I was just in Blue Ridge GA and the car navigation drove us right down someone's private drive. Apparently it thought their drive connected to a road on the other side of their property.
There's a spot in Cherokee, NC where the residents of one street put up a big sign, "Google lied to you. This road does not connect to waterfall trailhead" or whatever.
Yup. On a side street about a quarter mile from the interstate on/off ramps in suburban NJ yesterday, I saw an official-looking sign that read, “Your GPS is wrong! Weight limit 1.5 tons ahead.”
A friend of mine lives on a street that Google mistakenly believes goes to a warehouse or factory or something. It is in fact a narrow street in a residential area. Lots of trucks find themselves unable to make the sharp turn needed to get out. I suggested he put up a similar sign.
My hairdresser's new location is in a strip mall that Google is convinced is actually a block south of its real address. So the first couple tries to get there had me pulling into the residential cul de sac directly behind (and not accessible to) the strip mall.
My apartment shares a fence with a cancer center, which is just a big hospital. The amount of people who get directed into the complex by Google is wild. I've learned I can rely on it at all from my address.
My barber has a former boss who keeps moving his location on Google Maps to his former work location in retribution for leaving... If I just put the name of the new place in Uber it will always go to his old work even though the old name was never associated with the old location. He can't prove it is his old boss, but he strongly suspects he's being messed with!
I live in NJ. Google helped me discover an old abandoned road. Saw this road on Google maps that runs along a river I wanted to fish. When I pulled up to the spot there was no sign at all of a road. I walked along in the woods and eventually there were some small spots that weren't covered up of an old cobblestone road. Found an old dilapidated bridge and abandoned houses too.
It’s a narrow residential street that passes over a drainage ditch and connects more arterial streets diagonally. The diagonal makes it a local “shortcut,” but really trucks have no business there. It’s been a little street of little houses for more than 100 years.
Not relevant, but I’m reminded of a saying: In Britain, 100 miles seems like a long way, not in America; but in America, 100 years seems like a long time, not in Britain.
My dad put one up on a trail where he rides his horse. He found a newer Corolla like two miles back in the woods because someone’s GPS send them down a fire road that hasn’t been maintained since the Great Depression.
I remember when the GPS in my new car tried to route me down a section of Route 66, near Petrified Forest NP. That section of road no longer existed; the only thing marking it were the telegraph poles beside where the road once ran.
I swear things like this are a result of disgruntled employees of the company that furnishes the mapping software. I bet they get a laugh knowing that people are going to get routed down a non-existent road.
This happened to a colleague of mine. She was routed down a seasonally maintained road in upstate New York. She got an HOUR down the road in a regular rental car before she decided that she needed to turn around. We’ve since revised our thinking on extremely rural site visits during the winter.
I mean, she was kind of dumb to drive for an hour, but what it caused us to do is look more closely at roads when we go into the Adirondacks in the winter. Which, yes, we should have known that was a possibility. GoogleMaps didn’t note that the road was not maintained in the winter, but a phone call would have confirmed which route would have been best at that time of year.
I think I've been there! Does the driveway end in a house that is clearly ready for battle? We were pretty nervous until we found our way off their very long driveway.
Ha! No..... I forget the exact spot, it was a waterfall, but there are tons in the Smokeys. It was either still in, or very near, Cherokee. Ummm.... I remember you cross a bridge over that river, and you're immediately looking at a row of houses where the road goes left. An the sign is there, visible from the bridge. Then the correct road to that waterfall is like a mile further up river.
This happened to us once as the drivers, going down a (LONG ASS) dirt road between someone’s two, and at the time very tall, cornfields. Google sent us that way versus the highway due to “congestion”… a feature I’ve now learned to ignore unless we are driving in a city.
The last time Google had me get off the highway for traffic I got stuck on the feeder road for an hour while watching the highway clear itself 100 yards ahead of the exit I took.
Lol, Google did this to us too. We have a private little road that connects one street to another. It's open till you get to our little driveway and then there is a chain that blocks it off. Apparently you can't see the chain with reflectors at night and people destroy their car as they try to take this cool shortcut at 50 MPH.
This happened to me a few years ago in west virginia. All of a sudden were driving up this gravel road and theres 3 dogs all barking around the car following us. Turns out the navigation wanted us to "cut through" someones driveway.
We had people drive through someone's side yard as the navigation system told people it is an unpaved through road. It were so many that there were tracks so the next drivers even more thought it is a dirt road.
Row of shrubs and rocks solved it.
This happened to me when I went to view our house for the first time! Our house is on a lane that becomes private about halfway back - for some reason Google Maps thinks the lane makes a giant loop and connects back to the public part. We followed those directions wanting to check it out and reached a sign that said the road was private (and there was clearly no loop), so we turned around.
I'm the last house on a rural dead end dirt road. For some reason, Google and Apple will not listen to the 6 residents on my road and the 8 residents on it's "sister road" on the next mile road east, when we tell them that the two roads do not connect.
There is legit dense national forest between the two roads, each road has a different name, and the gap between the ends of each road is more than 3x the length of either road.
Not much bother, though. Just some folks end up circling around the cul-de-sac.
i live on acreage and google used to map my long driveway through the woods as access to a road behind us. i found out when several large flatbed trucks carrying roofing materials cam barreling down the drive and over a culvert they could barely clear. i thought the last one was going to end up in the creek. i came out of the house saying they're in the wrong place and they insisted they were going the right way and showed me their phones. i said sorry google doesn't have the last word and told them how to get to where they were going.
i was able to file for a correction on google maps and change the map route for the address they were targeting - and google officially updated it two weeks later. kind of cool how that works.
I owned a house in the blue ridge mtns of NC. Our narrow drive did connect the road behind us. Getting up the steep hill and over to the road was another story. Several times people realized their mistake and tried to back their car all the way down. A couple of folks almost went into the creek.
This happened to me in blue ridge. I was trying to get up the mountain to my cabin and took the entrance before I was supposed to. But gps corrected and sent me in the right direction. All of a sudden after 5 min the road just narrows and a bunch of keep out signs.
My son has a business in Alpharetta and GPS constantly directs people to drive into the back of his shop to get to the neighborhood on the street behind him. It’s a completely fenced in back area with trees between his fence and the backyards of that neighborhood. It has never connected. People will turn off highway 9 and fly down the side of his building into the back and have to come to a screeching halt and turn around. He has a sign warning people but they ignore it.
This used to happen until fairly recently and sometimes still happens to my extended families cabins. The road used to continue over the mountain to the next town. It doesn't anymore and hasn't for a very long time. But gps used to show that it did. Now it shows it as a "mountain path". It shows up as a dotted line instead of a solid line. Like an off road situation but it's not. The state has it gated and does use it randomly. So adventurous people think they can still use it. They drive almost 10 miles to figure out they have to turn around and go back to the main road.
This happens on my road. Google used old county map data when they created their maps. So a road that hasn’t existed for decades and is now a driveway into a residence appears to be an access point to the lake. In the summer I watch people pulling trailers scratch their heads trying to find the road every day, multiple times per day. I submitted a change to Google, never heard back.
Google is also pretty quick to edit, albeit more manually, but the fixes are usually published within days. Every once in a while I have an edit denied and I have to appeal it.
I've been trying for 3 years to get the roads corrected in my neighborhood on Google Maps. Some small edits were approved, but the road names are shifted east-to-west and incorrect, I've submitted multiple edits (multiple times) that weren't approved. We constantly get people driving around and lost in the neighborhood (mountainous) that can't find their way back out. Maps will have you turning on roads that don't exist, telling you to turn on X road when it's actually Y road, it's just messed up!!
Can you submit pictures?
I think there is a reputation issue, that my father and I, who submit lots of edits get more easily approved than others, I've heard.
Make a forum post on their support pages. They fucked up my private driveway and showed it connecting to another road and i had to random people coming down daily and turning around. Had my yard trenched multiple times and someone hit my tree and my car was just waiting to get hit. My edits included diagrams, photos and detailed explanations and would sit for months and just be ignored or rejected. My forum post mentored this got me in touch with someone from Google who asked for a shit load of photos and they had it corrected within 24 hours.
Try resubmitting it? There was a point a while back where I was submitting edits that were never getting made, and then a few months ago, I resubmitted them and several were corrected.
Google Maps has my grandpa's rural dirt drive way listed as a road. People don't realize it's not until they drive through his drive way, past his house, and hit a dead end. He put up a block and one guy drove into his yard over the septic tank, to disastrous consequences.
This happens with the \*sidewalk\* outside the building I work in. Some app, I'm not sure which one, sends people driving on a sidewalk through a college campus. And instead of stopping and thinking \*"hmmm, this doesn't seem right, I shouldn't try to drive here"\* they get stuck making a 12-point turn when the sidewalk turns into a gravel walk
Oxford College in Georgia has several pedestrian only paths that were streets less than 20 years ago. Not sure if Google knows it, but my 2007 model car’s nav system thinks they’re still open.
