I completed a survey about 12 or 13 years ago for a trust interest. It was a real booger...on a correction parallel (no roads) and down on the river with riparian lots. The saving grace was the property for which I prepared descriptions was completely surrounded by the trust and had no adjoiners so a boundary dispute wasn't a concern. It went well..except for the old patriarch that considered himself the lord-high-mocus of all the creation. He was nice enough (since I was working for his trust), but I could tell he would be a real pain if you ever crossed him or his opinions. He followed me everywhere I went.
A few years later I was contacted by an attorney representing one of the adjoiners to this trust. She had seen my name on some documentation. There had been a boundary dispute and subsequent quiet title suit. Apparently the old man had lost on this one. All they needed was a fenced 2.8 acre portion of a pasture located, a description prepared and corners set. I agreed.
The same old man that had been "nice" to me a few years later had changed his tune but not his MO. He followed me everywhere. Most of his wind was spent telling me how wrong the courts were and cussing because "they were stealing his 2.8 acres". The only real heartache he caused me was locking me in while I was out in an adjacent pasture. I was so mad I not only cut the lock to get out, I took the 2' of chain and all the locks with me. My only peace was that the old man was in his late eighties and probably wouldn't be around much longer.
Fast forward to this morning. I get a call from a gentleman that has purchased this 2.8 acres. We actually have a few common friends and he used to work for a fellow surveyor a few years ago. He can't find any of the pins....I mentioned there was once a hostile neighbor and hoped the old man hadn't removed the pins.
Come to find out he's still around, in his nineties and still nasty as rattlesnake stuffed in a shoebox.
I think I know why nobody can find any pins...they're probably not there anymore. I'm meeting the buyer out there tomorrow.
I'm sure the old man will be as happy to see me as I will be to see him....;)
paden cash, post: 450173, member: 20 wrote: I'm sure the old man will be as happy to see me as I will be to see him..
Be sure to take a selfie photo with him and post it here right away, please.
One hot afternoon when I was in my early twenties, I was lugging most of the equipment out by myself as Dad finished his recon. As the old logging road crossed onto the adjoining property, an older man started giving me a hard time for tresspassing. I didn't know him, but I knew the lady that owned it and gave us access. His daughter. I was also hot and tired. So I was a bit of a smarta$$ to him. About fifteen or sixteen years later I was called to survey for that old man. It took a while for me to recognize him. He didn't recognize me at all. As we talked business he mentioned that "Crabby little SOB" that surveyed the neighbor's property.
[SARCASM]Carry back the chain and locks and tell the old fart that you will trade them or the monuments.[/SARCASM]
paden cash, post: 450173, member: 20 wrote: I'm sure the old man will be as happy to see me as I will be to see him....;)
Try to come to terms with him he may not remember you. When I bought my house in Fort Worth in 2006, the neighbor 2 doors down threatened to bury me. We've made peace and now he mows my yard and has kept two people from breaking into my house while I am out surveying. He's old school gangster, but my yard looks great and I supplement his social security.
Old Guys Rule.
Brad Ott, post: 450235, member: 197 wrote: Be sure to take a selfie photo with him and post it here right away, please.
Just to let everybody know...the old man was a no show. The buyer and I walked the corners and dug up all the pins right where I had set them a number of years ago.
Something interesting I did notice: When I set the pins in '07 one fell in a field entrance with a hard crushed rock surface. This pin was hard enough to drive through the rock surface I remembered it vividly once I was standing there. FF to this morning and my pin finder sings out. I start digging and it's all sandy loam. I sure remembered there being rock in that field entrance. The pin finder keeps telling me it's down there.
I finally hit rock at a depth of 14". There was the pin and cap I had set 10 years ago. I was amazed the silt that washed out of the pasture had built up 14" in 10 years. I could have imagined maybe half that.
Live and learn.
Brad Ott, post: 450235, member: 197 wrote: Be sure to take a selfie photo with him and post it here right away, please.
Yes please, I second that motion. Edit: I see now that you've already made the field visit.
