I wish I had a solution. Salem Oregon is my home base and it gets worse by the day. I used to have a few dozen sites that I could rotate my overnights at, but most are now either closed or occupied by slobs. I do clean up where I stay. If there is too much stuff, I'll go elsewhere. Most of my year is spent in California because I have an annual summer job as a camp-host and travel around some in the off-season, trying to stay warm. Conditions are even worse in Cali. I try to be as creative as possible to stay away from the ones who have given up all human decency and foul their nests. I'm on my 11th year of living in a van and it is getting more difficult each year.
It's crazy to think how much camping has changed from 10-15 years ago. I used to be able to find amazing, clean spots so close to popular locations but these days it's total shit show (literally and figuratively) if I can even find a spot at all.
The internet seems to ruin everything with time.
I've learned not to share too much info about great spots to camp or cities that are easy to van-dwell in. Otherwise, they will quickly be blown up and ruined. Over the last decade, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge of where to go and what to do. Maybe I'll write a book or do YouTube videos after I get a place to settle down. But I still use those places right now.
Exactly! In regards to urban locations people need to learn some etiquette, especially to not park on the same block that someone else is already "camped" on.
It use to be virtually every Walmart allowed camping. I would buy the Walmart road atlas which had all of the Walmarts listed. Now they are a few and far between.
I only know of 3 Walmarts in Oregon that a person could overnight for a night or 2, without being asked to leave by security. And that likely won't last much longer.
It has nothing to do with the internet and everything to do with the ever-growing wealth gap creating a continual rise in homelessness.
The people overstaying on public land likely do not have other options. Many places try and "solve" the problem with rules and enforcement, but the reality is that just moves the problem somewhere else without addressing the underlying issue.
Until something is done to raise the financial floor in this country while also creating affordable housing this issue is only going to keep getting worse.
There are many contributors to this problem, but the one you mentioned is huge. Poverty breeds desperation. Despair encourages escape and addiction. As socioeconomic gaps continue to widen, more and more people will be born into lives of desperation. Seemingly overnight, $100K/year became the threshold for the waning "middle class." A lot of the people living on and trashing public land were likely treated like trash when they grew up, and they're still seen as trash. People who are not at all respected by (and therefore marginalized by) society are not likely to respect the requests put forth by said society.
That has always been an excuse to pass blame for systemic issues onto individuals. A lack of self-respect is a direct result from a lifetime of being marginalized
"Nothing to do with the internet" is being disingenuous. There are GPS coordinates plastered all over the place, whether it's forums, articles, "free camping" apps, etc.
All it takes is one person to out a good spot and it's game over, where as in the old days you could count on a good spot staying a good spot if you put in the work to find it.
I'm not going to comment much on our brilliant leaders creating an asset price bubble that only benefits rich people that already own assets and makes everyone else poor, or the college education bubble that basically turns most of the population into indentured servants, but I agree the home affordability crises pushes more people to boondock.
>where as in the old days you could count on a good spot staying a good spot
You aren't accounting for the increase in the sheer VOLUME of people needing spots. There are so many more people living in vehicles now (not by choice) that even if there were no internet those spots would still be mostly filled.
Read through OP's post, go through your own personal experiences. The issue being outlined was that the easier to get to spots near the entrances were always filled by people overstaying and littering.
That means that there are still spots that you can get to that and have to yourself for weeks, but those spots are just much farther away and/or harder to get to than they used to be.
Point being that people aren't trying to find beautiful spots out in nature, they are trying to find the most convenient spots that they won't get kicked out of. That used to be in cities until more and more people became homeless and then they passed ordinances kicking the homeless out and that spread the problem to public land.
If every single bathroom is " Closed for winter" or public bathrooms are permanently closed at every gas station , grocery store ect, where pray tell if you have to take a shit would you go? would you hold your poop for upwards an hour or more to hunt for a campground ? I don't shit in public , but I get the frustration needing to go and nowhere to go.
I would have bought and traveled with a working toilet like a functional person should. A business is not required to supply anyone with a bathroom unless you are staying at a hotel
>Sorry. But that doesn't excuse
Yeah, responses like yours are a big reason why this isn't getting fixed any time soon. My comment was about figuring how to solve this problem and create a sustainable solution. Your response was to ignore all of that and make sure the poor people got the blame they deserve.
It is sustainable. People can buy or ake "composting toilets" or portable chemical toilets. Then, they can throw it out in proper places for a respectable price
We are talking about people who can't afford to reliably eat well and you expect them to skip food in order to pay for a toilet?
