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Comment by saboot | Hacker News Reader

I see it has listed a fruit tree in my yard... Is there a way to revoke that? I've given permission to my neighbors to pick as long as they knock, not to randoms.

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Around 2000-2001 I rented a house in the small town where I grew up, and there was a plum tree in the yard. I mentioned to the landlord that I had been approached by the neighborhood kids asking if they could harvest from the tree, and the landlord said he had no problem with it if I didn't mind (that was his arrangement with the last renter).

Kudos to the kids for asking first, and at first I didn't mind, but they ended up climbing on my pickup truck parked near the tree (the only place to park it) and dented the hood and roof in several places. After I showed them the damage and asked them not to climb on my truck, I had a gaggle of neighborhood moms beating my door down to tell me how much of a prick I was to forbid their children from climbing my truck to get to the tree. I ended up having to call the cops to have them removed.

When the landlord found out I called the cops on them, he took their side and asked me to find another place to live (I wasn't under a lease, it was a month to month rental agreement).

I'm a homeowner now, in a house that is not in a neighborhood specifically so I can avoid incidents where people feel they have a right to invade my space and damage my property. Again, I'd have no problem if I had a fruit tree in my yard today and people walking past wanted to get a bite to eat as long as they are courteous about it, but mob mentality is not something I'm comfortable with.

I recall a reasonably similar incident when I was a kid, where we were taking fruit, with permission, from a farmer's trees and setting up a little roadside table to sell it from. We damaged his fence and he told us to screw off. I ran home and complained to my father, who said, "Yeah, that's not right at all, I'll talk to him." I thought I was golden and that mean old guy was gonna get what was coming to him. It was only the next morning when my dad sent me back off to that farm that I learned he wasn't telling the farmer off, he was telling the farmer we'd be back to work the fields for a day to pay him back for being little shits.

And your dad did you a huge solid in the long-run.

This is insane. I can't imagine my kids going into someone's private property, climbing on their car, and then somehow defending them.

Do people not teach their kids manners anymore? Or the idea that you aren't the center of the world? Or that when you touch, climb, etc someone else's property, you always ask first, and if the answer is no, then so be it?

When I was a kid growing up in the same town (different neighborhood), we would play hide and seek and similar games in the back yards of all the houses on our street except the one couple who didn’t have kids and asked us not to. We had no problem respecting their property, as we had plenty of other yards to play in.

I think it was mostly a “how dare this stranger tell our kids what to do” situation as the previous renter had apparently never had issues with the kids in his yard. I didn’t either until they damaged my truck, and I didn’t expect that kind of reaction from the parents. It sucked but it was a good life lesson.

A free repair estimate from a body shop could have easily been over a couple thousand dollars. Even if you weren't seeking compensation, the quantified proof of damages can go a long way towards helping other adults realize that you were not just being a prick about it. I wonder how the landlord would have felt about covering that repair bill if you agreed to let the kids back into your yard?

Sounds like half the story. It'd be interesting to hear the other half.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at, that is what happened. The only thing to add is that a few years later I noticed the house had been torn down and all the trees and bushes cleared off the lot. I have no idea of the circumstances surrounding that.

I'm just guessing the talk with the kids might have gone a little different than what was recounted. Sounds all rational and even-tempered. Perhaps some scolding or yelling was involved. We always remember ourselves as being perfectly polite in recounting stories.

Some parents are ready to fight you if you merely talk to their kids. Even more if you touch them -- like when you take away the chef's knife from the unattended five year old waving it around in the store.

Also, if a story was miscommunicated I imagine it was the kids talking to their parents: "Everything was normal until this old guy flipped out." They probably never mentioned the dented hood and by the time the parents get over there they had already made up their minds.

As a strategy against these kind of kids and people, I recommend bypassing. Do not talk to the kids. Take pictures, go to the parents directly.

No, it was pretty straightforward “hey I told you guys you could pick plums but I never said you could climb on my truck. Now it’s dented and I’ll have to fix it, so I’m not going to let you pick plums anymore”. I mean it was nearly 20 years ago so that’s paraphrasing, but that’s the tone I used.

Someone who went out of their way to ask permission from their landlord, before letting kids in to pick fruit, might well be a modern day Mr. Rogers.

Not at all, it was more that the tree didn’t belong to me so I made sure the landlord was aware of the kids’ request, and that’s when he told me the previous tenant and he had allowed it. I was mostly worried about liability (kid falls and the parents sue me).

Yeah, I'm with you. I can believe parents being upset and irrational, but it seems odd that the landlord sided with them. There is information missing from this recounting of events.

That sounds less about your fruit trees or your truck, and more about your trashy neighbors looking at you as lower status, perhaps because you were a renter, or childless, or the way you look.

I don't think it was that, to me, it sounds like much the same entitlement thinking that is sweeping most of the developed world these days.

"Aren't I entitled to your stuff? Aren't I entitled to have everything done my way? How dare you try to do things your way with your stuff?"

I saw a post on NextDoor where a woman was complaining that a retired couple had asked her not to let her dog poop on their yard. She expected them to put up a fence to keep her dog out. Apparently being asked was not only not enough but also an affront. She called them “entitled” because they drove a Mercedes and had a house.

I wasn’t sure whether this was the group, but based in your comment I think it is.

I browsed through their Portland map at length and was disappointed to see how many listings there were in private property where the commenters were clearly not the owners.

This is trespassing, and theft. My landlord years back planted an Asian pear and I don’t think she ever got a single piece of fruit because someone cleared the whole tree two years running. It was by the porch, up a decent flight of steps, not on the sidewalk.

Don’t be an asshole. Don’t do this, and don’t put up with people inciting others to theft.

If you notice a neighbor isn’t picking their fruit at all, talk to City Fruit or a similar group, and they will approach them about getting permission to glean. Then everybody wins, including the local food bank.

Yup, anybody could have free fruits without the hassles of buying the trees, chopping it and buying the correct variety for their climate three years later, spending hours pruning, good money paying for water, disease treatments and garden accessories; and then waiting for 3-10 years. Just trash other's property with the help of technology!.

You can complete your diet with free pizza and candies in the same street if you bring your own brick; Don't forget to take a free plasma TV for the return to home.

My approach would be to put a sign on the tree - “Tree has been treated with pesticides, fruit is not safe to eat”.

This is a reason i don’t eat random fruit off of trees. Pests are a big problem with fruit trees and I have no idea if it was just sprayed yesterday.

It's somewhat amusing when you rediscover the tragedy of the commons and the idea of scarcity by providing free access to your fruit tree.

There is some problem beyond tragedy of the commons, though. There are some people who seem to gratuitously trash things which are free even when it costs them little to nothing. They'll break branches to get free fruit. They'll stomp through a flowerbed instead of walking 5 feet around. They'll consider anything else they find laying around to also be free.

I put a tv on craigslist for free. I take every offer in the order it arrives and communicate with everyone. The 2nd person (within 30 minutes of posting) is unhappy that I'm waiting to confirm with the first and swears up and down at me. I've found that free listings really bring out the nutjobs.

You could try their feedback email [0], but it looks like most of the data is being sourced from other datasets, so your problem likely lies with one of them.

[0] feedback@fallingfruit.org

This seems to be a good website to advertise for trained dogs :)

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