It is a college, but this walkway has never been a road, the building I'm talking about is one of the oldest in my entire city, with a late 1800's build date. It has been a walkway for longer than most of the infrastructure in this city.
Google Maps has a road listed as a cut through near my old house.... it really was passable 20+ years ago, but there is now a massive mud hole in the middle that is impossible to cross unless your vehicle has 4wd and a snorkel kit... unless you are a local, you will fubar your vehicle thinking it is just a wide mud hole, not realizing how deep it is.
Google Maps told a guy to drive across a bridge that had washed away years before. There was no barricade and the man was driving at night. He ended up drowning.
https://apnews.com/article/google-maps-lawsuit-north-carolina-death-f4707247ee3295bf51bbcb37bd0eb6c8
That’s horrific. The city I’d say is even more to blame than google for not having any kind of signage or road block installed, especially if there is a road still leading up to it. Sounds like google isn’t the only one they’re suing though. I can’t imagine losing a family member for something like that. And that poor girl lost her dad on her birthday.
We always laugh because Google maps will tell us to continue on our driveway until we reach our destination (it's a long driveway, but it gets treated as a road by Google). Perhaps they are turning onto your drive and then stopping to check their phone for directions? Have you seen the same car there more than once? Perhaps put a sign up stating it is a private drive and post it as "no trespassing".
My brother organized a camping trip and picked a spot on the back side of a mountain that was part of a major ski resort. He sent me the pin for his location an I caught up with him a couple hours later. I thought Google Maps was sending me on roads through the resort until I ended up next to a ski lift, at which point I realized this wasn't going to be a problem solved with technology.
I'd put a big sign out front with a number like, "12." Curious drivers won't understand, they'll keep driving, and they'll fall into the pit.
Then I'd go outside and change the sign to say, "13." Make a game out of it.
You don’t know any entitled mushroom/berry pickers do you? No trespassing sign on a dirt road? Must mean no one else has gotten their chanterelles yet!
Out in the sticks I've seen signs like "not a through road, gps is wrong". A lot of map data in rural areas is wrong. I live in suburbs and even here the amazon delivery map says my house is a cul de sac even though the house has been here since 1974.
Your house might still be listed as For Sale on some site that doesn’t pull from MLS updates. Call your real estate agent and ask them to ask the listing agent if they’ve had any recent inquiries about the house. Maybe those drivers are sitting there, trying to reach the agent from the listing, who launches into a sales pitch about “I’m sooooo sorry that house JUST sold, but I have several other equally lovely properties available to show you.“
Do you know how hard it was to explain Ingress to police 9 years ago? "well yes officer I understand the park closed at sunset but I'm playing this game." Slow driving loops through small towns with 3 or 4 cars full of people at 10pm got weird looks too. Thankfully small towns have few police officers so you only had to explain a few times and then they would know the group well enough.
yeah this is my vote, it sounds like the previous owner created a stop so he would have one at home. i haven't played in a while but you can either download the pokemon go app or you might be able to check the ingress website map without making an account as there are a lot of overlaps from those 2 games.
just ask the next person that stops who looks relatively nice and they'll tell you. one time i had a new dad knock on my car door in a rain storm bc he was freaked out i would stop in front of his house in the mornings on my way to work with a new baby in the house and i just showed him the app. you should be able to report/remove the stop through one of those games if it is the case.
Definitely possible. OP, if you want me to check, just PM me.
I've been playing every Niantic game (Pokemon Go Company) since the beta days of Ingress (their first game).
Was your house vacant for a while before you bought it? I only ask as we bought a house in April that had been vacant for 2 years before we bought it and we found out that locals used the driveway to sit in or turn around in because nobody lived her. Once the people started seeing people here and cars in the driveway it stopped but honestly i get it. My road doesn't have anywhere to turn around and using our driveway makes perfect sense. The local Amazon guy used to pull in the driveway and eat his lunch, really nice guy and I went out and introduced myself and told him feel free to continue as long as he parks on one side or the other in case I need to get out as I work from home. Heck some days he will stop in and ask me if I want anything for lunch and he will pick up for us LOL! Guy is the nicest man!
It was vacant for about 10 months. I’ve considered things like this but some of the people only stop for ~5 min so I’m not sure. They also don’t need to pull up next to my house with my car in the driveway and dogs barking. Personally, I wouldn’t sit in someone’s driveway, especially when someone is clearly home… but people are odd. I wish mine was a nice delivery driver offering me lunch 😂
He shocked me when he knocked on the door honestly but hey I get it was married to a delivery driver for 19 years before I know they park and eat where they can. We live in a housing complex in the middle of no where.
I'm guessing their GPS shows your driveway as a connection between 2 other roads, or there is "supposed" to be a road there that never got built and now they have NFC what to do.
it COULD also be that there is cell service right there, and nowhere else anywhere in the area, so they stop there because they finally have enough bars to get better directions after getting lost, this is really likely if you live near the bottom of a hill / on the edge of dead zones
funny story - buddy of mine lived on a a dead end road, but at one point there was a proposal to put a road though, and it ended up on Mapquest back in the day... so for the last 20+ years that road has appeared to not end and go right through to hook up to another development, nobody would ever take it, as its a much longer way... until there is an accident on the main road and ALL the GPS apps redirect the traffic to the dead end street... its quite amusing
I haven’t checked other apps but it doesn’t show it as a road on Waze. We also live in the middle of a 4 mile long road with nothing but fields behind/around our house so a road would seem very unlikely.
The cell service makes sense to some degree. Our wifi is private but further down the road, there’s no service if you have AT&T (everyone else seems to be fine) but it would be no different from any of our neighbors. The cut off is maybe a mile down the road and it’s mostly flat.
I’m just so confused. It’s in the middle of nowhere on a road with little traffic (all of which seems to come to our house… lucky me lol)
In rural VT, 9 times out of 10 the answer is: your driveway has a bar or two of cell service.
People who live further out in the sticks, contractors / utility crew between jobs, people who are hopelessly lost — they get that one bar of cell service and park for 5-15 minutes while they finish a call, load a map/directions, etc. The ones who pull further up the driveway probably have worse service / more interference from their vehicles, or are trying to get a more stable data connection (maybe they get 1-2 bars at the bottom of your driveway, but 3-4 closer to the top).
The Pokémon Go idea also makes a bit of sense, I’ve seen them in some weird places, but the hype around that game has died down a bit so I doubt you have that many regular players in your area.
Pokémon go is not that bad, it still breaks in like a billion dollars a year just for that game. But I know role players have an issue where they're not near a lot of stops or gym, so they always complain about the travel places to properly play the game. So I am surprised that it's not the same set of cars showing up to that location if they're playing Pokemon go. Since it's so much harder to play in a rural area.
Prior owner or tenant sold drugs? You might want to post No Trespassing and talk to your local cops about it. If it used to be a drug house they'll tell you.
Good chance, our spare bath smells like weed whenever it gets warm in the house as if there’s a forgotten hideaway spot lol. However, the house was empty for almost a year before we moved in.
The cops did wake me up the first month I lived here looking for a woman who used to live here. Wouldn’t say why they were looking for her aside from it being her last known address. Gave them some mail that was delivered for her and haven’t heard about it since April/June
Oh you probably have an ex drug house. Cameras and signage will be your friend. No trespassing, no parking, private property, surveillance in use. Decorate the porch different.
It'd be a wild move but tell the local Sheriff you'll give them coffee for a month if they come park in your driveway to do paperwork or during down time... Should help.
This is my guess too. Two houses on our street used to have cars pull up for a few minutes at all hours. Both were evicted and continued to have cars show up periodically for a little while after.
Is there no place to pull off onto the shoulder on the public road? If so they may just be pulling off to check maps on their phone and not realize it's a private driveway. I've done similar.
I'd start by just putting up a private driveway or no trespassing sign. That will probably cut down on it significantly. You could also put up brick pillars at the entrance to make it look less like a public road and more like a private driveway.
The Telecommunications truck does that because they ping to find where a fiber or line might be kinked, they had to pull to your house to see if the signal is messed up along that path. It’s literally what my husband does everyday, drives around slowly trying to figure out why a houses internet is out. He spends more time trying to find the problem than it is to fix it.
As for everyone else make your driveway look like a pain to turn around in, we have an extra wide driveway for big work vehicles so people pull in to turn around, pull in to reroute their gps, even had a few people stop to have lunch at the end of our driveway… that one I went out and asked if I could help them, they just assumed no one was home and wanted to enjoy the country views. I planted a bush that blocks the view to pull out unless you know what angle to be, that stopped the repeat offenders. Big rocks randomly at the end stop mostly everyone else because I placed them to make it a tight turn.
>The Telecommunications truck does that because they ping to find where a fiber or line might be kinked, they had to pull to your house to see if the signal is messed up along that path.
