn't sit well, and he accused me of planning to build the road through "his" park. I thought I was gong to get slugged. I had no colored vest, no flagging, no stakes, no instruments besides a hand compass. Just pacing from a piece of paper.
I finally gave him the full true story and he relented, and we had a nice conversation. It was one of my earlier lessons in the fact that a surveyor is the most feared creature to ever come near someone's property.
I might have found the geocache if I'd known about the WGS84 (or NAD83) vs NAD27 offset.
Do I dare tell about the middle aged women in line in front of me at the grocery store?
The clerk noticed her selection: head of lettuce, non-fat milk, carrots, fresh chicken, flour.
He said, "You must be single." She replied, "Why, yes, I am. Can you tell by my groceries?"
"No", he said. "You're ugly."
Tommy Young, post: 346704, member: 703 wrote: How was the survey firm responsible when the manhole was buried and its location wasn't disclosed in the title report?
Tommy,
I tried to find a copy of the drawing but it's buried in backups from 3 computer systems ago...looking at it would explain a lot.
#1 - The "original" sewer easement did not close by about 100'. Rather than it being a recorded easement it was an attachment (along with some sketchy P&P sheets from 1955) to a City Council action that provided for the sewer to be constructed with some funds money from somewhere.
The "easement" description showed the sewer line angling across a wheat field and then turning due south at the Interstate R/W. The Interstate R/W was 50' further back from where the Interstate fence is located. The survey firm that prepared the ALTA called the fence the actual R/W and took the only two available MH's and imagined a "cartoon" as to where the sewer actually ran. If you locate the "real" MH by the "real" R/W and run the easement backwards it fits the sewer line and the distance "bust" is actually almost 1/2 mile north. The title company did not find the easement because it was not recorded as an easement, it was recorded in a miscellaneous book authorizing the city to cash in some bonds to fund the sewer project. But I don't think that's what busted the survey outfit.
The survey outfit kind of 'created' a sewer route that was shown to them by the seller (at that time the owner of the property) and completely missed a MH 300' south that was sticking up in the air almost a foot. There was some evidence discovered the 'seller' knew where the sewer was located and attempted to 'hide' the fact that it ran diagonally across the lot so the lot would seem more developable. The company that prepared the ALTA was merely guilty of some really shoddy field/office work. But they were named in the suit by the chain store (buyer) and when everybody decided to settle out of court, they agreed to pony up some of the money to relocate the line. Basically there was evidence they were in cahoots with the seller. They actually were not, they were merely guilty of taking the seller's word for where the sewer was at...and showed it that way on their ALTA. I guess they felt it was easier to pay up than fight it in court.
Like I said...if I could find the drawings, it would be a little clearer.
Lady goes to the doctor. He tells her "You're way overweight."
She says "I want a second opinion!"
He says "O.K., you're ugly, too."
Don
The neighbor had several adjoining lots and hired another survey company when he went with a new mortgage.
The locations of the engineer's survey was completely wrong including the fact that monuments shown on the drawing were never set....their habit was to set a nail at an intersection and a wood stake at lot corners and their design put the property lines in the middle of all front and back utility easements.
After their head surveyor retired, the company got its act together.......
2007. I'd just gotten my license and got my start here taking over for a surveyor that had retired after spending longer surveying than I'd been alive. That first winter on my own I had to go out and do what we call a "lake drop" survey around here. Map the location of a bunch of cables that had been dumped in the lake the summer before to satisfy the State with an as-built. Do these things in winter on the ice after getting the cables located. Access was a bit dicey and had to take a private drive to get near the location and stopped to ask the owner for permission where he tells me with a straight face my orange vest would make a nice target for his .338 out on the lake, but waives me through. Very funny I'm thinking. Here's where it gets interesting. So part of these surveys is tieing the cable and easement to upland monumentation and I tie in some of Mr. .338's corners to figure out later in the office. His place is on an unsurveyed remainder left over from splitting a protracted government lot 330' wide. Best I can tell it was purchased via a clerks deed from a tax sale. It took a bit more work to figure out what was going on because things weren't adding up. Turned out when the surveyor in the 1960's split the government lot and platted a 200' wide lake front lot, he put the 130' remainder on the wrong side and it got sold somehow and found it's way into a tax sale. Remember, these were protracted lots. Mr. .338 had actually built his place on the adjacent government lot (he didn't own) and every subsequent deed along that lake front was off 130'. I hope I never have to go back there again because I had to record a ROS for that job that brought everything to light. Fortunately nobody bothers to look at that ROS in any detail, but one of these days I expect I'll be getting a call about it.
Great work
This is pretty lame compared to most of the above but was funny at the time. We had a boundary down in bayou country where the adjoiner was disputing the line and alledgedly pulling property corners. About half of the boundary was the centerline of the access road, the rest was the setback from the highway centerline and the boundary with said adjoiner. We found evidence and reset the corners; the very nice lady who owned the property served us lemonade on a hot day. She then proceded to ask us mutiple questions about EXACTLY where her line was in the access road, and eventually asked us if we would paint all of her lines. You kind of had to be there, but ultimately we put paint stripes in the grass on her boundary lines, after setting and marking offset stakes to the access road. When we were driving away, I assesed our work and advised my partner to make tracks before another surveyor came along and saw the logo on our truck.
ÛÏand eventually asked us if we would paint all of her lines. You kind of had to be there, but ultimately we put paint stripes in the grass on her boundary linesÛ?Û
We have done that numerous times for irrigation installation on single family lots (50Ûªx100Ûª). We work exclusively in production home construction. The irrigation guys have a tendency to wander off line which doesnÛªt sit well with adjacent neighbors, so when this happens and a re-install of the irrigation system takes place we are called out to ÛÏpaintÛ the property lines. It doesnÛªt happen much on the ÛÏExecutive Mansion Estate LotsÛ (80Ûªx100Ûª).