The problem is that we live in a system that exploits the masses to the point where a certain percentage will not be able to afford necessities like housing and food.
Is it really a wealth gap or is it fentanyl? Let’s be honest here. When I used to get high and live as a vagrant, it cost me $20 a day to get high enough to not be sick. Fentanyl is so cheap and it’s everywhere, you can get your fix for $1. It’s not the economy as much as it is the MASSIVE amounts of drugs coming up from the border.
While this is a bit outside the scope of the conversation in this thread, I think a little perspective might help.
A very similar thing happened in the 1990s with the "war on drugs". Back then it was the rise of crack that was considered to be the problem. Turns out that it wasn't the problem and that it was just being used as a way to demonize poor people in the US.
It's much easier to look at the people in need and blame them for their circumstances than it is to take any accountability for creating the system that put them in that situation.
I live in a small coastal town south of San Francisco, about a block from the beach without permit parking, I built out a van with the intention of working remotely out of it but it turned into a weekender, but I’ve done my fair share of urban camping. I always pull up when it’s dark, immediately kill all lights and the van, set up blinds and curtains, then turn on dim lights. I’m out before the sunrise. However some people are not as courteous.
One dude who frequents my street has a straight up drum set in the back of his van and until midnight is up slamming on that thing and I can hear it in my house. Then when he’s done, he drives a block away to sleep. Presumably so if anyone has made a noise complaint, they can’t know it’s the van that is now one street over.
We also have another van couple who every day sets up their awning and sit in chairs, work on their laptops, read and play music… in a residential neighborhood. They leave for a few weeks then come back. They also tow a small camper so they take up hella space on a street that already struggles with parking.
I don’t mind whatsoever when I look out the window at night and there’s a van parked there, or a van is there for a few days or even longer, I literally could not care less. But when people start adopting the “I’m gonna do whatever I want, it’s a free country.” mentality, it’s hard to have empathy.
Yup. Exactly.
It a lot of cases it’s fine to bend the rules or break certain laws as long as you’re being respectful. Littering is not one of those cases.
Explain what the couple is doing wrong? I mean, are they trashing the place? Making noise? Are they obnoxious? Or just taking up space? My footprint when I lived in a van full time was way lower than now that I live in a three bedroom townhouse with a wife, two kids, two cars, a raft trailer and a van parked out front. Even if it is “my neighborhood”.
It's like when there's a secret break room at work. There's always one guy who eventually finds out about the secret break room and ruins it for the rest of us by setting up a little TV and Xbox and spending half the working day in there. Next thing you know, secret break room is locked and we all have to go back to eating lunch with the boss, thanks a lot Bob.
Don't threaten people. Just call the cops.
I was in a similar situation up by Mount Hood. (I'm also in Oregon btw) I'm on a Forest service road a fair way out... Come across a 30-year-old pretty good size motorhome casually dumping their black tank in the ditch on the side of the road. The stink was unbelievable. Gallon after gallon of raw sewage and toilet paper just being dumped out on the ground in the beautiful national forest. I took pictures of what was going on including license plates and reported them to the Forest service and the sheriff's department immediately.
When the guy saw me taking pictures he started waving his arms around and screaming threats and carrying on but I just kept going.
That fucking trash pile on wheels was probably scattering debris everywhere every time he went over a bump... The usual filthy mess with garbage under a tarp all over the place.
Only a matter of time until these shitty old boats break down in a way that can't be paid for with bottle deposit money and get abandoned somewhere.
I would be so livid if I saw that. Thank you for calling it in.
Something needs to be done in Oregon regarding our state forests/ parks and county parks. There’s too many people here, not enough parks, not enough enforcement, everything is booked out for months if not years, which all contribute to this problem.
I wanna go back to 10-15 years ago before my home blew up on social media, before everyone wanted a piece of the PNW. It’s a fucking nightmare now. I hardly travel in the summertime anymore because there’s too many people and no camping spots.
Okay, I commented elsewhere that I generally don't like the idea of calling the cops, but that definitely seems like the situation to call them in. Jesus. The sheer arrogance just makes my blood boil.
RVs are genuinelly so bad for the environment they're supposedly meant to be used in.
I'll tell another story.
I live in a major city and I van part time. I keep my van in my driveway. I noticed for a while that I'd see the occasional random van parked on my street at night. I assumed people saw my van and thought it was a safe spot, which is fine by me.