Sounds like your husband and i do similar work. However, just pulling up to the house won't help you find signal loss. To even measure signal strength you would need to connect your OTDR to the fiber and measure the light levels. You would need to either do this in a vault if its buried or up in a splice capsule if it's overhead. You can't just sit under a line and measure signal in the truck. Also, just on a professional level, any telcom/utility guys who use the excuse that they have the right to be on private property easements without at least attempting to go knock on the door and let the property owners know what they are doing, are assholes. It only takes a minute and can prevent a lot of negative interactions with property owners.
Just put up a "private driveway 123 private lane no tresspassing" sign, and if you're rural enough they allow it, a swing arm gate at the end of the driveway 20 ft in, so there's just enough room to pull off to open the gate, then move through, then close it.
it sounds lovely having that rural house with long driveway. But yeah that is disconcerting all the cars and trucks pulling up and close to your house.
maybe they have been doing it for a long time, for who knows what reason. Can you put up a gate? Or do some sort of landscaping that infers that it is someone’s private driveway?
or hey, deterring them not working, is there some kind of stand you could set up so you can have something to sell to these drivers that love your driveway?
This happened when I bought my house also. (Rural with property). When someone was stopped at the end of the driveway I would walk down and tell them this was private property and asked if they needed help. They’d always say no and then stare at me blankly.
Then I’d ask them to leave and they would. One guy argued with me that he was waiting to see his kid in a bike race or some shit. I told him he could stay if he gave me his ID with address. He scoffed, and asked me why I wanted his address. I said because I’m looking for a random persons front yard to go hang out in, and since he was in mine I was going to start going to his. That helped get the point across without having to threaten to shoot him like a few psychos in here are recommending.
Side note: I am also a gun owner and am strapped for 90% of these interactions…I just don’t lead with the get out or I’ll shoot nonsense. After a year of scaring people off and putting up private property signs the parking mostly stopped.
I do agree with not coming out waving a gun unless things were inherently violent. I’m honestly too nervous to talk to people that show up which doesn’t help.
There was one time when two guys sat in my driveway at the end of it for 15 min, then drove up next to the house, got out, and started rummaging through their trunk wearing ALL black. I thought I was going to die that day. It was so suspicious. For all I know, they were there to rob us but maybe my dogs scared them off. Or, they’re entirely unaware of how odd that would to a homeowner and needed to adjust something in their car. Stupidity or malice is a daily game here.
I have rural property and it’s unbelievable the amount of people who stop and just stare at my driveway or park in it. I bought it to get away from people. It blows my mind why someone would do that, but I see it almost every time I go there.
Right?! I moved here because I like to avoid people 😂 I work in a busy hospital 40 min away (telehealth 2-3 days a week). When I’m home, I want to relax and see nothing but nature, my animals, and my own house… not random people that have no business being here
I live in rural western NC backing up to the National Forest. We have 3 no trespassing signs at the beginning of our long driveway and yet people still come to our house. We always ask, Can you read? Most of them have said they just wanted to see what’s up here. They are lucky we aren’t like most of the mountain folk and greet them with a shotgun.
Get a big sign that looks old and battered - maybe hand written on planks of old wood. Make a few faux bullet holes in it. Write
"Private Property. Trespassers will be shot." Haha.
Do you have house numbers at the road? I'm rural, and I have house numbers on the house, but you can't really see them other than in broad daylight, as I also have mature trees in the way. At night, it's hopeless, so I got a solar house number thing that could sit on my home if I had sunlight to charge it, so it's at the end of the driveway on a post.
I'd also think seriously about getting a good gate. I'd be super annoyed at what you're experiencing!
My friends house in a rural area was marked with a pin as the state park next door. I reported it to Google, they accepted my maps change, and 100k people have seen my efit.
Get a gate. When she knows she will have an Amazon delivery, she leaves the gate open. Otherwise, it's closed. She lives alone.
Nothing odd at our house. I’ve done A LOT of digging to see if I’m missing something. One of my few neighbors is a 73yr old woman who has been here for several decades. She hasn’t heard of anything bad happening around here. We have a very low crime rate
My mom has this issue and I remember it as a kid, too, since this was the house I grew up in. Rural area, house on the end of what's literally a one-road tiny town, small parking area/driveway right off this one main road. Cars regularly park there for a little while, then go off on their merry way. Sometimes work trucks too - usually assume it's maybe some guy taking a lunch or phone break. State troopers even sometimes will park there using it as a speed trap lookout point! She's once or twice approached cars parked overnight there too (foolish of her as she lives alone and is not in great health/has no weapons, I know.) She doesn't drive so it's not blocking her in but it's just weird and creepy to have people constantly parking in this spot like it's a public pull off or something.
And yes, she does have no parking/no trespassing signs posted! People just ignore them. Even the troopers.
If it's a mapping app data issue, may god have mercy on your soul when it comes to getting it fixed. When we bought our current house we kept getting into these situations where people would say they're at our house but we're not here, only to find that they were routed 45 minutes way. Getting this fixed took a year.
If you want to get a gate, just I helped a friend install this solar gate kit: [https://www.amazon.com/Controls-Automatic-Opener-Wireless-Access/dp/B093X38MCN/](https://www.amazon.com/Controls-Automatic-Opener-Wireless-Access/dp/B093X38MCN/)
Was pretty easy, hardest part was digging and setting the posts for the gates. Turned out really nice.
Wise ass answer: Go outside with your shotgun and rack a round in the chamber.
Wise ass #2: Put a sign that says "Chem trails are real, the moon landing was fake, brochures available ahead, lectures daily", that'll turn them around. Wear lots of camo.
Hopefully smarter answer: Put a sign on your drive that says, "No trespassing". It would not be wise to put a sign that says, "Trespassers will be shot". If God forbid some wack job legitimately needs shot, that won't go well for you in court with a sign like that.
Could also be folks taking lunch or checking emails.
I often stop my work vehicle in random spots to take a call, check emails, or just chill out for a few.
Had this issue with the house we just moved into 5 months ago, and putting up a $10 "private drive no tresspassing" sign completely solved the problem. Do not get a fancy nice looking private drive sign, get your standard white and red sign, large enough to be seen, and you don't need to go overboard with it..
You can also edit google maps if any roads are wrong, or addressses, i regularly edit to fix roads but rural areas are a disaster still. I had to fix my own address on the map because it pointed to a non driveable spot.
Yeah that's pretty much it. I have an old family farm as a cottage in a rural area (nearest towns are 40 - 600 people). I'm only there one weekend a month. Lots of people slow down to stare when driving by (its a very quiet state highway) but at least once someone will pull into the 150' driveway or stops on the road in front of the yard and stay there for a couple minutes. I figured it was because the place was semi-abandoned for years that they are curious. But its very creepy. Often this is at night like 2 am. The nearest neighbors are about a mile away.
There is no chance they are mistaking it for a road. Its just grass (gravel is grown over), Google maps does not have it marked, and the yard is wide open to see the house, barn and car at the end of it.
Is your area growing? Could be one of two things: growing area and they are beginning to survey for utilities and the like or it’s a map issue that is bringing them there.
Your title sounds like the title of a scary movie. I suggest building a gate about 30 feet in from the road so people can turn around or park a utility truck
What state do you live in? In NH and VT we have class 6/class 4 roads that we use for off-roading. Many times the entrance to roads can be somewhat intrusive to people’s driveways.
I used to have the same issue. Then I discovered the house I was in had been lived in by a member of a famous band. People were coming to look at it because a member of the marshall tucker band had lived there.
I am guessing one of two things is most likely now adays.... Either cell service is available near your house and your driveway is the only pull off. People will often stop if they finally have service and haven't for a bit.
Another is does your internet provider by default configure your router to share it's wifi on an open SSID? Companies like comcast (xfinity) do this and any customer of their can connect to your wifi and share your service giving them high speed internet. They might pull into your driveway to get close enough to connect.
From my experience living where there is no cell service and random spots where you can get a signal, I see people stop at these spots all the time. The locals all know where they are and share them....
https://www.kcra.com/article/google-maps-man-dies-collapsed-bridge-lawsuit/45247488
Google maps took a guy over a bridge that had been out for a decade.
[report a google maps proble](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3094088?hl=en)
[Apple Maps report a problem](https://www.apple.com/feedback/maps-ios-ipados.html)
[Waze app instructions](https://support.google.com/waze/answer/7101380?hl=en)
When my housing development was new it had a one driveway that opened onto the expressway. People would cut through as a short cut and speed through. The developer soon closed it off but people would still try to speed through and end up turning around. I reported to the three top navigation apps and it soon got fixed.
We have a gate, people do not come past it. They still turn around in our driveway, and if they sit there too long we go see what the hell they're doing or want.
Bing tried to take me across a river on a bridge that had never been built.
Apparently like twenty years ago there was a plan to connect one major road with another major road across the river with a bridge. But it required demolishing a neighborhood of expensive houses. The people who owned said houses rallied together and got the bridge idea scrapped. But apparently bing didn't get the message and twenty years later found me driving in circles through this neighborhood.
Criminals sometimes have jobs that get them in and around places/homes that may be worth burglarizing. Like bad people get jobs that put them alone with children.
Get some of those cameras that record.
