Posted on 08/05/2021 3:24:58 AM PDT by RandFan
CANTERBURY, N.H. (AP) — For almost three decades, 81-year-old David Lidstone has lived in the woods of New Hampshire along the Merrimack River in a small cabin adorned with solar panels. He has grown his own food, cut his own firewood, and tended to his pets and chickens.
But his off-the-grid existence has been challenged in court by a property owner who says he’s been squatting for all those years. And to make Lidstone’s matters worse, his cabin was burned to the ground Wednesday afternoon in a blaze that is being investigated by local authorities.
Lidstone, or “River Dave” as he’s known by boaters and kayakers, was jailed July 15 on a civil contempt sanction. He was told he’d be released if he agreed to leave the cabin, but he has stayed put.
“You came with your guns, you arrested me, brought me in here, you’ve got all my possessions. You keep ’em,” Lidstone told a judge in a court appearance Wednesday morning. “I’ll sit here with your uniform on until I rot, sir.”
Lidstone is accused of squatting for 27 years in the cabin on private property in Canterbury. The wooden, two-level A-frame cabin had a small, cluttered kitchen with pots hanging from the ceiling, some appliances, and curtains on the windows. His porch had a footstool with a base made of stacked beer cans. He converted a wood stove into a beehive. He attached lights, a mirror and a pulley for a clothesline to logs supporting the cabin. There were piles of firewood.
Nearby was a gravel path leading to vegetable garden plots outlined by logs and some berry bushes. Lidstone got his water from a stream.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
They put this man in jail for contempt.
Another judge drunk on power?
Reads like a movie in the making, if generations to follow allow.
We’re not in Walden pond anymore Toto.
There’s no “living free” if you’re on private property. If the do-good libs want to see him live out his years where he is, then they need to work out an agreement and start paying the landowner rent. These damn squatters show up everywhere.
That settles that! Otherwise the elder squatter would have made a never-ending war about trying to reclaim “his” cabin.
been there 27 years. why is owner throwing him off now? new owner?
Yeah but putting him in jail? That is overdoing it
there is something called adverse possession in our legal system, I wonder if it would apply in this case...
Basically adverse possession is when a person squats on some property and over time no effort is made to remove him, he eventually gains the right to stay...
The guy according to the article has been living on the property for almost 3 decades, that seems a pretty long time before deciding to do something now..
If he lived there for 27 years without paying rent, he could have filed a deed on the place.
Where did Rumplestiltskin get the solar panels?
He hasn't worked in decades, does he hunt and fish?
Where does the ammo come from?
I just have questions, no answers.
Although many other states have put adverse possession into their statutes, New Hampshire has not, and it is in case law – which is as authoritative and binding as statutory law - that you will find most of the elements that must be proven in court.
The elements of adverse possession are:
the use must be adverse (without permission and hostile to the owner’s interests);
it must be notorious (the owner has had notice of the use);
it must be continuous and uninterrupted; it must be exclusive (not in common with neighbors, or others),
and it must be for a period of at least 20 years as defined in the statute of limitations for the recovery of real property (see RSA 508:2, I).
Adverse possession applies only to private property, not to public lands, waters, highways or transmission lines
A similar situation happened near our hunting camp where a group from the city purchased a large tract of land, put a wire around the property, posted “No Trespassing” signs, shoved out an old local guy’s shack and built a big fancy hunting camp. The camp burnt to the ground just before hunting season.
The local Hillbillies got their own justice.
This is a problem we have on Texas timber farms as well. People think that just because the landowner can't find them hidden on the property and run them off, they get to stay. In my county, a defined property line or fence row takes care of the problem.
This story is bing run because the eviction moratorium is ending and they want civil disobedience
He should have said he is native American Indian and the white people took his land.
It worked for Elizabeth Warren. /spit.
The man is squatting on property he does not own.
He hasn’t worked in decades, does he hunt and fish?
Where does the ammo come from?
I just have questions, no answers.
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Perhaps he collects disability.
He is on welfare.
He may have inherited money when he was younger, since he was just 54 when he moved to the woods.
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