Property Owner Says a Neighbor Is Giving Hunters Permission to Use Land She Does Not Own

A North Carolina property owner said a hunting dispute with a neighbor had reached the point where he did not know what else to do.

According to the Reddit post, the man and his wife bought a home with two lots. One was their home lot inside city limits. The other was a wooded back lot in the county. It was not huge, but it was theirs, and the poster said he had been working on it for wildlife and conservation.

Then he found signs that someone else was treating that back lot like hunting ground.

The property owner explained the situation in a Reddit thread and asked how to keep the neighbor and anyone she invited off his land: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/18fbsmw/neighbor_trespassing_and_hunting_on_my_property_nc/

The first clue was a missing camera

The poster said he had a camera set up in the back lot to watch wildlife.

When he went back to change the batteries, he noticed the camera was gone. He also saw evidence that a climbing-style deer stand had been used in the same tree.

At first, he was not completely sure what had happened. It was dark, and he thought maybe he had gotten turned around. So he went back the next day to investigate.

That is when the situation became much clearer.

The poster said he found a man walking across his property in full camouflage. He asked the man what he was doing hunting there.

The hunter said he had permission

The hunter allegedly told the landowner he had been given permission by the owner of the woods to the west.

That was the problem. The property owner said the hunter was not in those woods. He was on the poster’s land.

According to the post, the hunter called the woman who owned the western woods. She reportedly said she had given him permission to hunt “all the way to the creek.” But the poster said the creek was his eastern property line, which meant the permission she gave covered land she did not own.

The property owner walked the hunter to the property line and showed him the corners. The hunter apologized and said he would not come back, while also denying that he took the missing camera.

For a moment, the poster thought that might be the end of it.

Then signs appeared on the wrong property

The next morning, the landowner woke up to find new “No Trespassing” and “No Hunting” signs nailed to trees along the dividing line between his front lot and back lot.

He believed those signs came from the same neighbor.

That made the situation even stranger. From the poster’s perspective, the neighbor was not just mistakenly giving a hunter access to the wrong land. She was now allegedly walking onto his land and posting signs as if it were hers.

The poster said the corners were clearly marked, he had a legal survey, he had purple paint on trees, and he already had his own no-trespassing signs up.

In other words, this was not a property line that only existed in someone’s imagination. He believed he had done the work to prove where the boundary was.

The neighbor allegedly did not care about the property line

One of the most frustrating details came later in the thread.

The poster said communication with the neighbor had been difficult before. He described past issues that turned into rumors around town and said attempts to talk with her usually went nowhere.

When the hunter called the neighbor to prove he had permission, the poster said he tried to explain that the man was on his land. According to the poster, the neighbor responded that she did not really know or care where the property lines were and told them to work it out themselves.

That line is what makes the story so maddening.

A boundary dispute can happen by mistake. But once someone is told the land belongs to someone else, shrugging it off and continuing to give permission becomes much harder to excuse.

The game warden and sheriff gave him different directions

The poster said he called the game warden, but was told that because there was no active violation in progress, he should call the sheriff.

Then he said the sheriff told him there was nothing they could do unless he caught someone actively trespassing with intent to harm or steal.

That left the landowner feeling stuck.

He believed someone had stolen his camera. He believed someone had hunted his land. He believed the neighbor was trespassing to post signs and giving out permission she had no right to give.

But without catching someone in the act, he was not getting the response he hoped for.

Commenters pushed hard for better camera evidence

A lot of commenters told him to put cameras back up, but to do it differently.

One person suggested using a very well-hidden camera pointed at a more obvious camera. Another said a cellular camera would help because it could send photos before anyone had a chance to steal the device.

That advice made sense for this kind of situation. If a regular SD-card camera disappears, the evidence disappears with it. A cellular camera may send the image before the trespasser even realizes it exists.

Other commenters suggested hidden trackers or extra precautions, but the general idea was the same: get proof before the next piece of equipment vanishes.

The poster was understandably hesitant because he had already lost one camera. Still, without evidence, the situation was hard to move forward.

A North Carolina commenter brought up purple paint

One commenter who identified as a North Carolina lawyer pointed the poster toward the state’s Landowner Protection Act and purple-paint marking rules.

That was important because the poster had already said he was using purple paint on trees along the edge of the property.

The commenter said the paint needs to be compliant and that law enforcement should be made aware of the law. They also said if someone is hunting on marked land without the right to be there or written permission, law enforcement may be able to cite or arrest that person.

That is exactly the kind of detail that matters in a hunting trespass situation. A sign can be torn down. A property line can be argued about. But properly marked land gives the owner another way to show that the area was not open for hunting.

Some said it may be time for a local attorney

Several commenters suggested the poster may need a real local attorney.

That advice came up because this was not only about one hunter. It involved a neighbor who allegedly believed the land was hers or was at least acting like it did not matter.

A lawyer could help the landowner send a formal letter, include survey documents, warn against future trespass, and create a cleaner paper trail.

One commenter suggested sending the property survey, legal description, and any aerial map or overlay by certified mail with a letter demanding that the trespassing stop. That kind of step would be useful if the dispute later ended up in court.

It also removes the “I did not know” excuse. Once someone receives the boundary information in writing, continuing to give others permission to use the land becomes much harder to defend.

The missing camera made everything worse

The poster could not prove who took the camera, and the hunter denied taking it.

But the timing made the whole situation feel worse. The camera was there, then it was gone, and the landowner found signs that someone had been using a climbing stand in the same tree.

That is the kind of thing that makes a property owner stop feeling neighborly. It is one thing to have someone accidentally cross a boundary. It is another to lose equipment while someone else is hunting where they should not be.

The thread showed why these disputes escalate so quickly. Once a camera disappears, every later visit feels more suspicious.

The real issue was control of the land

This was not just about deer hunting.

It was about who gets to decide what happens on private property. The poster owned the land, had it surveyed, marked it, and posted it. The neighbor allegedly kept acting like her permission reached across the boundary anyway.

That is a serious problem for any landowner.

If someone can give hunters access to land she does not own, then the actual owner loses control of safety, liability, wildlife management, and basic privacy.

The advice from commenters was not flashy, but it was practical: document everything, use hidden or cellular cameras, keep the land marked, involve the game warden when hunting is active, and consider a local attorney if the neighbor keeps treating the property line like a suggestion.