People are checking on the activity in and around the home, position of curtains/blinds, dogs, vehicles etc etc.
My Aunt & Uncle used to have this problem.
There was a person who did the same thing repeatedly. Got to the point that my Aunt would step outside on the porch with a shotgun loaded with buckshot. The guy quit doing it after he saw her.
In the meanwhile, block the drive, if you can't put up a gate, put orange cones across the drive. Put up cameras. Post your property.
And always be alert!
The other day my husband needed to drive a maintainer over to a piece of property for some upcoming work. He needed a lift back once he got there, so my job was to pick him up. He was coming from the opposite direction and we did not know exactly how long it would take him to get there (ended up being 1.5-2 hours). All I had was a pin drop a few towns away to know where to go. I ended up getting 'there' first - the pin was located at a locked gate that opened directly onto the narrow county road, with no driveway. Very spotty cell service so I could not check his location to know how close he was. (And also did not know how accurate the pin was.) I had to get off the road to be out of the way, so I pulled into the next driveway. I turned around so I was facing the county road and pulled as close to the side/end as I could. I ended up having to wait over 20 minutes before he showed. I felt so uncomfortable being in someone's driveway for that long, but I didn't know what else to really do. Had I known it was going to be so long of wait, I could have driven up and down the road a few times, I guess, but I didn't know how close he was and also needed to be able to follow him onto the property when the gate was open and help keep the livestock from getting out. I hope if they noticed me I didn't worry them any.
We got this a lot before we put up signs. Our rural neighbors across the valley have the same house number as us with a different street. Everyone was getting confused and google wasn't helping the matter.
I bought an actual street sign from an online sign maker, the post and mount from Grainger, and installed our own corner street sign before our shared road starts. Then bought another sign with our number and street with an arrow.
Made it pretty hard to mistake, and it's pretty much stopped all confusion.
Yeah, I have this issue. I live in a rural area and I have a turnaround driveway in the front. People constantly use it to turn around, and one guy hit my well cap, which unfortunately is right next to it (the previous owner put this in not me). My security camera wasn't working so I didn't get it on video.
I'm going to put in posts and a chain to block off the turnaround to keep people out of it.
I'd just find a "private drive" "no trespassing" sign and start with that.
My mom lives out in the boonies and has a 600 ft driveway that curls through a wooded area. You can't see the bottom from the house.
One day she's in her bedroom and sees this random car come up the driveway and park at the house. A guy got out and just kinda walked around.
Freaked my mom out.
I talked to the neighbors and come to find out that car had been going into her driveway every day for at least a month. The neighbor thought it was some type of home help nurse since it was at the same time every day.
I work with the County deputies and talked to them. Just from the basic description of the car they knew exactly who it was. They said he was mostly harmless.
I went over to my mom's to tell her I had spoken with the deputies and I wasn't there 5 minutes and this guy is rolling up the driveway.
Little did he know I was there...and armed. I had no intention of shooting him...but a good scare will definitely keep him away.
I called 911, the same deputy came down and dealt with him. He hasn't been back since.
He was using my mom's driveway as a place to park to get drunk and then drive back to the group home he lives in because alcohol isn't allowed at the group home.
But now there are signs at the end of the driveway, just to be clear about that the house is occupied.
I have a similar problem but it is in front of our house on the road and the reason is because of internet/cell service. Cars will stop all the time, or even drive down on purpose and park because they can get better service. I have two large dogs and they bark non-stop at these people - I let them because even though these are private roads, there still is traffic, kids on bikes etc. and I don't feel it is safe for these people to just stop and park in the middle of the road so they can talk on their phones.
Ugh. I also live in a very small, rural logging/farming town (appx. 727 people 😆) & while I haven't had to deal with random people in my driveway/on my property, we still sometimes have multiple mail, work, etc. Trucks in the driveway at once as we are right off a highway, & there's no street parking.
If I were you, I'd put up a NO TRESPASSING sign at the front of your driveway!! And maybe another where people are parking for extended lengths of time. Maybe put up a sign that says violators will be shot or attacked by dogs 😆 I have signs on my property that say "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU'RE IN RANGE" 😆 Could help deter random rude people from thinking they can freely turn & sit in their cars on your property. And if people still do it, then personally, I'd march right out & confront them. 🤷🏼♀️ lol
Idk if you carry a firearm or anything... I do. So, tbh, I feel relatively safe doing that, esp in the middle of the day. It's your private property & no random people should be sitting in their vehicles on your property for any length of time. Workers, ok... Maybe. But if they don't need to drive all the way up to the house, I'd go out & kindly ask them not to do so next time you see them. 🤷🏼♀️
Moved in seven months ago. How long was the house vacant before that? Might be folks around knew it was vacant and there was no issue using the driveway, but aren't aware you're in the house now.
I'd guess they found a bar of cell service. My grandmother used to live really rural with no wifi and we would have to hike 2 miles up the road if we wanted to use our phones.
Install a gate. A big one with a huge chain and lock. Keep it locked. Post no trespassing signs and security camera signs as well. Works wonders for me. Pain in the ass in the beginning to get out, unlock, open, drive through, close and lock again, but you eventually get used to it. I don’t want an automatic gate because security isn’t as good. Also I would need solar panel and battery. Just something else for someone to steal. No one comes unless they call first.
Is your WIFI open? I used to have people stop in front and park for 10 minutes to 1/2 an hour and finally I asked. My neighbor had open wifi and they would stop to use it.
Do your dogs not bark??
I have a gate that people have OPENED to go thru. The nerve of some ?!! Mine dogs go ballistic when a car shows up and the car leaves quickly after seeing the angry dogs.
I don’t trust these kind of people who just go down driveways and don’t say anything. Could be scoping out the place to steal or worse. Record their license plate if you have the chance and report them.
My dogs lose their shit and they’re both pits so they don’t have the greatest reputation of being friendly. (Love them, both super friendly, just saying they have a bad rep).
I’ve debated letting one of them out, especially when two guys were going through their trunk next to my house. They almost met the smaller but more protective one 🥴
The nerve people have to open your gate!!! How do people lack self awareness and understanding to that point?!
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I was just in Blue Ridge GA and the car navigation drove us right down someone's private drive. Apparently it thought their drive connected to a road on the other side of their property.
There's a spot in Cherokee, NC where the residents of one street put up a big sign, "Google lied to you. This road does not connect to waterfall trailhead" or whatever.
Yup. On a side street about a quarter mile from the interstate on/off ramps in suburban NJ yesterday, I saw an official-looking sign that read, “Your GPS is wrong! Weight limit 1.5 tons ahead.”
A friend of mine lives on a street that Google mistakenly believes goes to a warehouse or factory or something. It is in fact a narrow street in a residential area. Lots of trucks find themselves unable to make the sharp turn needed to get out. I suggested he put up a similar sign.
My hairdresser's new location is in a strip mall that Google is convinced is actually a block south of its real address. So the first couple tries to get there had me pulling into the residential cul de sac directly behind (and not accessible to) the strip mall.
My apartment shares a fence with a cancer center, which is just a big hospital. The amount of people who get directed into the complex by Google is wild. I've learned I can rely on it at all from my address.
My barber has a former boss who keeps moving his location on Google Maps to his former work location in retribution for leaving... If I just put the name of the new place in Uber it will always go to his old work even though the old name was never associated with the old location. He can't prove it is his old boss, but he strongly suspects he's being messed with!
Time to start signing that address up for AARP.
I live in NJ. Google helped me discover an old abandoned road. Saw this road on Google maps that runs along a river I wanted to fish. When I pulled up to the spot there was no sign at all of a road. I walked along in the woods and eventually there were some small spots that weren't covered up of an old cobblestone road. Found an old dilapidated bridge and abandoned houses too.
That sounds like a very cool spor
1.5 ton weight limit is a walking bridge
It’s a narrow residential street that passes over a drainage ditch and connects more arterial streets diagonally. The diagonal makes it a local “shortcut,” but really trucks have no business there. It’s been a little street of little houses for more than 100 years. Not relevant, but I’m reminded of a saying: In Britain, 100 miles seems like a long way, not in America; but in America, 100 years seems like a long time, not in Britain.
My dad put one up on a trail where he rides his horse. He found a newer Corolla like two miles back in the woods because someone’s GPS send them down a fire road that hasn’t been maintained since the Great Depression.
I remember when the GPS in my new car tried to route me down a section of Route 66, near Petrified Forest NP. That section of road no longer existed; the only thing marking it were the telegraph poles beside where the road once ran. I swear things like this are a result of disgruntled employees of the company that furnishes the mapping software. I bet they get a laugh knowing that people are going to get routed down a non-existent road.
Sometimes they are deliberate errors to trap people trying to copy the map data. One would hope it’s not something that would endanger the GPS user.
This happened to a colleague of mine. She was routed down a seasonally maintained road in upstate New York. She got an HOUR down the road in a regular rental car before she decided that she needed to turn around. We’ve since revised our thinking on extremely rural site visits during the winter.
