Unwanted Guest

[pop pop]

My driveway alarm activated at 4:20 A M this morning. Got up and walked to the front door and viewed auto taillights exiting my circle driveway. It was an older large car. My drive is 300' off the road and one cannot see the circle from the road. One way in and one way out, with circle at the top of the slight elevated hill. Had to be someone intending to come back here. Unnerving guys. Turned on outdoor flood lights and sit up watching. I had a prowler a few years back and I have lit up the outside of my house really well. I don't keep all of them on but have several plus a streetlight on at all times. I am thankful I installed the driveway alarm a couple years ago. They were having prowlers looking for Xmas presents stored in car sitting in driveways on Xmas Eve in my area so I purchased the D alarm from Amazon. 

[TripleGGG]

Not many good things happen at 4am. Stay vigilant. 

[Darrell]

I, too, have a long driveway, about the same length as yours. I installed a solar powered gate out at the entrance, and it works well for me. I open it first thing in the morning, and close it at dusk. So far the only unwanted guests have been solicitors and Seventh Day Adventists. Knock on wood.

[RED333]

Drive way alarm here as well, you can not see my house from the road, drive is just short of 3/10 of a mile.

8 minutes ago, TripleGGG said:

Not many good things happen at 4am. Stay vigilant. 

LEO told me years ago that drunks and no good out past 11:00 PM. I worked for a company that had the trucks tag put into a data base, with permission to pull over by LEO after 10:00 PM. I was working late, all good and I thanked the officer.

[10-Ring]

I had an event similar to this that resulted in me holding a couple of methheads at gun point for 20 minutes until the sheriff's dept showed up. (Calling them was a waste of everyone's time btw). Shortly after that we installed a gate with an electric opener. We could open it via control while coming and going and it had a key pad for trusted guests. That set up was worth it's weight in gold.

[DJTC45]

Like a few others have said put up some type of gate even if it's a plain one that you have to use a padlock and log chain. If that's not an option for you right now get a couple of game cameras or a security camera system that you yourself can install, at least with the game cameras you can get a picture of the car. It really sucks this day in age that you can't trust hardly anyone.

[pop pop]

Darrell, where did you purchase the gate. My drive would be perfect for a gate. We only have a 30' opening to leave the main road. We have a large roadside bank, 6' high, that runs the entire road frontage of our property and the one next door. A gate would stop people at the road. Thanks for suggestions. as I stated in opening post, quiet unnerving to us. 

[Darrell]

23 minutes ago, pop pop said:

Darrell, where did you purchase the gate

I bought the gate (steel, not cast iron) from a company called Alexco out of Seattle. I went with them only because I had two of their gates at my house in Washington before moving here five years ago. They seem to be good quality at a reasonable price, even with shipping. You'll have to touch up the paint once a year or so.  The openers are from Ghost Controls. I had the Aleko openers in WA, and was not happy with the quality, as they required frequent repair.  

Installation is pretty easy for one guy if you have a tractor or something to lift the gates into place. The one thing that I did wrong here was to pave the driveway before installing the gates. I should have run the operator cable under the pavement, but had to run it on top with rubber channels. Still, that acts as a speed bump.

Facebook has a few gates on offer, too.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Darrell

[Johnny Rotten]

Gates can be bought anywhere, chain link, steel, tube type. I suggest single gate, opener, exit wand, keypad to come in, I've had one for the past 20+ years, nobody comes in unexpected.

[Wheelgunner]

A gate is an excellent deterrent and the setup described above will dissuade most troublemakers. 

One of the best driveway setups I've seen was an iron double gate that opens inwards toward the house.  Park a truck laterally behind that and no one is driving through, period.

[Alleycat72]

I've had people stop in my driveway and pee. It's happened several times while I've been out. I've always ran up to them on the 4 wheeler and asked what they're doing then I stand there and watch. I've gone so far as walking around the car with them as they try to finish or put it away. Its almost all I can do to keep from laughing. Never had the same one twice. 

[TripleGGG]

Motion flood lights also help. 4 feet in on my driveway and it lights up enough that I can bring in a 747 for landing if needed. Also have them around other areas of the house as well. 