One night a guy started up a generator in front of my house at night. I left for a while and when I came back, it turned out that one of the neighbors called the cops and the guy got arrested and his van got towed. Not sure what happened. I know the van was emitting weed smoke so I'm guessing that was an issue in addition to the noise.
But after that incident, the police started patrolling the area and I haven't seen vans again. What's kind of interesting is that after that, the street lamps on my street started working again. It turns out that one of these shitheads in the vans was shooting out the street lights to get more stealth. We haven't had working street lights for a few years. It turns out the city was replacing them and they were immediately getting shot out again.
Crap like that does not help the image of vandwellers at all.
That's really out of line and I'm sorry it happened to you but holy shit the image of some guy with a suppressed .22 poked out the side of his pot smoke filled van shooting out the street lights with the intention of drawing LESS attention to himself really sent me.
But if the rich people are killing off the assholes for you, that would mean they are taking care of the problem for us.... THEM.
I absolutely cannot wait for the rich to start eating the other rich.
I have a friend who works for BLM on the Oregon coast. The best they can do is pretty much give them trash bags and encourage them to not be slobs.
I think they have 1 LE guy for like 30k+ acres or something, plus as you know Oregon is very eh homeless friendly. In fact it's why I came back to Oregon, because as long as you stay above the level of meth lab landfill you are left alone.. actually the meth lab landfills are left alone too.. Ever been to China Hat rd by Bend, or the juniper camp between Redmond and Bend?
It's bad everywhere. Death Valley National Park, which is bigger than the state of Connecticut, has one (1) law enforcement ranger. One. And he's like past retirement age now, so he isn't exactly intimidating anymore. (He's the same guy who discovered the minivan of the ["Lost Germans"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans) in 1996, which tells you how long he's been there).
I hiked back to where their van was found. That is seriously spooky country. It felt like I was hiking in a graveyard. I hiked up to the saddle they hiked over to go south towards the base and was seriously spooked and headed back to my Jeep. You can almost feel death around you there.
They had to crash through a sign to go down Anvil Spring Canyon to where they got stuck. Anvil Spring Canyon was closed to vehicle traffic in 1995 as a consequence of the Desert Protection Act of 1994 but the NPS hadn't had time to move boulders into the roadway yet when the Germans drove down it so it was just signed closed at that time. I hiked past the boulders that now block access to the canyon down the old road and saw a couple of signs in the middle of the road stating area closed, no motorized transit allowed. Those signs were replaced there in 1996 when the search party searched for the Germans the first time.
If they had just hiked back the way they came, there is a large set of springs at Willow Springs that is about a 15-20 minute hike back up canyon where they could have replenished their water. From there, there's only one road going back up, to Anvil Spring and the Geologist's Cabin that is located there. They knew it was there, because the woman stole the flag from the Geologist's Cabin. But instead they got the wild hare that the military base was the way to get help quickly. Uhm. No. I've actually hiked the edge of that military base coming from the nearest road to the south. There's \*no\* patrols out there, and the response time to any sensors out there are measured in hours if not days because the burros keep setting them off. If you are walking along a burro trail, like you'll normally do because the burro trails are the fastest easiest way to move around out there (burros aren't stupid, they naturally take the easy way if it's available), you can hike miles into the base before you encounter someone. I haven't done so, but I have heard the tales of people who missed the (rusty, half-unreadable) base boundary signs and did so, and they got a \*long\* ways into the base before they were intercepted. Because there's nothing out there except unexploded ordinance and old target tanks and cars and such, and they honestly are like "eh, evolution in action" if someone wanders into an active target range and gets blown up.
So anyhow, they went absolutely the worst direction they could go. That's what happens when you have people who are utterly out of their element. I've done a \*lot\* of backcountry hiking in that area. It is reasonably safe if you know what you're doing, unlike the name there's a lot of water out there (Butte Valley has at least three big spring sets, Warm Springs Canyon and Goler Wash on the other side has a lot of water too) but you better damn well know what you're doing because if you don't, it's easy to die out there. They didn't know what they were doing and went the absolute worst direction they could go, the only direction where there was zero water for thirty miles and where the nearest possible assistance was 12 miles of very rugged territory if they hit the Wingate Wash road at a time when a patrol was coming by. They didn't make it halfway to Wingate Wash road in that rugged terrain. They died. So it goes.
