Spite Trampoline Removal Project

CrazyLarry

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I have a neighbor who put up a spite trampoline. (It's like a spite fence but it's a trampoline).

He knows I don't like annoying kids near my property and he did it a week after I told him so and it's the kind of neighbor he is.

The trampoline is on a slope, unanchored in a high wind area near several homes and it is constantly used unsupervised by many neighborhood toddlers (sometimes as many as 10 simultaneously). Mostly random kids from the neighborhood use it, like they would use a park.

I want to know specifically how you would have the spite trampoline removed if your neighbor owned it.

Because I've tried everything and I have OCD level of detail.

Police can't do anything. Child Protective Services can't do anything. No HOA. No City Ordinance violation.

However....

Insurance companies despise trampolines. I've researched for months and it appears that many homeowners insurance companies many times will drop a homeowners insurance policy in 30 days if it is brought to their attention that someone has a trampoline on their property. Many insurance companies flat out will not insure a home with a trampoline in the yard. According to some web research, as many as 9 out of 10 insurance companies will drop a policy if a trampoline is detected on the property.

I suspect this neighbor never called his insurance company to inform them of the trampoline and I suspect his insurance company is one that will drop his insurance in 30 days if notified of the trampoline.

So it turns out that home owners insurance information is one of the most protected pieces of information on the planet and it turns out that reporting an insurance negligence item such as this is difficult to do. (It's considered negligence and not fraud, so the insurance fraud lines are useless.)

What needs to happen is the insurance company needs to be notified so that their underwriters can send someone out to detect the trampoline and then enforce the 30 day rule (if his insurance company is one that will drop him after a 30 day warning).

However, contacting an underwriter of an insurance company that you don't know is impossible. So you could try to call the top 10 insurance companies and go that method, but when you call an insurance company directly, they won't be able to report it.

So, I'm curious what people could do to get the trampoline removed. Any ideas?

Note: A private investigator may be able to determine the exact insurance company (which is normally only discovered in a court case via discovery), but in order to do that, I would need to start a court case, which I don't want to do. I also want to do only things that are within the law.

I'm considering going the private investigator route, but even if I get the insurance company name, I'm not certain they would be able to do anything about it. It seems like a firewall that is in place to prevent people from reporting insurance negligence. It's rather odd, and annoying.
 
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fenderman

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This is just silly and not worth your time he will come up with something else. Wait a few months. A kid will get injured and he will be on the hook as the carrier will disclaim.
 

CrazyLarry

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This is just silly and not worth your time he will come up with something else. Wait a few months. A kid will get injured and he will be on the hook as the carrier will disclaim.
It's been there for 10 months and counting. Others in similar situations have waited years (and I don't want to wait years).

Sometimes those injuries just never occur, despite the trend of trampoline injuries reaching all time highs and more insurance carriers dropping coverage for them.

I agree after this he'll come up with something else, but this is the current challenge and I do not want to lose this one.
 

CrazyLarry

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Lol. You will survive with a trampoline near your property... I promise.
Possibly (I won't get into the health ramifications this has already had on me).

The trampoline is just one salvo in an ongoing war that never ends but this one in particular must have a solution.

It's not just the trampoline, but the trampoline causes other issues, i.e. it causes all the neighborhood kids to run through my property and wreck my stuff and the area is currently too wet to have a decent fence. But also, just the fact that the item exists just to upset me is wearing on me.

I feel that if anyone has a solution, it would be this thread because I know how OCD some people can be here and that is an asset.

I have all the signs posted (properly and up to code). I'm getting ready to send out notices for the trespassing that is caused by the trampoline, etc. But if the trampoline were gone, it would fix a ton of other issues (not to mention the constant screaming and squealing, etc. so that's why I am focusing on it the most. It's key, and it doesn't belong. It's there just to spite me and insurance companies hate them. So I'm trying to logically step it through to the 30 day removal notice.
 

fenderman

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Possibly (I won't get into the health ramifications this has already had on me).

