private privacy

Why did Maine go after Oresa?
Did she skip on taxes or was there junk buildup or something, that caused neighbors to complain -- what was the trigger? You got to get on the radar for them go after you.

The idea of having a hermit on the deed would, honestly, scare me, even though I'm a hermit and loner myself. First off, I'd be afraid of lawsuits if something goes wrong with the hermit or because of them.
Seems like this is legal gray area: can landowner be liable for something related to squatter, especially deeded one? With crazy lawsuits that I see happening, I'd say this is a real possibility.
Secondly, I'd be worried about drug and alcohol abuse and any consequences from such, like cops on the property or someone harming me or my house because they overdone the fire water, or stealing from me.
And taxes being what they are....I wouldn't want to pay them while a squatter on my land does not. Not rich enough for that. In general, being a loner I guess just wouldn't want another hermit near me....LOL...two hermits are too many.

Besides my US citizenship I got another one, where I'm originally from: there're plenty of rural hermits there...it's a common thing to do. But mostly, these people are drunks. Not all of them though: world-famous Agafia Lykova certainly is not.

A lot of VERY helpful info in this thread: thanks a lot for sharing. I've been interested in Ozarks myself (in Arkansas, Missouri wouldn't work for me because of certain legal aspects).
I think I'll be shifting my interest to a couple of Northern locations close to Canada, instead, now, after all the research I had done.

By the way, it's been pretty eye-opening to read about this issue of people partying on private land and refusing to stop/leave. I'm a woman living alone myself....it's quite telling that cops weren't helpful in this situation.
Of course one can always run off this vermin and lowlives off the property, more than one way to do this... but I have a feeling this is how they treat "outsiders" over there, and there might be revenge if you take strong measures to protect your property rights (like setting your house on fire or killing your animals...or, the crackheads trespassers might actually go ahead and sue you)...If she was a local, she'd probably be treated differently -- just my guess. I did live in the South long time ago, Deep South, and know how outsiders can be treated... I do have some experience dealing with crackheads on neighboring parcel...best to just avoid the areas where they run rampant alltogether: these are lawless places where the Law does not truly stand by the rights of home owners, and one will run into a problem one way or another, eventually: it's not "if", it's "when".

By the way, I consider Colville, WA area to be heaven on Earth, it's just the home/land prices went up there too much, to the point it's not worth it.

The reason I'm going to cross Ozarks off my list, I think, is a combination of factors: if it was just one thing it'd be fine but all together is too much.

1) Water. My understanding is these are all karst areas, so wells tend to run deep, hundreds of feet. Also, a lot of drilling through rocks there = expensive drilling. I heard about 20K-30K wells (current pricing) in Missouri Ozarks, insanely expensive considering in most of the Eastern US wells run around 5K. There're areas with cheaper wells in Ozark but these are probably agricultural areas exactly where I wouldn't want to be because of Ag chemical pollution and lack of nice landscape. I plan to buy a place with a well and a house, but one always has to consider that new well might be necessary, because old one goes bad.

Water quality: seems like it isn't great in most places -- need filters/softeners - hard water. Also, a lot of contaminated water traveling around in the aquifer because of karst geology, apparently: water goes right through openings rather than seeping and filtering, like it normally does. Bottom of Ozark aquifer is salty brine and because of high water withdrawal rates, there seems to be a risk of brine coming up, into wells. My understanding a lot of properties there got bad, substandard wells, with bad water, because people can't afford to get proper wells/expensive there.

Another water concern I have is with fracking and aquifer. Fracking is only done (or potentially will be done) in the shale areas.  Shales stop about one-county-level South from AR-Missouri border. Disposal/injection wells also aren't done North of shale area, my understanding, because of well drilling being too expensive there -- so they inject either where they frack (may be also ship to Oklahoma which is a major fracking waste dump site). However, I have concern since Ozark aquifer extends way South, at least according to some maps I've seen, and goes to potential fracking and disposal wells parts. With karst geology, I think there's a potential for that stuff traveling within Ozark aquifer. I read a study (which was done to show connection between earthquake swarm in 2011 and injection wells) -- it clearly described injection of fracking waste done "into aquifer", in Northern AR...it must have been Ozark aquifer.

2) I had lived in the Deep South, in a place where people were standoffish with outsiders (and I'd moved from Eastern Europe long time ago and got accent, which was making it worse... even if you look like a typical local, it doesn't matter...either you're born and bred there, or not)...from what I heard from others, Ozarks aren't much different in this sense. This is what I heard more than once...can't be all untrue... Back where I lived in the South, if you call for service on the phone, they can ask you: "What is your nationality?" first, before they decide to talk to you... cause they want to make sure you're not Middle Eastern or something. But if you're just from 2 hours drive away, born-and-bred, you're still not accepted, that's what I was told by a local: you're from too far away, LOL....So, some things I heard about Ozarks reminded me of that stuff. It's all good if you keep to yourself but who knows eventually you might need to defend your rights (like in the above example with trespassers)...good luck then.
Pretty horrified to read that "party" story here.