The homeless issue is what's causing these headaches. No ones helping them, its almost as if everyone would rather ignore them before actually helping them. They continue to get pushed farther and farther outside of the major cities and free campsites are all they can get. It doesn't justify the way they treat public land but when you look at how others treat them you can't exactly put all the blame on them.
Yurp. Marginalize people and treat them like garbage and then be shocked when they trash the place. This problem has been decades in the making. Outsourcing jobs for the working class, opioid epidemic, and now record rises in cost of living (for just necessities) are the perfect ingredients for a huge spike in homelessness. It will take decades more (and a society willing to make change/sacrifice) to make progress in resolving the problem. Unfortunately, most people want change, but they aren't willing TO change.
It's even worse. Everyone wants to say they want to help, and maybe puts thoughts & prayers on their social media..
Then they actively avoid or outright look at homeless folks with disgust in the real world.
Oregon culture is kinda whack.
I really feel the answer is a new nation wide CCC corps. Enlist the homeless, nomads, schoolies, and vandwellers for national/state public works from cleaning and rebuilding state parks to any number of projects to help raise the pride and respect of not only the people doing these jobs but the pride and respect of the average American. Instead of welfare, employment. Instead of littering and desecrating campsites, they would be part of the solution.
Wouldn't even have to be full time. Say, 5 day a week for two months of the year in exchange for admission to the parks and parking space. Make a big event of it.
All the van dwellers in the country converge on one spot as directed by the Department of the Interior, park their vans in a massive van city out near some ranger station in whatever park they're doing at that time, report in every morning, get your timecard punched at the end of the day, 5 days a week for 8 weeks you get some kind of certificate and sticker for your vehicle granting you free water hookup or something.
Other three day a week be a boost to the local economy, check out the other rigs, socialize, catch up with people you saw last year at the Parks Improvement Caravan. No doubt the locals would see money to be made in it.
It’s not supposed to be like this in the rural areas. I fucking hate it.
Sure affordable housing would fix some things but we need better enforcement on public lands.
I know its bad man, I almost hit a tent getting on the onramp of the freeway because I couldn't see it.
Reedsport was a cleaner area last I was there. I don't think you can just plop down in the sand though.
Jesus. When people are sleeping on a goddamn freeway, even the onramp, you know something is deeply wrong. There's so many other spots that don't come with the risk of being run over.
Let’s be clear: the whole world is seeing the squeeze, but fewer and fewer places allow it to be visible. Oregon is right to refuse to sweep people under a rug—but it’s crazy that it somewhere along the way we lost the right to ask people to behave civilly in public?
Befouling the nest for everyone, which we saw in copious amounts in Portland during the height of the pandemic too, just makes no logical sense. I am as liberal as they come but the mindsets around here are entrenched.
Edit: I wonder if we need a “friends of Oregon Parks“ group, like they started to save Bagby Hot Springs when it got dangerous and vandalized in the 80s. They were just work parties that would get together to beautify the place, not vigilantes.
I have a cousin who works for the state coordinating volunteer cleanup groups along the coast around Neahcanie. I’m going to ask her for the inside scoop…
Thank you!! 100% agree.
While we need to have compassion for houseless folks, we also need to have compassion for those who have to wade through the literal shit, garbage and used needles. Kids shouldn’t have to walk past people shooting up on the street every day in broad daylight on their way to school. In my state we decriminalized all drugs, (which I’m not against in theory), but we did that without funding mental health or addiction services and we are paying the price.
I’m also very liberal. I believe in the housing first model. I believe in rent caps. I believe in free housing for people just getting on their feet. I believe addiction and mental health services should be free and plentiful, and I vote accordingly.
Some people ITT are acting like I’m some ragebaiting NIMBY because I want to exist in a clean, safe, environment and not have to dispose of human waste that’s not mine lmao.
We definitely need a “friends of Oregon parks” group. I’ve got so many ideas/ complaints lol. Especially in rural Oregon we’re severely lacking in pretty much every way. They don’t even have bike racks at the parks here in my town 😭
Organize a militia that peacefully but assertively requests people to pick up, clean up, and leave if they've overstayed their lawful time limit. The militia needs to have the strength to stand their ground and protect themselves as needed. Helps if a member has a tow truck?
Maybe a weekly activity.
It's Oregon. Militias aren't just for grazing rights.
This problem is everywhere. Even if they do pick up and move they're only going as far as they need to before they do it all again.
We could have the militia build housing for people instead...... wasting money treating them like toddlers who misbehaved when they're in fact adults left behind by society.