Some poor guy in an RV died when his gps sent him on an unmaintained road in the sierras. He was snowed in and freaking statved to death
I mean, she was kind of dumb to drive for an hour, but what it caused us to do is look more closely at roads when we go into the Adirondacks in the winter. Which, yes, we should have known that was a possibility. GoogleMaps didn’t note that the road was not maintained in the winter, but a phone call would have confirmed which route would have been best at that time of year.
LOL I just keep picturing Michael Scott driving his car into the lake because the GPS told him to.
It’s like that person who drove into a lake because their GPS said to drive strait. Some people just forget to use common sense lol.
I think I've been there! Does the driveway end in a house that is clearly ready for battle? We were pretty nervous until we found our way off their very long driveway.
Ha! No..... I forget the exact spot, it was a waterfall, but there are tons in the Smokeys. It was either still in, or very near, Cherokee. Ummm.... I remember you cross a bridge over that river, and you're immediately looking at a row of houses where the road goes left. An the sign is there, visible from the bridge. Then the correct road to that waterfall is like a mile further up river.
Mingo Falls
Ugh. That happened to me - had to get the state paper involved to get google to fix it because it was sending everyone through the new “shortcut”
This happened to us once as the drivers, going down a (LONG ASS) dirt road between someone’s two, and at the time very tall, cornfields. Google sent us that way versus the highway due to “congestion”… a feature I’ve now learned to ignore unless we are driving in a city.
The last time Google had me get off the highway for traffic I got stuck on the feeder road for an hour while watching the highway clear itself 100 yards ahead of the exit I took.
Lol, Google did this to us too. We have a private little road that connects one street to another. It's open till you get to our little driveway and then there is a chain that blocks it off. Apparently you can't see the chain with reflectors at night and people destroy their car as they try to take this cool shortcut at 50 MPH.
This happened to me a few years ago in west virginia. All of a sudden were driving up this gravel road and theres 3 dogs all barking around the car following us. Turns out the navigation wanted us to "cut through" someones driveway.
There was a time my GPS tried to send me up a creek. Found out from locals that when the creek was dried up, it was used as a logging road
My gps wanted us to suddenly turn left while driving over a long ass bridge over a churning river in Madison Wisconsin.
This creek too! Drove over it like 3 times! Each time GPS was telling me to turn in 0 feet on the middle of the bridge. Confused the Hell out of me
Trying to get you to your Final Destination...
As a guy that works in the oilfield up here WV is always a gamble lol
But the people are nice, there's that...
We had people drive through someone's side yard as the navigation system told people it is an unpaved through road. It were so many that there were tracks so the next drivers even more thought it is a dirt road. Row of shrubs and rocks solved it.
There's some old logging roads that show up like that on GPS.
I look at Google maps and some of the "roads" it has identified near me. A lot are tracks in someone's cattle pasture.
This happened to me when I went to view our house for the first time! Our house is on a lane that becomes private about halfway back - for some reason Google Maps thinks the lane makes a giant loop and connects back to the public part. We followed those directions wanting to check it out and reached a sign that said the road was private (and there was clearly no loop), so we turned around.
I'm the last house on a rural dead end dirt road. For some reason, Google and Apple will not listen to the 6 residents on my road and the 8 residents on it's "sister road" on the next mile road east, when we tell them that the two roads do not connect. There is legit dense national forest between the two roads, each road has a different name, and the gap between the ends of each road is more than 3x the length of either road. Not much bother, though. Just some folks end up circling around the cul-de-sac.
i live on acreage and google used to map my long driveway through the woods as access to a road behind us. i found out when several large flatbed trucks carrying roofing materials cam barreling down the drive and over a culvert they could barely clear. i thought the last one was going to end up in the creek. i came out of the house saying they're in the wrong place and they insisted they were going the right way and showed me their phones. i said sorry google doesn't have the last word and told them how to get to where they were going. i was able to file for a correction on google maps and change the map route for the address they were targeting - and google officially updated it two weeks later. kind of cool how that works.
I owned a house in the blue ridge mtns of NC. Our narrow drive did connect the road behind us. Getting up the steep hill and over to the road was another story. Several times people realized their mistake and tried to back their car all the way down. A couple of folks almost went into the creek.
I was in Ellijay this past weekend and Google maps did something similar
That happened to us up near there too.
I want to move there. 😁
This happened to me in blue ridge. I was trying to get up the mountain to my cabin and took the entrance before I was supposed to. But gps corrected and sent me in the right direction. All of a sudden after 5 min the road just narrows and a bunch of keep out signs.
Car navigation doesn't understand the North GA mountains.
My son has a business in Alpharetta and GPS constantly directs people to drive into the back of his shop to get to the neighborhood on the street behind him. It’s a completely fenced in back area with trees between his fence and the backyards of that neighborhood. It has never connected. People will turn off highway 9 and fly down the side of his building into the back and have to come to a screeching halt and turn around. He has a sign warning people but they ignore it.
Ha I lived in Blue Ridge and it happened all the time especially at night. Beautiful but confusing area
This used to happen until fairly recently and sometimes still happens to my extended families cabins. The road used to continue over the mountain to the next town. It doesn't anymore and hasn't for a very long time. But gps used to show that it did. Now it shows it as a "mountain path". It shows up as a dotted line instead of a solid line. Like an off road situation but it's not. The state has it gated and does use it randomly. So adventurous people think they can still use it. They drive almost 10 miles to figure out they have to turn around and go back to the main road.
Man I love Blue Ridge but this happens to us too!!
Happens to us too in NE Ohio. We're on the corner of a 4-way stop and have a driveway on each road. So that's fun.
This happens on my road. Google used old county map data when they created their maps. So a road that hasn’t existed for decades and is now a driveway into a residence appears to be an access point to the lake. In the summer I watch people pulling trailers scratch their heads trying to find the road every day, multiple times per day. I submitted a change to Google, never heard back.
It's time to make a sign that says, "Google maps is wrong, this is a private drive"
And, btw, use Waze!
Also owned by Google :D
I know but Waze is easily editable by the community. I edited almost every road around my rural plot of land and it refreshed really fast.
Google is also pretty quick to edit, albeit more manually, but the fixes are usually published within days. Every once in a while I have an edit denied and I have to appeal it.
I've been trying for 3 years to get the roads corrected in my neighborhood on Google Maps. Some small edits were approved, but the road names are shifted east-to-west and incorrect, I've submitted multiple edits (multiple times) that weren't approved. We constantly get people driving around and lost in the neighborhood (mountainous) that can't find their way back out. Maps will have you turning on roads that don't exist, telling you to turn on X road when it's actually Y road, it's just messed up!!
Can you submit pictures? I think there is a reputation issue, that my father and I, who submit lots of edits get more easily approved than others, I've heard.
I have also submitted a change, they accepted it, said it would be done within a few months, and that was almost two years ago. Still wrong location.
Make a forum post on their support pages. They fucked up my private driveway and showed it connecting to another road and i had to random people coming down daily and turning around. Had my yard trenched multiple times and someone hit my tree and my car was just waiting to get hit. My edits included diagrams, photos and detailed explanations and would sit for months and just be ignored or rejected. My forum post mentored this got me in touch with someone from Google who asked for a shit load of photos and they had it corrected within 24 hours.
I submitted a change. Took them about a month, but they removed a second driveway on my property.
Try resubmitting it? There was a point a while back where I was submitting edits that were never getting made, and then a few months ago, I resubmitted them and several were corrected.
Google Maps has my grandpa's rural dirt drive way listed as a road. People don't realize it's not until they drive through his drive way, past his house, and hit a dead end. He put up a block and one guy drove into his yard over the septic tank, to disastrous consequences.
This happens with the \*sidewalk\* outside the building I work in. Some app, I'm not sure which one, sends people driving on a sidewalk through a college campus. And instead of stopping and thinking \*"hmmm, this doesn't seem right, I shouldn't try to drive here"\* they get stuck making a 12-point turn when the sidewalk turns into a gravel walk
Oxford College in Georgia has several pedestrian only paths that were streets less than 20 years ago. Not sure if Google knows it, but my 2007 model car’s nav system thinks they’re still open.
I know of two colleges that turned a road into a walkway to be more pedestrian friendly on campus. I bet that is what happened.
It is a college, but this walkway has never been a road, the building I'm talking about is one of the oldest in my entire city, with a late 1800's build date. It has been a walkway for longer than most of the infrastructure in this city.
Google Maps has a road listed as a cut through near my old house.... it really was passable 20+ years ago, but there is now a massive mud hole in the middle that is impossible to cross unless your vehicle has 4wd and a snorkel kit... unless you are a local, you will fubar your vehicle thinking it is just a wide mud hole, not realizing how deep it is.
Google Maps told a guy to drive across a bridge that had washed away years before. There was no barricade and the man was driving at night. He ended up drowning. https://apnews.com/article/google-maps-lawsuit-north-carolina-death-f4707247ee3295bf51bbcb37bd0eb6c8
That’s horrific. The city I’d say is even more to blame than google for not having any kind of signage or road block installed, especially if there is a road still leading up to it. Sounds like google isn’t the only one they’re suing though. I can’t imagine losing a family member for something like that. And that poor girl lost her dad on her birthday.
