Rural B*&Bs - how keeping guests out of neighbors' land?

A thought on the place(s) we are trying to acquire for our B&B.
Both are rural. The new place that is first on our list (a former B&B), is < 1 acre. It is a nice location, and a beautiful stream about 100 feet downhill, but not part of our property. There are no buildings anywhere behind us, just the stream and forest. Not yet know who owns this.
For you rural B&B owners:
How do you encourage guests not to wander off the property?
I don't want to wind up with orange "No trespassing" signs newly slapped all over the boundary by annoyed neighbor - the trees/view are really nice.
I am a little concerned also about insurance issues.

Insurance - people will sue for whatever they want, your fault or not. Including you suggesting they try this or that destination. Get lots of insurance and don't worry about it any longer.
How about a nice line of shrubs at the boundary? We put in beach roses (in Vermont) to keep the neighbor kids from running thru our yard to each others houses. Looks pretty, spreads quickly, hurts like heck.
A nice, decorative split rail fence works to demarcate property lines.
We've had to tell guests to get their kids off our neighbor's swing set. They assumed we lived in that house so it was ok to let the rug rats loose in our personal space. Need to plant more roses.

plants. my favorite 'fence' is an alternating arborvitae and lilac. They spread out and fill in and they are beautiful in spring.
beach roses! brilliant!

We're a mom and pop motel, but a similar situation with the river (hardly more than a stream) a short distance behind the property, we have been asked the question "can we go to the river". I point out that I cannot give them permission as there are a couple of different property owners between me and the river, I may mention that there is a road/bridge over the river just down the road where I have seen folks play in the water, but again I cannot give them permission. If you don't advertise or promote the stream or some water activity I don't see why you should be responsible for the actions of your guests. Perhaps one of the guests with beach property could comment, if a guest has a problem at a public beach is it the problem of the lodging facility?

JimBoone said:

We're a mom and pop motel, but a similar situation with the river (hardly more than a stream) a short distance behind the property, we have been asked the question "can we go to the river". I point out that I cannot give them permission as there are a couple of different property owners between me and the river, I may mention that there is a road/bridge over the river just down the road where I have seen folks play in the water, but again I cannot give them permission. If you don't advertise or promote the stream or some water activity I don't see why you should be responsible for the actions of your guests. Perhaps one of the guests with beach property could comment, if a guest has a problem at a public beach is it the problem of the lodging facility?.

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anyone can sue over anything. But to your question, no. The beach is not part of our property or insurance.
However, if it is unclear where the property ends, I do think a vegetable or man made fence to clearly outline the property is a good idea.

We have fencing all around our property..or I should say the farmers around us do. No one ever tried to venture into the cow pasture...but they loved watching the cows...especially when a newborn comes along. That was an experience some of our guests got to "enjoy!"

EmptyNest said:

We have fencing all around our property..or I should say the farmers around us do. No one ever tried to venture into the cow pasture...but they loved watching the cows...especially when a newborn comes along. That was an experience some of our guests got to "enjoy!".

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And you get to look at that all day! It really is very relaxing.

Morticia said:

EmptyNest said:

We have fencing all around our property..or I should say the farmers around us do. No one ever tried to venture into the cow pasture...but they loved watching the cows...especially when a newborn comes along. That was an experience some of our guests got to "enjoy!".

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And you get to look at that all day! It really is very relaxing.
.

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Morticia said:

And you get to look at that all day! It really is very relaxing.

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My sister lives in rural California. Her neighbors have a camel, some alpacas, emus, ostriches, llamas. Really cool. All she has are dogs and chickens.

Delimit your property bounds with some sort of "fence," whether it be shrubs, roses, stone wall, split rail, or what-have-you -- something that is reasonably clear, guests OK on this side, not ok on the other side.... Take immediate and definitive steps to quash the development of any pathways from your property to the "attractant" off your property. If there is no obvious way to get there, guests may look but are unlikely to go.
For us our property is well bounded, on two sides by water, on a third side by the road, and on the fourth by dense woods with no obvious attractant that would induce our guests wanting to go over onto the neighboring property.

First, make friends with the neighbor. If it's just a piece of property and no one lives near, even better! We don't have a fence, but it's mostly wetlands around us and most of the year it's too swampy for guests to go too far astray. Many of our guests ask where our property ends, so they're thinking about where they can and can't go. A natural barrier as others have said is a great idea.

great ideas. I would want to be careful, because the lot is a continuation of a very attractive forest going down to the stream and woodlands.
Plant-wise, I would not want a large hedge to block the view in any way, so maybe some obvious groundcover like ferns or something native to that area. A low fence consistent with this setting is also interesting. No way to those cheapy plastic "white picket" fences at Lowes!!!
I want any boundary to blend in, yet make someone think "gee, maybe I shouldn't cross this!"

We are in a rural location next to a nut farm. It too has an allure that we like. I guess it would depend on the neighbor and that is where we began. Approach the neighbor BEFORE you buy and get to know them. Find out how they feel about it. What ended up happening for us was that we would tell people what kind of trees were next door and then, if they were interested, we would offer to take them over to have a look when they have some time. I know that is a little different since you aren't going to be walking folks down to the river all the time, but the point is to work with your neighbor early on and see where it goes.

happykeeper said:

We are in a rural location next to a nut farm. It too has an allure that we like. I guess it would depend on the neighbor and that is where we began. Approach the neighbor BEFORE you buy and get to know them. Find out how they feel about it. What ended up happening for us was that we would tell people what kind of trees were next door and then, if they were interested, we would offer to take them over to have a look when they have some time. I know that is a little different since you aren't going to be walking folks down to the river all the time, but the point is to work with your neighbor early on and see where it goes..

