Moles.
Mebfab said:
Unrelated but I get realtor signs by the dozen for the subdivisions. How long am I supposed to leave them up?
Click to expand...
Hey- they're pretty useful- repaint 'em, get a stencil that says "GARAGE SALE", and sell 'em... at a garage sale...
The little flags... they're handy, but keep a note of the colors. If you REALLY wanna confuse someone, go to a construction site and plant a bunch in random lines... :-}
Also- keep in mind... when a utility locate is called in for one area, the locate service will go to ANY RELATED viscinity, and mark EVERYTHING. In most cases, the locate service doesn't know what the heck is going on, or why... but there IS one more reason (not noted yet) that you're getting located.
Surveys.
When a major reference point exists on, or near your property, surveyors will go looking for the reference point. Sometimes these things are slightly buried and hard to fine, and it may be easy to see, out in the open, and marked with a 90' fuschia pole with neon green lights. Regardless, the surveyor will HAVE to call in a locate SIMPLY because they'll put a shovel to the ground to go looking for that particular stake.
If they need to find your stake, utilities will usually get marked in the ENTIRE PROPERTY, simply 'cause the locator guy won't legally be able to limit it to just one viscinity. If you happen to be the sorry guy who has a major section corner, and the whole town is surveyed using meets and bounds (rather than a filed subdivisional plat), or there's a subdivision being put in, and they're generating LOT identity using meets-and-bounds references, in a one-lot-at-a-time survey, you'll have locate services out there every two weeks to constantly re-verify locations for surveyors. It's terribly aggrivating if you have no idea what's going on.
IF there are property sales in your viscinity, or there's lots of property development, OR the city, township, county, or state is going through an update of their GIS data, you'll get quite a bit of this for quite some time.
I like the Crop Circles idea... better yet, use 'em to mark mole tracks... and put a mole trap every so often to really confuse folks!!!
Oh, and the reason why they don't notify you (even when it's on your property)... they don't know who the owner is, don't know where they are, and don't know why the locate is being done, and law doesn't require them to. Of course, they're usually friendly guys just doin' their job. Last time I had a locate situation (and was home to witness it) I introduced myself and asked him about it, he told me everything he knew. Keep in mind, it was totally unofficial- they usually find out whatever they do by talkin' with other people in the area... sometimes the guys doing some aspect of the work, and sometimes it's totally inaccurate, and they'll say so, so take it with a 50-lb block of salt.
The nice thing, is that these guys have some really cool equipment at-their-disposal. If you've buried your own wire, pipe, etc., they're not legally required to locate your private stuff (their companies will charge YOU for that type of locate), but most of the time, they'll hook on and scan and mark it for you for free.
So don't bite 'em, and keep in mind that if you pull out the flags, they'll come back and do it again. It's their job.
Now, if a guy shows up with a pair of wires and walks around marking your lawn with a spray can, send him away. I had a city moron do just that, and he accurately pinpointed the location of my sewer line about 90' to one side of where it really was. After a 20 minute argument and a very sincere legal warning, I sent him back to his office to pull the city's As-Built engineering drawings... and he found that the real 'drop' into the main was indeed where I told him it was. Took him a while to scrub all that paint out of my driveway, but it was probably better than eating crow... and much better than paying for an incredibly expensive sewer repair.
Hey- they're pretty useful- repaint 'em, get a stencil that says "GARAGE SALE", and sell 'em... at a garage sale...The little flags... they're handy, but keep a note of the colors. If you REALLY wanna confuse someone, go to a construction site and plant a bunch in random lines... :-}Also- keep in mind... when a utility locate is called in for one area, the locate service will go to ANY RELATED viscinity, and mark EVERYTHING. In most cases, the locate service doesn't know what the heck is going on, or why... but there IS one more reason (not noted yet) that you're getting located.Surveys.When a major reference point exists on, or near your property, surveyors will go looking for the reference point. Sometimes these things are slightly buried and hard to fine, and it may be easy to see, out in the open, and marked with a 90' fuschia pole with neon green lights. Regardless, the surveyor will HAVE to call in a locate SIMPLY because they'll put a shovel to the ground to go looking for that particular stake.If they need to find your stake, utilities will usually get marked in the ENTIRE PROPERTY, simply 'cause the locator guy won't legally be able to limit it to just one viscinity. If you happen to be the sorry guy who has a major section corner, and the whole town is surveyed using meets and bounds (rather than a filed subdivisional plat), or there's a subdivision being put in, and they're generating LOT identity using meets-and-bounds references, in a one-lot-at-a-time survey, you'll have locate services out there every two weeks to constantly re-verify locations for surveyors. It's terribly aggrivating if you have no idea what's going on.IF there are property sales in your viscinity, or there's lots of property development, OR the city, township, county, or state is going through an update of their GIS data, you'll get quite a bit of this for quite some time.I like the Crop Circles idea... better yet, use 'em to mark mole tracks... and put a mole trap every so often to really confuse folks!!!Oh, and the reason why they don't notify you (even when it's on your property)... they don't know who the owner is, don't know where they are, and don't know why the locate is being done, and law doesn't require them to. Of course, they're usually friendly guys just doin' their job. Last time I had a locate situation (and was home to witness it) I introduced myself and asked him about it, he told me everything he knew. Keep in mind, it was totally unofficial- they usually find out whatever they do by talkin' with other people in the area... sometimes the guys doing some aspect of the work, and sometimes it's totally inaccurate, and they'll say so, so take it with a 50-lb block of salt.The nice thing, is that these guys have some really cool equipment at-their-disposal. If you've buried your own wire, pipe, etc., they're not legally required to locate your private stuff (their companies will charge YOU for that type of locate), but most of the time, they'll hook on and scan and mark it for you for free.So don't bite 'em, and keep in mind that if you pull out the flags, they'll come back and do it again. It's their job.Now, if a guy shows up with a pair of wires and walks around marking your lawn with a spray can, send him away. I had a city moron do just that, and he accurately pinpointed the location of my sewer line about 90' to one side of where it really was. After a 20 minute argument and a very sincere legal warning, I sent him back to his office to pull the city's As-Built engineering drawings... and he found that the real 'drop' into the main was indeed where I told him it was. Took him a while to scrub all that paint out of my driveway, but it was probably better than eating crow... and much better than paying for an incredibly expensive sewer repair.