Off-grid New Hampshire man jailed for refusing to vacate cabin of 27 years

[Lennie]

Off-grid New Hampshire man jailed for refusing to vacate cabin of 27 years | New Hampshire | The Guardian

Landowner wants ‘River Dave’ Lidstone out, but 81-year-old squatter says he’d rather sit in jail ‘til I rot’

amp.theguardian.com

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[Mikej]

I wish somehow this story never came to light. How wonderful for the outdoorsmen that happened on this old guy when they were enjoying the outdoors. I hope this fades away in the media and River Dave gets to finish his life the way he likes it. IF, it were my property I'd just let him lay where he was.

I remember a buddy and I met an old guy living in the forest up near the High Uinta's Wilderness and head waters of the Provo River, in Utah. he claimed to be a gold miner/treasure hunter. He called himself "The Mad Russian". 'Cept this guy was kind of creepy, and paranoid.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Been following this on another forum.

As far as we know..

The private property is a source of income for the 86 year old landowner.
The town came after the aforementioned landowner for illegal building and so forth.
The 81 year old squatter (yeah, I said what I said.) Had been living there without paying anything, using timber for firewood, building without permits/permission, and on someone else's land. He also had not been paying taxes on the property. If he had permission from a previous owner, its meaningless because the current owner is liable and the one for the town to go after.
4 years ago the squatter was asked/served to vacate, and he hasn't.
The only recourse for both the landowner and the town was to arrest the squatter.

Edit. All this could have been avoided 27+years ago if the squatter had bought his own plot of land and did it himself and paid the taxes and permits and all that. But nope. He did this on someone else's land, using someone else's timber, and left the landowner on the hook

 

[Bob D]

Found it!

https://www.google.com/maps/place/43%C2%B018'43.0%22N+71%C2%B035'35.4%22W

 

[CountryGent]

Sorry, don't have much sympathy for the squatter on this one. It is not his property, nor is anything on said his, and he hasn't paid a dime towards the maintenance for almost three decades. He was told to leave years ago, which gave him ample time to make other living arrangements, but he didn't move. Candidly, I would have had far less patience than the landowner did.

 

[Mikej]

Okay. Put him a way and leave him there. It's the law after all. Or better yet, put him in a retirement home of some kind and let the tax payers foot the bill. He probably wouldn't last long so the bill would me minimal. It'll all work out in the end.

 

[Alexx1401]

Sorry, don't have much sympathy for the squatter on this one. It is not his property, nor is anything on said his, and he hasn't paid a dime towards the maintenance for almost three decades. He was told to leave years ago, which gave him ample time to make other living arrangements, but he didn't move. Candidly, I would have had far less patience than the landowner did.

I have to totally agree. When I first "heard" this I did not want to bother to read and it and "sounded", heavy handed. Then after the one poster here (thank you @CamoDeafie gave a "Cliff Notes" version I feel fine with them removing him. If it was my property? I would have done the same. Give the lawyers and all? If someone knew he was there and did nothing I could see someone wanting the owner to pay of course when something happened. You can't just move onto someone else's property, which they paid for, and pay taxes on, then just act like its all yours to use as you see fit.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Okay. Put him a way and leave him there. It's the law after all. Or better yet, put him in a retirement home of some kind and let the tax payers foot the bill. He probably wouldn't last long so the bill would me minimal. It'll all work out in the end.

Buy a rv/camper van, drop him off in the National Forests or Bureau Land Management lands to camp, and move every 2 weeks or 21 days (can't remember which), make him pay for campfire wood harvesting. Lots of permanent campers did that for a long while.

 

[mrblond]

would he not have squatters rights?

did not read the article but I remember a few years back some city had to kick a homeless guy from the capitol cause he had spent every night for almost 3 years sleeping on the capitol steps and another few days he would have had squatters rights there.

 

[CamoDeafie]

would he not have squatters rights?

did not read the article but I remember a few years back some city had to kick a homeless guy from the capitol cause he had spent every night for almost 3 years sleeping on the capitol steps and another few days he would have had squatters rights there.

Depends on State and local. I don't believe the property in question was residential coded if its income for the owner (timber parcel?)

 

[WAW44]

would he not have squatters rights?

did not read the article but I remember a few years back some city had to kick a homeless guy from the capitol cause he had spent every night for almost 3 years sleeping on the capitol steps and another few days he would have had squatters rights there.

Not necessarily. NH has some specific elements to adverse possession:

- the use must be adverse (without permission and hostile to the owner's interests);
- it must be notorious (the owner has had notice of the use);
-it must be continuous and uninterrupted;
- it must be exclusive (not in common with neighbors, or others)
- it must be for a period of at least 20 years as defined in the statute of limitations for the recovery of real property

The squatter probably fails on one or both of the first two elements when combined with the 20 year requirement. If the owner did give him permission long ago, and only removed it in 2017, then he has only 4 years in adverse possession. Also, it's unknown if the current owner knew anything about this guy prior to 2016, so second element may only have run 5 years if there was no permission given.

Nope, law is not on the squatters side.

 

[albin25]

Maybe the he thinks that the CDC decreed he couldn't be evicted?

 

[Lennie]

Palantir CEO gives $180,000 to New Hampshire river hermit whose home burned down

Palantir Technologies CEO Alexander Karp donated $180,000 to a New Hampshire hermit after the cabin he was living in burned down while he was in jail.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Flopsweat]

I wish somehow this story never came to light. How wonderful for the outdoorsmen that happened on this old guy when they were enjoying the outdoors. I hope this fades away in the media and River Dave gets to finish his life the way he likes it. IF, it were my property I'd just let him lay where he was.

I remember a buddy and I met an old guy living in the forest up near the High Uinta's Wilderness and head waters of the Provo River, in Utah. he claimed to be a gold miner/treasure hunter. He called himself "The Mad Russian". 'Cept this guy was kind of creepy, and paranoid.

It can go worse. A friend of mine found a squatter camped out in his storage container. The guy had managed to defeat a fairly expensive lock and had set up homesteading, including cooking and a makeshift toilet, inside. He tried to be nice about it but eventually the police had to be called. Less than a week later, the container was broken into again and set fire to. Tens of thousands of dollars in property was destroyed because some hobo got his panties in a bunch.