If you invited someone into your house as a guest, and he started destroying your furniture, reprogramming your remote control and stealing your silverware, you’d be tempted to say that he and everyone else like him were no longer welcome where you lived.

Property owners in Somerset County are starting to have that unwelcoming attitude toward snowmobilers, and considering what they say, it’s hard to blame them.

Maine doesn’t have a lot of public property open to recreation, especially south and east of the unorganized territories, so many groups of snowmachine enthusiasts have made agreements with private property owners to let their members ride trails that cross their land.

But where once complaints were few, they have escalated greatly this winter. Landowners say snowmobile operators have cut fences, stolen signs, driven through sewer fields and cemeteries, damaged trees and roared by their homes in the middle of the night. Businesses have charged operators with blocking their commercial vehicles, removing signs prohibiting their travel and ruining landscaping.

Maine has 14,000 miles of snowmobile trails, and 94 percent of them are on private land. The state’s 100,000 operators would be hard-pressed to find places to ride if much of that land were to be denied to them.

There’s much more to being a good neighbor than lending a cup of sugar. Respecting others’ property is essential to being allowed to continue using it.

 

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