How do I deal with casual trespass Suppose that someone walks on to my land and refuses to leave. Trespass is not a crime, so (as I understand it) the police can't help. I'm not allowed to use physical force to eject them because that would be assault. Assuming that what they are doing does not rise to the level of aggravated trespass or any other crime, what recourse do I have? Edit: in answer to a comment. I don't have a specific type of land in mind. Intuitively trespass on someone's back garden seems different to trespass on a farmer's field, but I haven't seen anything in law which makes that distinction. If there are such distinctions then it would be useful to know what they are. I'm also unsure exactly what the limit of the word "building" is in burglary law. Does a garden fence or wall count as a building? If so, does scaling a garden wall count as the "entering a building" component of burglary?
Offer them a cup of tea In England and Wales, people have extensive rights to access private land so long as they don't interfere with the owner's lawful use of that land. You have the right to access some land for walking or certain other leisure activities. You can: use public roads and pavements or public rights of way, for example footpaths or bridleways use your right to roam on open access land including mountains, moors, heaths, downs, common land and some land around the England Coast Path If neither of these apply, you may still be able to access private land if: the land was used as a public right of way in the past - check old maps and documents the land was accessed by the public for at least 20 years and nobody has asked them to stop the landowner has given permission (‘permissive access’) It is a very rare piece of rural land to which at least one of these doesn't apply in England and Wales. Obviously, this is not going to be applicable to most urban and suburban land and your solicitor should have checked that an ancient highway doesn't run through your living room before you bought the place. If it does, then you have to let people walk through your living room - you can ask them to wipe their feet first. If they are actually trespassing then unless they damage your property you have no right to damages. If they commit a crime such as aggravated trespass or burgulary, you can call the police. You can also take them to court to get an order requiring them to leave and, if you are wise, prohibiting them from returning. Or, you can just take the opportunity for a cup of tea and a chat.
Edit: I didn't notice a that this question was tagged for Canada; this answer is based on U.S. law. "Must you stop walking" and "can the police detain you for leaving" are different questions. Must you stop? I'd expect a lot of variation from state to state, but there are definitely situations in which you must stop. In Ohio, for instance, an officer who "reasonably suspects" that that you have committed, are committing, will commit, or have witnessed the commission of violent felony, is permitted to stop you and ask for your name, address and date of birth, and it is a crime to refuse to provide that information. R.C. 2921.29. But at the moment the officer asks you to stop, you're in a tricky position. If you haven't done anything wrong, you'd be inclined to think that the officer has no basis to stop you and that you're justified in walking away. But if someone just called the police and said someone fitting your description just robbed a store two blocks away, the officer has reasonable suspicion that you committed a violent felony, but you have no way of knowing that. This sort of thing happens pretty much all the time. In the absence of that reasonable suspicion, though, Ohio courts have repeatedly held that it is not obstruction for you to just walk away (or even run!) from the officer. Can the police detain you for walking away? Obviously, if you're in a situation where it is a crime to not answer questions, the police can detain you because they just watched you break the law. But what about when you're within your rights not to answer? The police can still detain you with a Terry stop when they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that you are committing a crime, or that you just did, or that you're about to. And they can continue that Terry stop until that suspicion is confirmed or dispelled, or until they can't reasonably expect to get anymore information by detaining you. Based on the facts you described, it seems unlikely that they could legally detain you based on your termination of the conversation. Still, I imagine that there could be circumstances where they might stop someone, ask questions, and then reasonably suspect that the person was engaged in a crime based on his decision to walk away, especially if the person hasn't explicitly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence.
This varies depending on the specific law of the state or locality involved. In New York, the word &quot;POSTED&quot;, along with the name and address of the owner is sufficient to notify people not to intrude, and anyone ignoring such a sign is technically trespassing (although, in practice, if such a person leaves the property when asked, did no damage, and appeared honestly ignorant, it is likely that no legal action would be taken). In California, as specified by penal code section 553 (quoted in the linked answer) a sign for this purpose must include: the words “trespassing-loitering forbidden by law,” or words describing the use of the property followed by the words “no trespassing.” in letters at least two inches tall, and follow other specifications in the law. The word &quot;Posted&quot; is neither required nor sufficient, although the law calls land with such signs &quot;posted property&quot;.