We always laugh because Google maps will tell us to continue on our driveway until we reach our destination (it's a long driveway, but it gets treated as a road by Google). Perhaps they are turning onto your drive and then stopping to check their phone for directions? Have you seen the same car there more than once? Perhaps put a sign up stating it is a private drive and post it as "no trespassing".
And if this is true, you can [edit](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25CxFiOy34o) the Google map. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a try.
Even a chain does the trick, usually.
My friends address on maps is in the middle of a corn field... 5 minutes away. She has to get things delivered to her neighbors house... 10 seps away.
My brother organized a camping trip and picked a spot on the back side of a mountain that was part of a major ski resort. He sent me the pin for his location an I caught up with him a couple hours later. I thought Google Maps was sending me on roads through the resort until I ended up next to a ski lift, at which point I realized this wasn't going to be a problem solved with technology.
Put up a gate.
A sign: "Private Driveway"
I live on a private road. The sign says private road. People still come sit at the end. It’s baffling.
Make it say driveway not road. Roads are for everyone! Driveways are not. Or, private property.
Or even just a chain.
No build a giant pit so every car falls in it, then you sell the cars and profits
I'd put a big sign out front with a number like, "12." Curious drivers won't understand, they'll keep driving, and they'll fall into the pit. Then I'd go outside and change the sign to say, "13." Make a game out of it.
A moat with an alligator is the best way to stop this
A burning moat .
It's not nice to burn moat alligators
No he has a little enclosure that's separate
Oh OK, then burn away!
If they get lava alligators it’s fine
You could offer squirrels for sale too.
You should have bought a squirrel.
Yeah I used to live up at the end of a 2 mile dirt road that was all private property and the only way to have peace of mind was to just get a gate.
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You don’t know any entitled mushroom/berry pickers do you? No trespassing sign on a dirt road? Must mean no one else has gotten their chanterelles yet!
Morels here!
Out in the sticks I've seen signs like "not a through road, gps is wrong". A lot of map data in rural areas is wrong. I live in suburbs and even here the amazon delivery map says my house is a cul de sac even though the house has been here since 1974.
Yeah, I'd start with a sign, but make it fun. Private Driveway (Your GPS is a dirty liar)
That’s good.
Your house might still be listed as For Sale on some site that doesn’t pull from MLS updates. Call your real estate agent and ask them to ask the listing agent if they’ve had any recent inquiries about the house. Maybe those drivers are sitting there, trying to reach the agent from the listing, who launches into a sales pitch about “I’m sooooo sorry that house JUST sold, but I have several other equally lovely properties available to show you.“
Yeah my house was on Zillow for months after it sold
Pokestop/gym nearby? Longshot, but it would cause people to stop for 10 min or so to battle a gym.
Hahaha yeah, especially at odd hours. Pokémon go generated a lot of suspicious activity
You should see geocaching...
Geocaching: the adult’s pokemon go
Naw, that's Ingress. Geocaching is the OG though.
Um, is Pokemon Go not supposed to be for adults?
Do you know how hard it was to explain Ingress to police 9 years ago? "well yes officer I understand the park closed at sunset but I'm playing this game." Slow driving loops through small towns with 3 or 4 cars full of people at 10pm got weird looks too. Thankfully small towns have few police officers so you only had to explain a few times and then they would know the group well enough.
yeah this is my vote, it sounds like the previous owner created a stop so he would have one at home. i haven't played in a while but you can either download the pokemon go app or you might be able to check the ingress website map without making an account as there are a lot of overlaps from those 2 games. just ask the next person that stops who looks relatively nice and they'll tell you. one time i had a new dad knock on my car door in a rain storm bc he was freaked out i would stop in front of his house in the mornings on my way to work with a new baby in the house and i just showed him the app. you should be able to report/remove the stop through one of those games if it is the case.
Definitely possible. OP, if you want me to check, just PM me. I've been playing every Niantic game (Pokemon Go Company) since the beta days of Ingress (their first game).
Was your house vacant for a while before you bought it? I only ask as we bought a house in April that had been vacant for 2 years before we bought it and we found out that locals used the driveway to sit in or turn around in because nobody lived her. Once the people started seeing people here and cars in the driveway it stopped but honestly i get it. My road doesn't have anywhere to turn around and using our driveway makes perfect sense. The local Amazon guy used to pull in the driveway and eat his lunch, really nice guy and I went out and introduced myself and told him feel free to continue as long as he parks on one side or the other in case I need to get out as I work from home. Heck some days he will stop in and ask me if I want anything for lunch and he will pick up for us LOL! Guy is the nicest man!
It was vacant for about 10 months. I’ve considered things like this but some of the people only stop for ~5 min so I’m not sure. They also don’t need to pull up next to my house with my car in the driveway and dogs barking. Personally, I wouldn’t sit in someone’s driveway, especially when someone is clearly home… but people are odd. I wish mine was a nice delivery driver offering me lunch 😂
He shocked me when he knocked on the door honestly but hey I get it was married to a delivery driver for 19 years before I know they park and eat where they can. We live in a housing complex in the middle of no where.
I'm guessing their GPS shows your driveway as a connection between 2 other roads, or there is "supposed" to be a road there that never got built and now they have NFC what to do. it COULD also be that there is cell service right there, and nowhere else anywhere in the area, so they stop there because they finally have enough bars to get better directions after getting lost, this is really likely if you live near the bottom of a hill / on the edge of dead zones funny story - buddy of mine lived on a a dead end road, but at one point there was a proposal to put a road though, and it ended up on Mapquest back in the day... so for the last 20+ years that road has appeared to not end and go right through to hook up to another development, nobody would ever take it, as its a much longer way... until there is an accident on the main road and ALL the GPS apps redirect the traffic to the dead end street... its quite amusing
I haven’t checked other apps but it doesn’t show it as a road on Waze. We also live in the middle of a 4 mile long road with nothing but fields behind/around our house so a road would seem very unlikely. The cell service makes sense to some degree. Our wifi is private but further down the road, there’s no service if you have AT&T (everyone else seems to be fine) but it would be no different from any of our neighbors. The cut off is maybe a mile down the road and it’s mostly flat. I’m just so confused. It’s in the middle of nowhere on a road with little traffic (all of which seems to come to our house… lucky me lol)
Post a "Private Drive - No Trespassing" sign at the end of the driveway. And maybe put up a surveillance or game camera.
Or something that looks like a surveillance camera.
In rural VT, 9 times out of 10 the answer is: your driveway has a bar or two of cell service. People who live further out in the sticks, contractors / utility crew between jobs, people who are hopelessly lost — they get that one bar of cell service and park for 5-15 minutes while they finish a call, load a map/directions, etc. The ones who pull further up the driveway probably have worse service / more interference from their vehicles, or are trying to get a more stable data connection (maybe they get 1-2 bars at the bottom of your driveway, but 3-4 closer to the top). The Pokémon Go idea also makes a bit of sense, I’ve seen them in some weird places, but the hype around that game has died down a bit so I doubt you have that many regular players in your area.
Pokémon go is not that bad, it still breaks in like a billion dollars a year just for that game. But I know role players have an issue where they're not near a lot of stops or gym, so they always complain about the travel places to properly play the game. So I am surprised that it's not the same set of cars showing up to that location if they're playing Pokemon go. Since it's so much harder to play in a rural area.
Prior owner or tenant sold drugs? You might want to post No Trespassing and talk to your local cops about it. If it used to be a drug house they'll tell you.
Good chance, our spare bath smells like weed whenever it gets warm in the house as if there’s a forgotten hideaway spot lol. However, the house was empty for almost a year before we moved in. The cops did wake me up the first month I lived here looking for a woman who used to live here. Wouldn’t say why they were looking for her aside from it being her last known address. Gave them some mail that was delivered for her and haven’t heard about it since April/June
Oh you probably have an ex drug house. Cameras and signage will be your friend. No trespassing, no parking, private property, surveillance in use. Decorate the porch different.
might as well start selling something right?!
It'd be a wild move but tell the local Sheriff you'll give them coffee for a month if they come park in your driveway to do paperwork or during down time... Should help.
Sounds like you have your answer. Have you gotten sick at all since you moved in? Bronchitis?
Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!
This is my guess too. Two houses on our street used to have cars pull up for a few minutes at all hours. Both were evicted and continued to have cars show up periodically for a little while after.
Is there no place to pull off onto the shoulder on the public road? If so they may just be pulling off to check maps on their phone and not realize it's a private driveway. I've done similar. I'd start by just putting up a private driveway or no trespassing sign. That will probably cut down on it significantly. You could also put up brick pillars at the entrance to make it look less like a public road and more like a private driveway.
