A Kentucky landowner’s family said their dad owned 40 acres outside city limits, and the property was not some unmarked patch of woods where a person could reasonably claim they did not know better.
There were more than 300 private property and no-trespassing signs posted around the perimeter.
Still, according to the family’s Reddit post, the neighbor kids kept showing up on the land again and again. The property was used for hunting, and hunting season was coming up fast. That turned what might have been an ordinary trespassing issue into a serious safety concern.
The poster explained that until recently, there had not been homes in the area near the land. Then a nearby property was sold, and the new owners moved onto it in an RV with their children.
After that, the dad started finding the kids out in the woods on his property.
Not once. Not twice. Nine times in two weeks.
He walked the property daily with his dogs, so he kept catching them out there. He had already spoken to their parents four separate times. The sheriff had also gone out to talk to the family twice. None of it stopped the kids from coming back.
The parents’ response made the situation worse. According to the poster, they brushed it off as “kids will be kids” and said if the dad did not want people accessing the property, he should build a better fence.
That kind of answer would make any rural landowner mad. Fencing 40 acres is not cheap, and a property owner should not have to build a fortress around land already marked with hundreds of no-trespassing signs just to keep children from wandering into hunting woods.
The dad also warned them that the land was used for hunting and that their kids needed to stay out for their own safety. Instead of taking that seriously, the parents turned it back on him. According to the post, they said they would “have his head on a golden stake” if one of their kids got hurt.
That put the dad in an impossible position. He did not want kids on the land. He had warned the parents. The sheriff had warned them. The signs were everywhere. But the parents were still acting like the responsibility belonged entirely to him if their children wandered onto posted hunting land and something happened.
The family’s biggest concern was timing. Hunting season was about to start, and they needed the land clear of roaming children before anyone hunted it. That is not a small issue. Hunters are responsible for knowing their target and what is beyond it, but a child wandering through posted woods creates a nightmare scenario for everyone involved.
The family was not looking for a way to scare the kids or start a fight. They wanted to know what else they could do before the situation became dangerous. The dad planned to talk to the sheriff again the next day, but the poster wanted advice in the meantime.
Commenters treated the situation seriously. The repeated warning was that this was not about being mean to children. It was about keeping them alive despite parents who were refusing to take the risk seriously.
Several people told the poster to ask the sheriff about issuing a written trespass warning. The point was to create a clear record that the family had been told to stay off the property. If the children came back after that, the parents could potentially face consequences instead of continuing to shrug it off.
Others said the dad needed a paper trail every time the kids were found on the land. Call the sheriff. Document the date. Take photos if possible. Keep records of every conversation. If the parents later tried to blame the landowner for something, the family needed proof that they had repeatedly warned everyone and tried to stop it.
Trail cameras came up too. Commenters suggested placing cameras where the children had been entering or playing, preferably mounted high enough that the kids could not easily grab them. One person recommended positioning a no-trespassing sign in view of the camera so any footage clearly showed that the kids were passing posted warnings.
Some commenters also suggested calling child protective services. That was not framed as revenge. It was framed as a safety issue. The parents had been told that their kids were repeatedly wandering onto land used for hunting, and they still were not stopping it. To some commenters, that crossed from loose parenting into reckless disregard for the children’s safety.
The whole situation was ugly because the dad was trying to prevent exactly the kind of accident nobody can undo. The parents were acting like a better fence would solve it, but the land already had signs everywhere. The problem was not that the kids had no warning. The problem was that the adults responsible for them were not taking the warnings seriously.
And with hunting season almost there, the family did not have the luxury of waiting for the kids to outgrow it.
Commenters overwhelmingly told the family to escalate through official channels instead of relying on more neighbor conversations. Several said the dad should ask the sheriff for a written trespass warning so the parents could no longer claim they had not been clearly told.
A lot of people focused on documentation. They recommended calling the sheriff every single time the kids were found on the property, even if it felt repetitive. The goal was to build a record showing the landowner had tried again and again to keep the children off posted hunting land.
Trail cameras were another common suggestion. Commenters said to place them near the entry points, mount them high enough that the kids could not easily take them, and try to capture signs in the frame so the trespass was obvious.
Several commenters said child protective services may need to be notified if the parents kept letting the kids roam onto hunting property after repeated warnings. Their reasoning was blunt: the kids were being put in danger, and the parents were refusing to stop it.
Others reminded the family that hunters still had to follow basic firearm safety rules no matter how wrong the parents were. Be sure of the target and what is beyond it. Do not assume the woods are empty. If the kids were still wandering through, the safest hunt might be no hunt until authorities forced the issue.
The practical advice was to stop treating it as a neighbor misunderstanding and start treating it as a documented safety problem. The signs were up, the warnings had been given, and the sheriff had already been involved. Now the family needed an official paper trail before hunting season made the risk even worse.