The trampoline is just one salvo in an ongoing war that never ends but this one in particular must have a solution.

It's not just the trampoline, but the trampoline causes other issues, i.e. it causes all the neighborhood kids to run through my property and wreck my stuff and the area is currently too wet to have a decent fence. But also, just the fact that the item exists just to upset me is wearing on me.

I feel that if anyone has a solution, it would be this thread because I know how OCD some people can be here and that is an asset.

I have all the signs posted (properly and up to code). I'm getting ready to send out notices for the trespassing that is caused by the trampoline, etc. But if the trampoline were gone, it would fix a ton of other issues (not to mention the constant screaming and squealing, etc. so that's why I am focusing on it the most. It's key, and it doesn't belong. It's there just to spite me and insurance companies hate them. So I'm trying to logically step it through to the 30 day removal notice.
Any health ramifications are directly related to your overblown reaction to the trampoline. I think seeking out a mental health professional to determine why its bothering you so much would be a great first step.
If children are trespassing on your property call their parents or the police. If they dont do anything about it you can go to your local municipal court and swear out a complaint.
 

Walrus

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Man.. you are a complete asshole neighbor. Your username suits you. You need to call a doctor, not a private investigator.
 

CrazyLarry

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Any health ramifications are directly related to your overblown reaction to the trampoline. I think seeking out a mental health professional to determine why its bothering you so much would be a great first step.
If children are trespassing on your property call their parents or the police. If they dont do anything about it you can go to your local municipal court and swear out a complaint.
I already know the reasons without contacting mental health, it's called property damage and having to continually put up with it. Have you ever had a situation where the property damage kept occurring over and over and you couldn't mitigate it? When random kids keep causing it, there isn't anything you can do about it because you have no where to send the police. But besides that, I'm attempting to mitigate it without police involvement. And it's also like a chess match. So at this point, as a chess match, is it game over and the King is in Check Mate? It seems like the 30 day takedown should be the final move, not give up and bear it. That said. Many sites online say that you can report a trampoline to an insurance company, but absolutely none of them show how to do that. I'm just trying to determine how to do it. I'm finding that it isn't as easy as one would think so I'm hoping someone may have experience with insurance companies because I keep hitting a brick wall.

Keep in mind, the trampoline is not there to provide a public service to the neighborhood kids, it is put there as a means to annoy. For example, if somone were point lasers at your cameras, it would annoy you, and you could take steps to mitigate it, most likely you'd have to involve the police for something like that because how else would you stop the lasers?

So it's like that. Only with trampolines instead of lasers. :)

 
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This is a strange one, but kinda funny none the less. Some simple ideas that pop into my head would be something like a sprinkler that runs constant that keeps the trampoline wet? Or a high pitch sound played loudly as in this video.
 

CrazyLarry

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This is a strange one, but kinda funny none the less. Some simple ideas that pop into my head would be something like a sprinkler that runs constant that keeps the trampoline wet? Or a high pitch sound played loudly as in this video.
Although things like keeping sprinklers on can help etc. they don't go quite far enough to the point of completely having the tramp removed.

I've been researching the mosquito devices for years. Unfortunately, with devices like the Mosquito, they have found that the devices could cause long term health affects. So I'm hoping to just get around the loophole for reporting trampolines. It's too bad about the mosquito devices though. :(

The Mosquito - Wikipedia

There just really isn't a market for items that can keep kids off property because everybody just loves their sweet little angel kids.
 
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looney2ns

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Although things like keeping sprinklers on can help etc. they don't go quite far enough to the point of completely having the tramp removed.

I've been researching the mosquito devices for years. Unfortunately, with devices like the Mosquito, they have found that the devices could cause long term health affects. So I'm hoping to just get around the loophole for reporting trampolines. It's too bad about the mosquito devices though. :(

The Mosquito - Wikipedia

There just really isn't a market for items that can keep kids off property because everybody just loves their sweet little angel kids.
Well actually there is, That's why privacy fences were invented. There are companies that make a living installing them as well.
You know the guy does it to get a rise out of you, and you are playing right into his plans.
Earplugs can cure the screaming and other noise.
Put up some cameras so you have proof of who's tearing things up.
 