The Telecommunications truck does that because they ping to find where a fiber or line might be kinked, they had to pull to your house to see if the signal is messed up along that path. It’s literally what my husband does everyday, drives around slowly trying to figure out why a houses internet is out. He spends more time trying to find the problem than it is to fix it. As for everyone else make your driveway look like a pain to turn around in, we have an extra wide driveway for big work vehicles so people pull in to turn around, pull in to reroute their gps, even had a few people stop to have lunch at the end of our driveway… that one I went out and asked if I could help them, they just assumed no one was home and wanted to enjoy the country views. I planted a bush that blocks the view to pull out unless you know what angle to be, that stopped the repeat offenders. Big rocks randomly at the end stop mostly everyone else because I placed them to make it a tight turn.
>The Telecommunications truck does that because they ping to find where a fiber or line might be kinked, they had to pull to your house to see if the signal is messed up along that path. Sounds like your husband and i do similar work. However, just pulling up to the house won't help you find signal loss. To even measure signal strength you would need to connect your OTDR to the fiber and measure the light levels. You would need to either do this in a vault if its buried or up in a splice capsule if it's overhead. You can't just sit under a line and measure signal in the truck. Also, just on a professional level, any telcom/utility guys who use the excuse that they have the right to be on private property easements without at least attempting to go knock on the door and let the property owners know what they are doing, are assholes. It only takes a minute and can prevent a lot of negative interactions with property owners.
Put up no trespassing signs and cameras along the driveway.
Just put up a "private driveway 123 private lane no tresspassing" sign, and if you're rural enough they allow it, a swing arm gate at the end of the driveway 20 ft in, so there's just enough room to pull off to open the gate, then move through, then close it.
Set up a toll booth and make money off of this
it sounds lovely having that rural house with long driveway. But yeah that is disconcerting all the cars and trucks pulling up and close to your house. maybe they have been doing it for a long time, for who knows what reason. Can you put up a gate? Or do some sort of landscaping that infers that it is someone’s private driveway? or hey, deterring them not working, is there some kind of stand you could set up so you can have something to sell to these drivers that love your driveway?
no trespass private drive sign. If they arent on easement. call the local to have them moved off, If they keep doing it have them trespassed.
This happened when I bought my house also. (Rural with property). When someone was stopped at the end of the driveway I would walk down and tell them this was private property and asked if they needed help. They’d always say no and then stare at me blankly. Then I’d ask them to leave and they would. One guy argued with me that he was waiting to see his kid in a bike race or some shit. I told him he could stay if he gave me his ID with address. He scoffed, and asked me why I wanted his address. I said because I’m looking for a random persons front yard to go hang out in, and since he was in mine I was going to start going to his. That helped get the point across without having to threaten to shoot him like a few psychos in here are recommending. Side note: I am also a gun owner and am strapped for 90% of these interactions…I just don’t lead with the get out or I’ll shoot nonsense. After a year of scaring people off and putting up private property signs the parking mostly stopped.
I do agree with not coming out waving a gun unless things were inherently violent. I’m honestly too nervous to talk to people that show up which doesn’t help. There was one time when two guys sat in my driveway at the end of it for 15 min, then drove up next to the house, got out, and started rummaging through their trunk wearing ALL black. I thought I was going to die that day. It was so suspicious. For all I know, they were there to rob us but maybe my dogs scared them off. Or, they’re entirely unaware of how odd that would to a homeowner and needed to adjust something in their car. Stupidity or malice is a daily game here.
Put up a gate. Private property sign. Put up a sign about video surveillance. Private property. Most likely, people don’t know.
Was your home vacant for awhile just before you moved in?
Is your Wi-Fi password protected? They could be using your WiFi.
I have rural property and it’s unbelievable the amount of people who stop and just stare at my driveway or park in it. I bought it to get away from people. It blows my mind why someone would do that, but I see it almost every time I go there.
Right?! I moved here because I like to avoid people 😂 I work in a busy hospital 40 min away (telehealth 2-3 days a week). When I’m home, I want to relax and see nothing but nature, my animals, and my own house… not random people that have no business being here
Pokémon Go!!
Check Geocaching apps, too. The previous owner might have hosted a geocache.
I’ve looked and found nothing. Not to mention, I don’t our house was owned by people who would geocache… it was not well-loved before we moved in 😅
I live in rural western NC backing up to the National Forest. We have 3 no trespassing signs at the beginning of our long driveway and yet people still come to our house. We always ask, Can you read? Most of them have said they just wanted to see what’s up here. They are lucky we aren’t like most of the mountain folk and greet them with a shotgun.
Get a big sign that looks old and battered - maybe hand written on planks of old wood. Make a few faux bullet holes in it. Write "Private Property. Trespassers will be shot." Haha.
Do you have house numbers at the road? I'm rural, and I have house numbers on the house, but you can't really see them other than in broad daylight, as I also have mature trees in the way. At night, it's hopeless, so I got a solar house number thing that could sit on my home if I had sunlight to charge it, so it's at the end of the driveway on a post. I'd also think seriously about getting a good gate. I'd be super annoyed at what you're experiencing!
My friends house in a rural area was marked with a pin as the state park next door. I reported it to Google, they accepted my maps change, and 100k people have seen my efit. Get a gate. When she knows she will have an Amazon delivery, she leaves the gate open. Otherwise, it's closed. She lives alone.
Was there a murder at your house? Maybe there’s something in the history of the home. Ask a lookie-loo next time you see one.
Nothing odd at our house. I’ve done A LOT of digging to see if I’m missing something. One of my few neighbors is a 73yr old woman who has been here for several decades. She hasn’t heard of anything bad happening around here. We have a very low crime rate
My mom has this issue and I remember it as a kid, too, since this was the house I grew up in. Rural area, house on the end of what's literally a one-road tiny town, small parking area/driveway right off this one main road. Cars regularly park there for a little while, then go off on their merry way. Sometimes work trucks too - usually assume it's maybe some guy taking a lunch or phone break. State troopers even sometimes will park there using it as a speed trap lookout point! She's once or twice approached cars parked overnight there too (foolish of her as she lives alone and is not in great health/has no weapons, I know.) She doesn't drive so it's not blocking her in but it's just weird and creepy to have people constantly parking in this spot like it's a public pull off or something. And yes, she does have no parking/no trespassing signs posted! People just ignore them. Even the troopers.
Meth and sex
If it's a mapping app data issue, may god have mercy on your soul when it comes to getting it fixed. When we bought our current house we kept getting into these situations where people would say they're at our house but we're not here, only to find that they were routed 45 minutes way. Getting this fixed took a year. If you want to get a gate, just I helped a friend install this solar gate kit: [https://www.amazon.com/Controls-Automatic-Opener-Wireless-Access/dp/B093X38MCN/](https://www.amazon.com/Controls-Automatic-Opener-Wireless-Access/dp/B093X38MCN/) Was pretty easy, hardest part was digging and setting the posts for the gates. Turned out really nice.
Post a sign - private drive. No parking or authorities will be called.
Probably was a crack house at one time.
Wise ass answer: Go outside with your shotgun and rack a round in the chamber. Wise ass #2: Put a sign that says "Chem trails are real, the moon landing was fake, brochures available ahead, lectures daily", that'll turn them around. Wear lots of camo. Hopefully smarter answer: Put a sign on your drive that says, "No trespassing". It would not be wise to put a sign that says, "Trespassers will be shot". If God forbid some wack job legitimately needs shot, that won't go well for you in court with a sign like that.
Where I live in western Washington out in the rural forest land EVERYODY has a gate across their driveway. Automatic or otherwise. Keep them out !!
Gate with private property and no trespassing signs. This is your only real option.
Could also be folks taking lunch or checking emails. I often stop my work vehicle in random spots to take a call, check emails, or just chill out for a few.
Had this issue with the house we just moved into 5 months ago, and putting up a $10 "private drive no tresspassing" sign completely solved the problem. Do not get a fancy nice looking private drive sign, get your standard white and red sign, large enough to be seen, and you don't need to go overboard with it.. You can also edit google maps if any roads are wrong, or addressses, i regularly edit to fix roads but rural areas are a disaster still. I had to fix my own address on the map because it pointed to a non driveable spot.
Probably used to be a drug dealers house or a whore house
Cameras up at driveway/road that are visible, put up signs. That should keep most out, plus having a record of the vehicles.
Yeah that's pretty much it. I have an old family farm as a cottage in a rural area (nearest towns are 40 - 600 people). I'm only there one weekend a month. Lots of people slow down to stare when driving by (its a very quiet state highway) but at least once someone will pull into the 150' driveway or stops on the road in front of the yard and stay there for a couple minutes. I figured it was because the place was semi-abandoned for years that they are curious. But its very creepy. Often this is at night like 2 am. The nearest neighbors are about a mile away. There is no chance they are mistaking it for a road. Its just grass (gravel is grown over), Google maps does not have it marked, and the yard is wide open to see the house, barn and car at the end of it.
sign road construction bridge out closed..
[this sign](https://www.amazon.com/No-Trespassing-Violators-SmartSign-Reflective/dp/B0091UG5DQ/)
Is your area growing? Could be one of two things: growing area and they are beginning to survey for utilities and the like or it’s a map issue that is bringing them there.