3) Tornados. I know what major wildfire does, almost ended up losing all including my life in one, but tornados seem scary too. May be better to skip both.
Tornado shelters freak me out...what if you get stuck in one; I'm a loner, no one will look for me really, I'll just die there...cellphones likely won't work after tornado comes through...satellite beacons probably won't work from inside the shelter, as you normally need clear sky to send distress signal.

4) Extreme heat + humidity. One thing is to sit it out near A/C, but I want to have some organic agriculture going and being out there under the sun during growing season might  just finish me off (before chiggers do).

5) Rocky soil/hidden shallow rock bed issues, just extra headache in selecting the property.

6) I heard labor is hard to find there, and handymen people has experiences with were shady. I mean not in-town but in the sticks.

What was mentioned here by others really helps to nail things down. I've been planning a big US road trip starting this May to look for a property and buy it (not coming back to live where I'm) and I think Ozark might be too much to take upon, not having connections in the area who could guide me to a "good" property and help steer clear of bad ones. Realtors are really shady and of no help. Seems like a lot of info about which property is good or bad is passed along between the locals there and no one will tell you much if your'e an outsider.

May be I'm overly concerned with some things...but financially and health-wise don't have room for mistakes and have had lessons from buying and having to sell fast before.

Jen Fan wrote:I've been ready to buy land for some time now...  I thought I would end up in the NW, probably Washington.  As per some recent events and expansions in life, I've suddenly started to entertain moving out of the NW, just as a possibility.  I'm sure it's been asked 1,000 times, but really- how do you even choose where to go?!  Our country is so environmentally diverse and so expansive...  On the one hand. "It's all good land", on the other, there are definite pro's and con's to every state, county, and climate.

So I thought I'd pick some brains here

I raise fiber and pack goats and intend to start milk goats for home use.  I raise a variety of rare poultry, plus meat rabbits.  Most of my income comes from farm surplus and online sales/work.  I grew up in the NW, I enjoy/tolerate snow and cold well enough, though I prefer 40-60 degrees as a comfortable working climate.  I've gotten sick in the heat several times in the last 3 years (not hard to do when it's over 100 for 10 weeks straight) and these days I get cripplingly ill if I'm out in weather over 80-85 degrees for any length of time, so I need to be mindful of summer highs.  I am terribly sensitive to big ag chemical use and need to stay away from mass monoculture areas.  I also live in an RV on solar and will probably remain doing so if and until I build a cob house.  So naturally there are a lot of environmental and legal factors that go into this.  State and county research is time consuming; can I do this, can I do that, how do I do this, what permits do I need for that, etc etc. Also what resources are in the area, facilities and feed and supplies and emergency aid; how far away is all of it, what is the local economy, community, and political climate, etc etc.  I do hours and hours of research for every property I home in on- doing my due diligence, as it were.

But in the end, it's overwhelming looking at the surplus of land available country-wide!  I grew up traveling around the US and find beauty and peace in so many diverse environments.  Montana has captured my heart, Pennsylvania is filled with nostalgia, New Mexico feels bold and wild, California looks accommodating, Washington promises freedom and privacy, Colorado is cold, wild, and pristine...  How did you guys choose where to go, where to buy, where to live, where to farm?

I would not recommend Upper Peninsula (MI). To those who recommend it: are you familiar with zoning regulations there?
There're tons of counties in the UP, and each has many townships.
Each township sets own zoning rules (unlike, say in Washington or CA, where counties set zoning), this includes for any out-of-town, rural areas.
There're many restrictions (too many). Minimum acreages for keeping any animals (way too high), minimum house sizes, etc, etc, some even force style requirements on accessory buildings and ban trailers from being used as sheds or offices. A lot of useless regulations, and each patch of land/township has own set!
Two sets of permits are to be pulled: one from township, another from the county, for the same thing!
I think there're only very few unrestrictive/reasonable townships in the UP, located in more remote areas. But in any case, there's also MI statewide building code on top of it all.


One might be mislead having looked at real estate listings....don't be fooled, a lot of the cheap listings that are out of town and on larger lots are recreational structures.
They're not and will never be permitted as residences.  Because they don't meet endless requirements, not to mention health code.
Means one would have to hide the fact of living there full time and anyone can turn you in.
The fact that they didn't bother previous owner if they lived in one, does not meat they won't get on it once property is sold to new owner.
These are hunting camps, weekend cabins, that's it: in some townships one can't even legally spend half a year in those, only 3 months and even less, like 3 weeks.
Also, it's a risky agriculture area, frosts in summer and one of the coldest parts of continental US. Those who're saying to hope for climate change making agriculture easier -- really? This does not make any sense; one can also buy lottery tickets instead of gambling on real estate (will lose less money at least)