Under U.S. law the prosecution must prove that the defendant committed a particular crime beyond a reasonable doubt. So, it is not sufficient to prove that someone committed one of three crimes without proving which one it was. an alternative that I thought of later: someone is found somewhere where they can legally be, but in a situation where the only way they could have gotten there would involve trespassing through one of several properties owned by different people. Since the crime of trespassing requires the prosecution merely to show that someone was on the property of another without legal authorization to do so, it might be possible to prove this crime beyond a reasonable doubt without showing precisely which property was crossed, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was a split of authority among U.S. states on this question.
Your rights notwithstanding, the government has the power to do such things under appropriate circumstances. First, you would have to be in violation of some ordinance, for instance in Columbus OH you are a violator if the grass is over 12". This should generate a notice informing you what the issue is and giving a deadline for remedy. If you don't comply by the deadline, they are then empowered to send out guys with tools, and the city will bill you for the work. You could call them and ask what the deal is. They might say "We put the notice on your gate", or "we mailed it to you". From a legal POV, the onus is on them to be sure that you're notified. It would be a good idea to verify that this isn't a scam. [Addendum] Bryan TX kindly provides a video about code enforcement, and gives a link where you can go directly to the section of interest (starting 0:43). Your description of the situation is at variance with what they say is the law (12"; 7 day advance notice whereafter they will correct the violation. They also say no notice is required for second violation within a year; $100 administration fee added to costs; lien will be placed on property if unpaid). I assume that your back yard is publicly visible: they recognize that "when the area observed is plainly visible, from a vantage point where the Code Officer has the right to be there, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy". That could include visible from a neighbor's property if the inspector has permission from the neighbor to be there. Otherwise, there's a simmering 4th Amendment problem (assuming that they didn't get a search warrant).
&quot;Revenge&quot; is not a legal concept. If you injure someone other than in self defence or for another legal reason than you are committing assault. Hence dangerous booby traps for trespassers are illegal, so anything that might cause injury, however minor, is definitely out. That includes itching powder. However I would make an analogy with anti-climb paint. This allows you to use a paint that damages clothing provided you put up warning signs. So if you were to leave a parcel coated with anti-climb paint or containing a bag of paint or glitter rigged to spill it over the person opening it then that would be legal as long as there was a warning that tampering may cause property damage. (Note &quot;spill&quot;, not &quot;squirt&quot; or &quot;splash&quot;: anything ejecting paint or glitter under pressure might get it in someone's eyes, causing injury). So your friend could put a notice up saying that unauthorised tampering with parcels could cause damage to property and then put out parcels that might do exactly that. Your friend could also put a GPS tracker in a parcel to try to find out where they are going. Update Here is someone who did this. The BBC story does not mention any legal issues for him. A former Nasa [sic] engineer spent six months building a glitter bomb trap to trick thieves after some parcels were stolen from his doorstep. The device, hidden in an Apple Homepod box, used four smartphones, a circuit board and 1lb (453g) of glitter. Mark Rober, who is now a Youtuber, caught the original thieves on his home security camera. [...] The former Nasa engineer said: &quot;If anyone was going to make a revenge bait package and over-engineer the crap out of it, it was going to be me.&quot;
The statement that cats cannot commit trespass is technically true, but is also a misreading of ss.4 and 4A of the Animals Act. Those sections replace a common-law doctrine called &quot;cattle trespass&quot;, which was a specific tort (a civil wrong) concerning what happens when my cattle stray onto your land. Both old and new rules apply only to livestock, so not just cows but other kinds of farm animals as well - but not to dogs or cats. Horses are a special case (s.4A). Since cats are not livestock, they cannot be the subject of cattle trespass and are not covered by section 4. Further, since they are animals, they cannot commit the tort of trespass at all. Animals themselves are not liable at law. As the keeper of cows, it would be me who was liable in a case of cattle trespass, not the