My neighbor has been harassing me and my small HOA community in a multitude of ways, [...]
When I'm outside on my land, there have been several instances where his drone follows me around my land. He has a drone business (or is trying to). I've asked him to please stop. He refuses.[...]
He is now resorting to using this drone to harass us now that we have put up our fence. He has followed my other neighbors around their yard as well. [...] I'm told I do not own my airspace. [...]
Does the NO TRESPASSING sign not apply to drones?
Thanks for any direction you can provide.
Are you certain that he is
deliberately harassing you? He sounds like a nut case, but there's a difference between a drone just flying overhead on its way to and from some other place (like any other low-flying helicopter or aircraft) versus someone
deliberately using a drone to stampede your livestock, or to knock over your barbecue, or steal your chickens. If it's following you close enough that you can bat it out of the air using a broomstick, well that's pretty clear harassment.
There's a difference between
assuming you're being deliberately harassed, versus actual criminal harassment. If you've tried talking to the guy with no success, then document his transgressions as proof for presentation to the authorities.
The reason I ask is, on one of our neighbouring lake association's (thankfully not ours) facebook page somebody complained about
seeing a drone flying over the lake and claimed it was "spying" on them. They insisted it's an invasion of privacy! Several other people joined in saying they've also seen the same drone, and all of them unanimously suggested immediately shooting it down if ever seeing it again. Get your guns, your slingshots, your bows and arrows! Someone from an entirely different town even chimed in to say, "I saw a drone here too!" Sheesh. Merely
seeing a drone is now evidently sufficient grounds for panic and a call to arms.
Since nobody seemed to be taking the side of the drone flyer, I posted a few questions to the group. It turns out the drone was never actually hovering outside anyone's bedroom window, nor even directly flying over anybody's property. It was simply flying along the lakeshore (which is not illegal). Oh ya? But think of how this affects the poor loons and herons! It should be illegal! To which I questioned whether swimming, or paddling a canoe around the shoreline, is any less disturbing to the wildlife.
I suggested they have their lake association send out an email to everyone on the lake inviting the drone owner to come to a meeting to demonstrate what it can do, or even better what it cannot do. Maybe it's not actually some pervert, but just some kid innocently flying their birthday present around the lake blissfully unaware that he's creating such concern within his community.
I was particularly distressed by the outrage expressed in that facebook group because I sometimes fly my own drone around
our lake (thankfully not the same lake). A couple of years ago I made an aerial video for one of my neighbours. He's a long distance swimmer and he asked me to record one of his daily swims around the lake. It was in late autumn with the leaves all in full colours, so the video turned out quite nice. He sent the link to our lake association president, who forwarded it to everyone on the lake. So now everybody knows that
I'm the guy with the drone, and they all know where to find me. More importantly they've all seen the sort of images the drone is capable of capturing.
Note: I'm convinced that, just like every day around here,
everybody at the lake was nude-sunbathing that day, or doing their gardening in the nude, or doing god-knows-what while naked inside the privacy of their cottages. The drone sees everything! Watch the video and count how many naked bodies you can spot...