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Behind the house is forest down to the stream, and to the side of this corner property is forest. No signs of ownership, buildings or development.
So someone owns it (maybe even be govt owned). My buyer's broker is in process of digging up tax maps, that might illuminate. But again, I want to be proactive and dissuade trespassing, even if I can never really find or talk to owners...
Just looked at it the first down last week, and again tonight.

undersea said:

happykeeper said:

We are in a rural location next to a nut farm. It too has an allure that we like. I guess it would depend on the neighbor and that is where we began. Approach the neighbor BEFORE you buy and get to know them. Find out how they feel about it. What ended up happening for us was that we would tell people what kind of trees were next door and then, if they were interested, we would offer to take them over to have a look when they have some time. I know that is a little different since you aren't going to be walking folks down to the river all the time, but the point is to work with your neighbor early on and see where it goes..

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Behind the house is forest down to the stream, and to the side of this corner property is forest. No signs of ownership, buildings or development.
So someone owns it (maybe even be govt owned). My buyer's broker is in process of digging up tax maps, that might illuminate. But again, I want to be proactive and dissuade trespassing, even if I can never really find or talk to owners...
Just looked at it the first down last week, and again tonight.
.

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I can certainly understand the concern about trespassing, but from a business point of view, if it were us, we would want to know if that had any potential as an unexpected amenity of sorts. While your business has to be respectful and follow the rules, shutting it off from natural features that may be a marketable value that sets you apart from others without making the extra effort to locate and talk with the owner seems contrary to all of the careful planning you are doing to get ready.
Some added context- We just had dinner with some good friends last night and they made a comment about how we had worked so hard to create a destination in a rural setting that had little tourism previously. We were reminded that each and every advantage or unique feature is important to the overall long term development of our business.

undersea said:

happykeeper said:

We are in a rural location next to a nut farm. It too has an allure that we like. I guess it would depend on the neighbor and that is where we began. Approach the neighbor BEFORE you buy and get to know them. Find out how they feel about it. What ended up happening for us was that we would tell people what kind of trees were next door and then, if they were interested, we would offer to take them over to have a look when they have some time. I know that is a little different since you aren't going to be walking folks down to the river all the time, but the point is to work with your neighbor early on and see where it goes..

Click to expand...

Behind the house is forest down to the stream, and to the side of this corner property is forest. No signs of ownership, buildings or development.
So someone owns it (maybe even be govt owned). My buyer's broker is in process of digging up tax maps, that might illuminate. But again, I want to be proactive and dissuade trespassing, even if I can never really find or talk to owners...
Just looked at it the first down last week, and again tonight.
.

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You definitely want to do "due diligence" on the property. Head to the county records and check out plat maps etc. It may look lovely now...but who know..if could have been a toxic waste dump ages ago...that has happened to people I know in Northern VA.

We live in the middle of a National Park so we encourage our guests to walk the paths in the area, cautioning them about the dangers (ticks mostly). The bonus is that our property gets the same wide variety of wildlife: deer, wild turkeys, fox, coyotes, rabbits and many birds and shares the views that stretch from our property, over the park's fields and out to the ocean.
The negative part is keeping the tourists from wandering into our property from the park. You may need to put up a fence or allow the boarder to fill in with growth....we have done both with some success. But there are other location along our long boarder with the park where we have had to post signs to keep the wandering tourist out...or in your case, to keep your guests from wandering out.

Our neighbor has a wonderful pond that you can see from our property. Our guest have asked about going fishing there. I simply say we can look but we can't touch. Our guest seem to ask about where our property starts and ends.Have had no problems.

I am the first one to admit that if you are in a rural area I would want to wander...
I wouldn't climb fences, but I would gawk over the fence and pet the horses (I just did this last night on a walk - hey the horse ran over to me so I had to!)

Joey Bloggs said:

I am the first one to admit that if you are in a rural area I would want to wander...
I wouldn't climb fences, but I would gawk over the fence and pet the horses (I just did this last night on a walk - hey the horse ran over to me so I had to!).

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Joey Bloggs said:

I am the first one to admit that if you are in a rural area I would want to wander...
I wouldn't climb fences, but I would gawk over the fence and pet the horses (I just did this last night on a walk - hey the horse ran over to me so I had to!)

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Come on up. I will supply the carrots. Punjab sees my car and comes over to the fence.

I have never had any problems at all with this. BUT saying this the nice things are all on my property. What you could do is mark the boundary fence in a way....
For example I have star posts so I could purchase the little white caps and white horse top wire....just make it more obvious.
Also you could get a small car door magnet from VISTAPRINT and put it on the fridge door. Have a map done by a Fiverr (gotta love the micro job sites) and explain the boundaries.
Insurance isnt a worry - if a guest makes an error in judgement then it isn't your responibility. Saying that don't advertise what you don't own.....