cow. The point of s.4, and its predecessor in common law, is to make me liable for damage done to your property by my cows, regardless of whether I was negligent in the way I looked after them (it is a &quot;strict liability&quot;). The mere fact that they've strayed onto your land and done damage is enough. Because cats are not cows, this particular rule does not apply. That does not mean that cats can't be the subject of other torts. In particular, cats could be involved in the tort of nuisance, which covers all sorts of potential scenarios - noise, smells, etc. This has typically happened when there are lots and lots of cats. And under the Animals Act, the keeper of any animal may be liable for damage that it does, including physical injury or damage to property. Section 2 of the Act establishes a statutory distinction between whether I am liable for the damage, or strictly liable. In a scenario where I am strictly liable, you do not have to prove that I was negligent in my management of the animal. Broadly, that applies if the animal belongs to a dangerous species, or is unusually dangerous in itself. (There has been very complex litigation on this point which I am not discussing here.) If my cat is not a real vicious bastard of a cat, but just a regular cat, then I can still be liable for damage that he does: it's just not automatic. Following Rachael Mulheron's Principles of Tort Law (CUP, 2nd ed., 2016), for an action in negligence there are several key points - Proving that D, the owner/keeper of an animal, owed C a duty of care, where C was injured by that animal, has been a straightforward task. The court must be satisfied that a reasonable person in the position of D, the keeper of the animal, would foresee a real risk of injury to C arising from D's particular acts or omissions in dealing with the animal. Otherwise, in the absence of that foreseeability, a reasonable D would have done nothing different in response to the risk posed by his animal. To fall below the standard of reasonable care as a keeper of an animal, D must have failed to do that which a reasonable keeper would have done (to supervise/fence/control, etc, the animal), or have done something which a reasonable keeper would not have done. In damage-by-animals cases, C must prove that, as in the usual negligence action, D's failure to supervise/handle/care for the animals caused C's injury on the balance of probabilities. As in other negligence cases, there are various defences; if you hassled my cat and it scratched you, then that's your fault and not mine. From the material quoted above, we can see that for a normal cat in the UK, where the owner is not doing anything unusual by letting it roam freely outdoors (as is typical for UK cats), it is going to be hard to meet the tests. Things may be different if D knows that C is allergic to cats, or that the cat has been eyeing up C's delicious prize goldfish, or has a bone to pick with D's own cat and is likely to attack her, or something. Most of the big cases under the Animals Act have involved animals who are more likely to cause damage, such as dogs, horses and cows; a cat is only legally different because (1) unlike for dogs, horses and cows, there are no special rules applying to cats, and (2) factually, most cats don't do much harm. To that point, even if D is liable in the way described, C may not get very much out of them by way of damages. Defecation in C's garden is not pleasant, but is probably not worth a lot of money either.
The ordinance is not very specific about how notice is to be given: therefore, it need not be in writing, and it need not be sent by mail. It would not be surprising if the "notification" came in the form of a city person inspecting the reported obstruction, walking up to the house and knocking and finding nobody home (thus triggering the "In case the owner cannot be found" condition), whereupon the city removes the rocks. That clause does not mean "In case we do not know who the owner is", it almost certainly means "in case the owner cannot be contacted immediately". Article III is in general about obstructions on streets, which are not allowed, except by permit in section 78 under "Permit to Obstruct Traffic Lane". Assuming that no obstruction permit was obtained, what usually happens is that an officer is sent to tell the owner to remove the obstruction (more or less immediately), and if nobody is at the site whom they can tell, they probably won't go any further (e.g. asking neighbors where the owner is). There is no legal definition of "reasonable time", instead the law simply takes that to mean "the amount of time a reasonable person would require". It would thus depend particularly on the size of the obstruction and the volume of traffic. One measure would be how quickly the rocks were moved -- if it was a matter of days and there was no notice, written or otherwise, then there would not be the kind of urgency that might justify the "We knocked and nobody was home" version of notification.