We are the last house on the right, before the pavement ends, and you reach the steel US Forest Service gate..
With our backs to the wilderness, we have a lot of 4 legged type of intruders..Coyotes, Foxes, Black Bears, Bobcats, and even a Cougar once in a while.. Really common around here! So we have NV cams and remote lights on the house and out buildings.. Hard wired on the house, wireless on the out buildings.. Deer and Elk are always triggering the lights, we added the cams, so we didn't have to jump up and go investigate every time.. Gets seriously aggravating being woken from a sound sleep for a Possum Raccoon or Deer.. Or our own cats! The auto lights do a fair job or keeping the big predators away..
"They come at night, MOSTLY!"
Our house is far back from the road, and we have a 6ft cedar fence in front and 1/2 way up both sides, with 6 ft wire horse fence making up the rest.. The back side is open to the wilderness, we have considered fencing it, but our property reaches out into the woods and steep terrain.. Too much work and I'm gettin too old to haul the heavy materials up and down by hand, so we haven't done it.. Some of our neighbors are fully fenced, but the wildlife gets thru or over anyway.. Doesn't seem to make much difference, so why bother..
In front we have a deep drainage ditch and a belt of trees/brush that block us from the road, about 20yds or so.. 2x 16ft steel gates on the driveways, so there is no direct access or view of the house from the roadway.. We have 2 wireless bell buttons and cams at the gates, so we can see who is there.. Keep radios in our vehicles, so we can call ahead, open the gate before we get there, drive right in.. Otherwise, we have to stop, open, drive thru, relock the gate.. A major pain in the azz, but power gates are a lot of work and expense.. That would be major Batman cool, but just not worth it for us..
Biggest problem we have, is with services.. Power, Cable, and DELIVERIES.. Power company forced us to take that damn smartmeter, so they could check our power usage remotely.. (I don't like signals being emitted from my home, that I have no control of!) And UPS and Fedex, tend to refuse to drive to the gate and push the bell button, they want to leave our oversized items at the mailbox by the road..
Just last Oct, Fedex left a set of brand new 37x13.50" mud tires next to the road.. I was keeping an eye on the tracking, but the delivery notice was delayed, so they sat there for hours.. Luckily, my neighbors aren't thieves..
We love our isolation, and security.. It is kind of a hobby of mine!
But it can be a real pain sometimes..
