How should I try to get permission to detect here?

[Sky1]

Hey guys,
There are three houses on a main road that have been literally moved off the site to make room for a new shopping plaza. I am wanting to detect the grounds there before they get started with construction. There are no signs up as of yet.

Can someone please advise me how I could find who the owner is and the best way to approach this.

thanks

 

[BarberBill]

You can go to the county records to see who the owner of record is, then get in touch. However, and I may get blasted for this, as long as nothing is happening there I wouldn't be afraid to go ahead and detect. If someone that actually has a say on the property comes along and tells you to quit and move on, then go. As long as the property isn't posted and you leave without a fuss it's unlikely anything more would come of it. If you wait until they start working the property, you may be able to get permission from the job foreman as well, as long as you hunt after hours or away from the activity.
HH
BB

 

[dave5710]

Surely someone at City Hall will know who the developer is. I wonder if a Realtor was involved? Around here the signs go up months before anything is done. If nothing else the site Foreman might be a possibility. Those guys are pretty easy to get along with.

 

[Dang]

Hard hat and a orange vest. A clipboard adds a nice touch too.

 

[wayne_etc]

A while back a similar situation presented itself around here. Crews were clearing some old land in preparation for a shopping center. My dad and I just happened to be driving by on a weekend and there was one guy working on a bulldozer. We pulled over and asked if he thought anyone would mind if we detected while no one was working the land. He said he didn't see where it would be a problem.
That's all we needed. We figured if anyone asked, we could say one of the guys said it was ok.
Turned out the site was a bust, but no one bothered us.


w

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I agree with BarberBill. I hunt old-town urban demolition sites all the time. If they're not buttoned up, fenced, and/or specifically posted, we just "go". I don't know about where you're at, but where I'm at, you can ask till you're blue in the face, and they will tell you "no". Is it because they really care less? No. It's because once they say "yes", they're responsible for you. I have hit lots of sites where ...... if by chance someone came back after 5pm (because they forgot their lunch box, for instance), and they see me, they'd ask "any luck?" etc... and don't seem to care. But guaranteed, if you were to ask that same foreman, he'd probably have to say "no" (because you asked).

It depends on the type site too. Because a public works demo (libraries, schools, parks, etc...) might be a different psychology than a private demo (banks, commercial properties, etc...). And even amongst private demo's I would make some distinctions. For example: A vacant house up on blocks having a foundation re-done, in my mind has a different psychology than a nameless faceless coorp. land where a shopping center or Taco Bell is going into an old town district. But that's just me. Like BarberBill, I know I will probably get blasted for this view. But go figure, you're asking on a forum where some people think you need permission to hunt public park sandboxes

 

[Sky1]

I'm hear ya and I live in a very friendly town. I know most of the cops, just about everyone in the very small town hall, the main realtor etc, even our mayor. I know that it would be pretty unlikely for me to get arrested but I would feel a bit more confident about digging with a bigger shovel when I have the official Ok if you know what I mean.

I think today I am going to hunt behind our town hall building. It was an old schoolhouse from 1907. I'll take a drive by those empty lots where they moved the houses and see if there are any signs up.

 

[Sky1]

Drove by there today and this time there was a sign. I called and the guy selling the property said no problem. He said there is a lot of history there so I should do well, he even wished me good luck! I called one of my detecting buddys but got his voicemail.

So I started detecting then noticed that the property goes way way back down a gravel road. Beyond where the houses were was a couple barns or horse stalls and a few other houses that were fallen down. It must be at least 20 acres. I was overwhelmed and didn't really know where to start so I bordered large trees and the house structures only digging known coin signals. Found a buffalo at the base of a four foot diameter oak tree. The dirt there was very hard.