CrazyLarry

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Well actually there is, That's why privacy fences were invented. There are companies that make a living installing them as well.
You know the guy does it to get a rise out of you, and you are playing right into his plans.
Earplugs can cure the screaming and other noise.
Put up some cameras so you have proof of who's tearing things up.
I've had quotes out for fences but they won't install them yet because a large portion of the back yard is also a drainage easement. They won't install a fence until that issue is resolved. There are no good temporary fences on the market. The fence industry is another very high priced industry. When you start getting up into 200+ feet of fence (which have to follow city guidelines), that becomes a problem. I currently just have markers every 5 feet which I'm hoping to replace with fencing, but any decent looking fencing costs a fortune when you start to get past 100 feet. It's complicated by the fact that the parcel is oddly shaped. So oddly that even having a fence around the entire yard would look bad and out of place. It's not a normal yard. Do a search for oddly shaped parcels sometime, you'll be surprised at what you find and why fences don't always work great on those kinds of parcels. I definitely need a fence but it needs to be of temporary nature because it would decrease the property value by having the fence up due to the oddness of the parcel. note: I do have small portions of temporary fencing in key locations where the parcel isn't as odd.

Earplugs and fences don't help when your trying to watch a movie with your significant other and the screams and squeals from the trampoline are louder than the movie volume (especially during the low volume portions of movies and shows where there is no music but just talking, etc.). Watching movies with headphones isn't as fun as watching with a decent surround system.

The trampoline is close to the property line which is close to my movie room. I haven't upgraded the windows to block out sound yet because of the history of this neighbor I've been looking for a place to move. In the meantime, I still don't want him to win with his spite trampoline maneuver. Also, moving is a large pain in the ***. I don't mind playing into his game if I can win it. Normally I would win, but this stupid insurance loophole is a mind boggler. I can't believe it would be this difficult to report this item to an insurance company, but it is due to the way they are structured. (i.e. they keep underwriters away from most public persons, etc.).

I have 6 cameras up with Dahua IVS tripwires and all covering the entire back yard. But with random kids, it's difficult to find out who the parents are. I mean, you would quite literally have to follow the kid home to report the kid to the parents. I would never do that. So instead, I'm trying to get rid of the actual problem which is the trampoline, which insurance companies despise.

I called another one today (insurance company). Just to again test the waters.

I called up and said I was thinking of changing homeowners insurance. I said I have a trampoline. They basically said they couldn't help me. They said they don't cover trampolines and that most home owners insurance companies don't cover them in many states and that I would need special insurance from a different company in order to cover one. They said that if I went with their company for insurance and the trampoline was detected on my property that they would not be able to renew coverage.

I then said "Great. My neighbor has a trampoline and he might have your company for homeowners insurance. How can I report them to your company to check." They said they did not know.

Rinse, repeat. Every insurance company is the same way. The majority will not cover them and they will drop you once detected, but they leave no way to report someone else's trampoline. It's the weirdest thing. (yep, even weirder than me.) :)
 
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fenderman

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Rinse, repeat. Every insurance company is the same way. The majority will not cover them and they will drop you once detected, but they leave no way to report someone else's trampoline. It's the weirdest thing. (yep, even weirder than me.) :)
Its not weird at all. They would prefer not to know about the trampoline. This way they can collect the policy premium and still disclaim after someone is injured. Win win. The reason he does this is because he knows he is getting under your skin. If you just left it alone it would stop. In fact, you should offer free soda to the kids who come play on his trampoline.
 

taz420nj

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When the kids are out there, go out with your phone/video camera and act like you are recording them. Lick your lips and hold your crotch while doing it. Bet they start keeping the kids inside at all times. They might even move to get away from you.
 
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