A wealthy elderly couple call me up and ask me to stake their lot lines because they are sure their western abutter has been clearing brush on their land. I pull the plat and see that the subdivision is barely a year old. The lots are in the end of a cul de sac and shaped like a slices of pie (poor design IMO).
I get there and my clients are friendly, the wife fancies herself a Southern Belle. The husband shows me the spike set by the original surveyor in the center of the cul de sac along with some of the abutterÛªs corners. ÛÏWonderfulÛ, IÛªm thinking, ÛÏThis will be a slam dunk.Û I set up right over the spike and began a resection so that I can quickly locate their two corners that were set along the edge of the cul. Resection is a bust by 7Ûª. ÛÏThatÛªs weird,Û but I need to loop around the lot anyway so IÛªll just pick up the rear corners then reoccupy the spike.
I find the front corners below grade in some landscaping, close the traverse and begin checking the results and everything is spot on except the spike in the center of the paved cul de sac. IÛªm comfortable placing stakes between the original capped rebars despite the odd position of the spike and quickly see that my clients were correct about an encroachment only they had it backwards, their fence and propane tank were on the abutter's lot. Barely had I set the stake in front of their fence when I see the wife pulling the others I set. ÛÏYouÛªre wrong,Û she yells, "this isn't where the realtor said it was," and starts screaming for her husband. The husband is angry but keeps his cool and walks to the spike and tells me that the line IÛªm staking is crooked. I walk up to the spike where heÛªs standing and look a little more closely at it. I take my knife out and pry up a rusty beer cap that had been partially paved over. His draw drops, he looks at his wife, then his watch, then at all the other stakes still standing and says, ÛÏMy neighbor will be home in fifteen minutes, grab all your stuff and leave." He and his wife begin pulling all my trav nails, the rest of the stakes and all my flagging then shovel it all into my work vehicle. My rodman leisurely breaks down the instrument, smiling the whole time, and we and all our gear pull out of the cul de sac just as the neighbor is pulling in.
I did a topo for an Engineering firm next door to their office. A year latter I am working for this firm when my boss comes in and starts yelling profanities at me. They were grading the lot next door and how in the he77 did I miss that manhole in the middle of the lot? I step outside and sure enough there was a four foot mound in the middle of the lot with a manhole top visible in the middle. I decide the least I should do is pop the top and determine direction and depth to see how bad this was going to be. When I applied the manhole puller, the top flipped over as it was just a top lying on the ground. I had three crew check the invert that day and told them about how my boss had acted. We all report to him that the invert was 0.1' + or - and that relocating the line was no problem. The boss was much slower from that point to accuse me of screwing up.
I went to Conservation tonight.
Project: Clearing of a 4' wide path, construction of stairs down an inland bank, mitigation plantings over an easement.
I introduce myself and the chair immediately states there are problems.
1. I did not have the property owner sign the Notice of Intent and we should continue until the property owner has signed the form. I replied that my client is the easement holder and had every right to sign the form. The new agent (who is an attorney) said nothing. Second day on the job, why stick out your neck. After about 30 seconds of back and forth a gentleman from the audience stands up and introduces himself: the owner of the land upon which the easement exists. He is completely in favor of the proposal and offers to sign the form. The assistant agent brings the form over and he signs.
2. As this is a Conservation Variance, we had to review alternatives. There is an existing path over a town well parcel and a Conservation Foundation parcel. This solution is not great because the Town or the Conservation Foundation could terminate access. The Director of Natural Resources told the Conservation Chair that he authorizes the continued use of the trail. Well the trail is the access road and there is a big No Trespassing Sign (well, small sign but it is neon bright). The Director is not the Director of the Water Department, so he has no ability to authorize the use and if we have some ground water scare, you know the DEP is going to require all wells be secured.
Then the Commissioners then stated that they had no recourse to stop us from proceeding. We continued for Endangered Species and Zoning Review.
We never discussed the merits or details of the proposal.
Sometimes the stories here make me so happy to live in Podunk where live and let live is the norm.
Holy Cow, post: 346948, member: 50 wrote: Sometimes the stories here make me so happy to live in Podunk where live and let live is the norm.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of stopping the Jeep on the road to Pawhuska and relieving myself from the edge of the road...at Bacon Rind Creek. Other than my wife's audible disapproval there was no other sound but the wind in the grass and a distant red tail hanging on a breeze while he looked for breakfast. It just doesn't get any more peaceful that that. 'Podunk' definitely has its own brand of quiet.
Holy Cow, post: 346948, member: 50 wrote: Sometimes the stories here make me so happy to live in Podunk where live and let live is the norm.
I live where we do not grow corn or grass or cows; we grow regulations. The people who volunteer to write, enact and impose these are usually full of fertilizer which makes the regulations big and strong. The meetings are televised, so we need some drama and AHA moments to increase the ratings.
Every so often I step back and realize how surreal my corner of the world truly is.
I have surveyed two HOA controlled lake subdivisions.
One has completely repealed their restrictions and have kept the basic terms that control the upkeep and maintenance of utilities and lake areas. The nearest town is 10mi away and the sounds of nature are all you can hear. Wildlife is everywhere and hardly notices you passing.
Other is in a similar rural setting and the degree of madness is in tune with whoever is in command of the chair. The current prez is a tyrant. Bountiful amounts of wildlife jump to safety and stands in the shadows shuddering in fear.
I will never understand why some people can not get over the sound of their own voice or why they want to bring the overwhelming effect of the bureaucratic oversight to the divinity of their retirement home and doesn't shut up long enough to know the sound of silence....