I can't read the date on the Buffalo and my other finds were only clad and an old buckle. I am looking forward to going back there again and will once again try for silver this time bringing my shovel as many targets were 6-10". I need to look up what 35's and 36's are on the Minelab Safari. There were a lot of those but I didn't dig any of them, I could tell they weren't coins, had a lot of ground to cover so wanted to go for known goods so was just looking for silver 38's and Nickels 15's on my VDI. I ended up with only 6 items and 3 of them were coins. I know, I work slow but then again I'm a newbie.

 

[norman maassey]

In most large cities (Houston, TX) the contractors will say No for insurance reasons if there is any contrustion fencing. If no fence No problem.

We still hunt a lot of Demo site all over Houston. The only time I have problems is around University of Houston. I have permission to hunt U of Houston. The whole campus. The Houston transit called Metro has demo a whole side of the street many blocks long across from U of Houston to put in a rail system I have been hunting Metro sites for years., but some one every once in awhile calls Metro Police. Yes Metro has their own police force. The office shows up and asks me to leave and to came back tomorrow. Then I am back to Tomorrow. It's a game we play.



Metro are building 5 rail systems right now some in the oldest parts of Houston. Plus road replacement in the some areas. Some many places to hunt and only one of me with so little time.

 

[Sky1]

Just wondering, how do you guys hunt places like this?
Do you dig all metals?
Dig everthing above Iron?
Look for coins only?

I think if I was to dig everything I would be finding a lot of junk.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I hunt old-town urban demo's with a "relic" mindset . Ie.: dig all above iron. However, I have encountered some that did require a bit more cherry-picking, because like ..... if they were filled with tabs and foil or whatever (to keep from going crazy, I had to pick my priorities).

An example of this: they tore down the grandstands of our local rodeo grounds in the mid 1990s. These were built in the 1920s, and underneath them, had been hard-pan ground terra-firma. You can imagine the coin bonanza it was when they starting dozing around the ground beneath these bleachers (all those years of people fiddling with their coins in the slatted seating above, to buy sodas and hot-dogs all those years from the roving concessioners). But you can also imagine the sea of tabs as all those beer and soda drinking attendees had merely stuck all their trash through the open slatted seating too! (they clean out all the standing trash after each event from below, but all the ocean of smaller tabs and stuff was still there). If we had thought we were gonna be heros and get nickels in that sea of tabs and foil would have been fool-hearty indeed! The places was slated to be filled with fill-dirt in a matter of days, so we had to make haste and get all the silver, wheaties, etc... A person would have gone mad if he hadn't cherry picked in a situation like that. So it all just depends on the type site.

If you're dealing with sites where all the surface newer stuff has been scraped off, or if you simply have time to strip-mine, then sure, dig all except iron.

 

[Sky1]

Sounds like a plan Tom, I got Friday off this week so can treasure hunt all weekend Since I don't have to worry about the turf as it is going to be bulldozed I think I am going to bring out my trench shovel to make digging easier. I watch the videos on youtube and I would have to say I am probably the slowest digger out here especially with that little gator digger tool I use.

 

[go-rebels]

This may help: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1126143

 

[BarberBill]

By the description of the site, I think you need my help, LOL. If I were hunting it, I'd dig most targets unless I was only looking for coins. However, it sounds like there should be a good chance of finding many interesting older items along with coins. As to all metal, if you can stand it, there's are 2 advantages. First of all, that's the deepest setting on the detector and secondly, if there is a coin or other good target being masked by junk near or over it, you'll still get a signal and dig - finding both the junk and the goodie. I don't know how much experience you have so bear with me - Often if a nail or other iron or junk target is close or over a good target and the junk metal is being discriminated, the good metal will also not respond. That's masking. As I mentioned, all metal will still give you a signal in this situation.

If there is a good chance of older, deep silver it may well be worth gridding off a small section at a time and cleaning out the trash targets in order to pick up the good ones. Have your machine turned on as soon as you leave your vehicle and until you get back. There's no telling where or when a good signal is going to appear. Sounds like an exciting location - good luck.
Dig often and dig deep,
BB