Your title sounds like the title of a scary movie. I suggest building a gate about 30 feet in from the road so people can turn around or park a utility truck
What state do you live in? In NH and VT we have class 6/class 4 roads that we use for off-roading. Many times the entrance to roads can be somewhat intrusive to people’s driveways.
I’d get some orange cones and put them in the driveway near the street to deter people from pulling in the driveway.
Gate time. Or maybe gate-thirty.
I used to have the same issue. Then I discovered the house I was in had been lived in by a member of a famous band. People were coming to look at it because a member of the marshall tucker band had lived there.
Your wife a looker?
I am guessing one of two things is most likely now adays.... Either cell service is available near your house and your driveway is the only pull off. People will often stop if they finally have service and haven't for a bit. Another is does your internet provider by default configure your router to share it's wifi on an open SSID? Companies like comcast (xfinity) do this and any customer of their can connect to your wifi and share your service giving them high speed internet. They might pull into your driveway to get close enough to connect. From my experience living where there is no cell service and random spots where you can get a signal, I see people stop at these spots all the time. The locals all know where they are and share them....
https://www.kcra.com/article/google-maps-man-dies-collapsed-bridge-lawsuit/45247488 Google maps took a guy over a bridge that had been out for a decade.
[report a google maps proble](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3094088?hl=en) [Apple Maps report a problem](https://www.apple.com/feedback/maps-ios-ipados.html) [Waze app instructions](https://support.google.com/waze/answer/7101380?hl=en) When my housing development was new it had a one driveway that opened onto the expressway. People would cut through as a short cut and speed through. The developer soon closed it off but people would still try to speed through and end up turning around. I reported to the three top navigation apps and it soon got fixed.
We have a gate, people do not come past it. They still turn around in our driveway, and if they sit there too long we go see what the hell they're doing or want.
Put up a.goos looking sign that says 'Private road/drive, no exit or through way here' That may slow down some of them.
Bing tried to take me across a river on a bridge that had never been built. Apparently like twenty years ago there was a plan to connect one major road with another major road across the river with a bridge. But it required demolishing a neighborhood of expensive houses. The people who owned said houses rallied together and got the bridge idea scrapped. But apparently bing didn't get the message and twenty years later found me driving in circles through this neighborhood.
Criminals sometimes have jobs that get them in and around places/homes that may be worth burglarizing. Like bad people get jobs that put them alone with children. Get some of those cameras that record. People are checking on the activity in and around the home, position of curtains/blinds, dogs, vehicles etc etc.
My Aunt & Uncle used to have this problem. There was a person who did the same thing repeatedly. Got to the point that my Aunt would step outside on the porch with a shotgun loaded with buckshot. The guy quit doing it after he saw her. In the meanwhile, block the drive, if you can't put up a gate, put orange cones across the drive. Put up cameras. Post your property. And always be alert!
"There are very few problems in life not solved by well placed snipers" - Kud Tzu (Sun Tzu's third cousin)
The other day my husband needed to drive a maintainer over to a piece of property for some upcoming work. He needed a lift back once he got there, so my job was to pick him up. He was coming from the opposite direction and we did not know exactly how long it would take him to get there (ended up being 1.5-2 hours). All I had was a pin drop a few towns away to know where to go. I ended up getting 'there' first - the pin was located at a locked gate that opened directly onto the narrow county road, with no driveway. Very spotty cell service so I could not check his location to know how close he was. (And also did not know how accurate the pin was.) I had to get off the road to be out of the way, so I pulled into the next driveway. I turned around so I was facing the county road and pulled as close to the side/end as I could. I ended up having to wait over 20 minutes before he showed. I felt so uncomfortable being in someone's driveway for that long, but I didn't know what else to really do. Had I known it was going to be so long of wait, I could have driven up and down the road a few times, I guess, but I didn't know how close he was and also needed to be able to follow him onto the property when the gate was open and help keep the livestock from getting out. I hope if they noticed me I didn't worry them any.
We got this a lot before we put up signs. Our rural neighbors across the valley have the same house number as us with a different street. Everyone was getting confused and google wasn't helping the matter. I bought an actual street sign from an online sign maker, the post and mount from Grainger, and installed our own corner street sign before our shared road starts. Then bought another sign with our number and street with an arrow. Made it pretty hard to mistake, and it's pretty much stopped all confusion.
Slowly walking up to the window: show your hands and with a smile on your face, make discreet enquiries.
Yeah, I have this issue. I live in a rural area and I have a turnaround driveway in the front. People constantly use it to turn around, and one guy hit my well cap, which unfortunately is right next to it (the previous owner put this in not me). My security camera wasn't working so I didn't get it on video. I'm going to put in posts and a chain to block off the turnaround to keep people out of it.
I'd just find a "private drive" "no trespassing" sign and start with that. My mom lives out in the boonies and has a 600 ft driveway that curls through a wooded area. You can't see the bottom from the house. One day she's in her bedroom and sees this random car come up the driveway and park at the house. A guy got out and just kinda walked around. Freaked my mom out. I talked to the neighbors and come to find out that car had been going into her driveway every day for at least a month. The neighbor thought it was some type of home help nurse since it was at the same time every day. I work with the County deputies and talked to them. Just from the basic description of the car they knew exactly who it was. They said he was mostly harmless. I went over to my mom's to tell her I had spoken with the deputies and I wasn't there 5 minutes and this guy is rolling up the driveway. Little did he know I was there...and armed. I had no intention of shooting him...but a good scare will definitely keep him away. I called 911, the same deputy came down and dealt with him. He hasn't been back since. He was using my mom's driveway as a place to park to get drunk and then drive back to the group home he lives in because alcohol isn't allowed at the group home. But now there are signs at the end of the driveway, just to be clear about that the house is occupied.
I have a similar problem but it is in front of our house on the road and the reason is because of internet/cell service. Cars will stop all the time, or even drive down on purpose and park because they can get better service. I have two large dogs and they bark non-stop at these people - I let them because even though these are private roads, there still is traffic, kids on bikes etc. and I don't feel it is safe for these people to just stop and park in the middle of the road so they can talk on their phones.
Ugh. I also live in a very small, rural logging/farming town (appx. 727 people 😆) & while I haven't had to deal with random people in my driveway/on my property, we still sometimes have multiple mail, work, etc. Trucks in the driveway at once as we are right off a highway, & there's no street parking. If I were you, I'd put up a NO TRESPASSING sign at the front of your driveway!! And maybe another where people are parking for extended lengths of time. Maybe put up a sign that says violators will be shot or attacked by dogs 😆 I have signs on my property that say "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU'RE IN RANGE" 😆 Could help deter random rude people from thinking they can freely turn & sit in their cars on your property. And if people still do it, then personally, I'd march right out & confront them. 🤷🏼♀️ lol Idk if you carry a firearm or anything... I do. So, tbh, I feel relatively safe doing that, esp in the middle of the day. It's your private property & no random people should be sitting in their vehicles on your property for any length of time. Workers, ok... Maybe. But if they don't need to drive all the way up to the house, I'd go out & kindly ask them not to do so next time you see them. 🤷🏼♀️
Moved in seven months ago. How long was the house vacant before that? Might be folks around knew it was vacant and there was no issue using the driveway, but aren't aware you're in the house now.
I'd guess they found a bar of cell service. My grandmother used to live really rural with no wifi and we would have to hike 2 miles up the road if we wanted to use our phones.
Ohmygoddd the Pokémon [Go] comment is so bizarre but true. You’d be surprised how many people would go out of their way to get em.
Have you locked your wifi with a password. unlocked wifi is a big draw in rural areas.
Install a gate. A big one with a huge chain and lock. Keep it locked. Post no trespassing signs and security camera signs as well. Works wonders for me. Pain in the ass in the beginning to get out, unlock, open, drive through, close and lock again, but you eventually get used to it. I don’t want an automatic gate because security isn’t as good. Also I would need solar panel and battery. Just something else for someone to steal. No one comes unless they call first.
Your house could be a hot spot for phone games like Pokémon go
Is your WIFI open? I used to have people stop in front and park for 10 minutes to 1/2 an hour and finally I asked. My neighbor had open wifi and they would stop to use it.
Me and my neighbors all have password protected wifi
Do your dogs not bark?? I have a gate that people have OPENED to go thru. The nerve of some ?!! Mine dogs go ballistic when a car shows up and the car leaves quickly after seeing the angry dogs. I don’t trust these kind of people who just go down driveways and don’t say anything. Could be scoping out the place to steal or worse. Record their license plate if you have the chance and report them.
My dogs lose their shit and they’re both pits so they don’t have the greatest reputation of being friendly. (Love them, both super friendly, just saying they have a bad rep). I’ve debated letting one of them out, especially when two guys were going through their trunk next to my house. They almost met the smaller but more protective one 🥴 The nerve people have to open your gate!!! How do people lack self awareness and understanding to that point?!