[Johnny Rotten]

This works too

 

[RED333]

Here in Wilson county it is a LOT of slab rock. You can not dig with out hitting some kind of rock, if lucky you can get by, most of the time the rock is at least 2 to 3 across and 6 inches thick. So getting power down to the places needed is gonna be to costly. Solar and battery are my options but there is a large cost there as well. My wife has wanted a gate for years. I tell her when, not if, it fails to open in the rain and she has to get out to open it I will never hear the end of the bitch-en, so no gate as of yet.

[BJB]

I have an alarm also. You can’t step on my property without it going off. 
 

sometimes I wish it had an off switch 

[Johnny Rotten]

3 hours ago, RED333 said:

Here in Wilson county it is a LOT of slab rock. You can not dig with out hitting some kind of rock, if lucky you can get by, most of the time the rock is at least 2 to 3 across and 6 inches thick. So getting power down to the places needed is gonna be to costly. Solar and battery are my options but there is a large cost there as well. My wife has wanted a gate for years. I tell her when, not if, it fails to open in the rain and she has to get out to open it I will never hear the end of the bitch-en, so no gate as of yet.

Solar isn't that expensive, $200 tops, you could use direct burial low voltage wire to, just depends how many times your gate cycles per day.

I ran 500' of 1/2" grey pipe, 3 spools of wire and brought 110v to opener because it was free, if it wasn't I would have done LV wire.

 

[Jeb48]

I have thought about a gate a few times.  This Spring I needed an ambulance at 4:30am, what do you do for emergency vehicles. 

I do have a driveway that would be easy to block with a gate. with a riven on one side and bank on the other side. Only way into the house without walking through the woods and up a steep hill.

[Darrell]

21 minutes ago, Jeb48 said:

what do you do for emergency vehicles. 

I spent 25 years as a volunteer fireman / EMT.  The fire department will take your gate off its hinges if necessary. There's also something called a "Knox Box" that you can look into. Your local FD may or may not subscribe to that service.

[10-Ring]

1 hour ago, Jeb48 said:

I have thought about a gate a few times.  This Spring I needed an ambulance at 4:30am, what do you do for emergency vehicles. 

I do have a driveway that would be easy to block with a gate. with a riven on one side and bank on the other side. Only way into the house without walking through the woods and up a steep hill.

Just set your gate up with the keypad, you can give the combination to EMS, or anyone else you want to for that matter.

[Garufa]

20 minutes ago, 10-Ring said:

Just set your gate up with the keypad, you can give the combination to EMS, or anyone else you want to for that matter.

Do you do that before or during a medical emergency?

[10-Ring]

21 minutes ago, Garufa said:

Do you do that before or during a medical emergency?

If you think that first responders are making any effort to break a time record getting to your emergency you are sadly mistaken. The 30 seconds it takes to get out and punch a code in isn't going to make a difference. Of course if you are that worried about it not having a gate at all of probably your best bet. 

[Johnny Rotten]

10 hours ago, Darrell said:

I spent 25 years as a volunteer fireman / EMT.  The fire department will take your gate off its hinges if necessary. There's also something called a "Knox Box" that you can look into. Your local FD may or may not subscribe to that service.

I had a fire on my property recently while my wife and I were at work, when I got the call, I worried about the FD pulling my fence down on my way home, found out the FD called the sheriff, and he pulled the pin on the opener and opened the gate.

[pop pop]

I have decided not to go with a gate. I have a 35' RV and it would make it almost impossible to turn the 5th wheel into my drive if I installed a gate. Just not enough room and I would be forced to move the gate so far up the drive it would not be feasible/effective without fencing the drive up to the gate. If this situation persists then I will need to take some kind of additional action. I do like the idea of a gate, but my wife says we get deliveries during the day, Amazon, Fed X, UPS, and Snail Mail, so we would need to leave it open during the day.  

It still puzzles me why this person circled my drive at 4:20 in the morning. I have been up every morning since and have had no other intrusions. Just puzzling. My wife says I am obsessed with this stuff. We will see! Glad I had the driveway alarm at any rate. At least I knew the car was in my drive at 4 in the morning. The alarm gave me prior warning and did its job. I too feel no good can come from nighttime prowlers. Just worrisome.