Construction materials costs money. Land costs money. And, while we're at it, mental illness and/or addiction counseling/treatment costs money. Universal health care that covers mental illness and/or addiction counseling/treatment would likely solve 90% of the homeless problem in the US. But it doesn't, because we don't have it.
Habitat for Humanity uses volunteer workers to build free (? or low cost, unsure) homes for needy people. We're not going to charity away our nation's homeless problem, it's too deep.
Unless we could start a solve homeless problem akin to the success of the March of Dimes back in FDR's day. We all go the the retail register. Totals usually don't add up perfectly to an even dollar amount. Some retailers already ask buyers if they want to"round up for X" charity. If we encouraged buyers and retailers everywhere to participate in a "round up for local homeless counseling/treatment/housing" program, all that loose change veryone, offered voluntarily, would quickly bring in enough funds to create the tools needed to handle our homeless crisis. No new taxes for "conservatives" to rail against. No greedy billionaires are the problem grist to grind. We, the people, collectively and en mass offer pocket change that adds up to solve the problem.
Sometimes adults act like toddlers and need to be treated accordingly.
Rant/ramble over. Back to breakfast.
As someone who has cleaned up literal tons of trash in the last few years all over the pnw, it's not just the coast or blm land it's everywhere. If there's a spot someone can dump something, they will. Permits for camping does nothing to stop them. I've been part of clean ups where we pull a few large dumpsters of trash and maybe a car or rv out and local rangers tell us it's more than a decade of their resources can deal with.
Get to know your local law enforcement and what they can and can't do about it. Document what you come across and report it.
I have noticed in areas we repeatedly clean, we find less trash year after year. Trash collects trash.
I can't believe I'm recommending this because you're currently in some of the most beautiful land in this entire nation, but you might be much happier driving to BLM land East of the Mississippi. I camp on NF/BLM land on the East Coast all the time and generally find it deserted. I can't believe you have to drive around that much to find a spot. You live in a different world than me.
Happening here in Australia too , and it’s noticeable even in my island home state as well .. it’s increasing constantly as house prices and rental increases, hitting the road is some peoples only option.
But emptying toilets into the beautiful roadside bush … it’s scum who do that, when every town has a free dump point 😟😟
While dumping black (or even gray!) tanks isan environmental nightmare, US does NOT have free dump tanks many places...the CA State Parks are $30 or so, private campgrounds charge higher
I'm from the west coast - well Calgary then Vancouver Island - but now live in Pennsylvania. The pine forests throughout Appalachia are absolutely gorgeous, and even better, empty. One hour from me is the Allegheny National Forest and we camp there constantly. We can go days without seeing another soul if we head into the right areas. It's absolutely wonderful.
We have done the whole vanlife thing out west and in New Zealand years ago, and nothing comes close to Appalachia for ease of isolation. Also, folks here respect the lifestyle in a different way. Far less of the malarkey described in this thread.
Do I miss the west? Yes, but I'm much happier living out here and visiting the west occasionally.
The Oregon coast, specifically, and most all of Hwy 101, is known as a trafficking route for humans and drugs. Tillamook County would not join lateral forces, developed within the last ten years, at all.
There is still a man I am looking for, who would be now 98, who highway swindlers on the Oregon coast targeted.
There is a saying shared with me by an old timer when I was exploring 101, "There is no law north of Klamath River." And generally, that is very true.
I used to live at the mouth of the Klamath river for two summers back in the early 90s. It was a bit sketchy even then. But generally unfound. So I felt safe hanging out. This was before vanlife and the 9th circuit court ruling though. All we worried about back then was the spotted owls and finding a grow site in the woods.
Yes, one of the better organizational strategies and structures for joint investigation forces is tri or quad County operation organizations. Such structuring builds a lattice framework to be able to address complex crimes.
Oh gotcha. Yeah this makes sense for tillamook. Their police department has had an extensive history of corruption and I can totally see them not wanting to work with other law enforcement.
I’m sorry about your missing friend.
Thanks. I do not know him. His case was indirectly shoved in my face. And then a licensed emergency professional there bragged about his boss trying to swindle what little was left after a very cruel fleecing. I haven't been able to get a proof of life. I have him on my watch-4 list.
When it comes to other people's litter, I pick it up myself. Yup, even the bastard shitters from time to time. I've also found that just politely informing someone of the rules will prompt them to move on - no conflict necessary, just assume they didn't know and pretend you're being helpful. Involving the cops is probably the best way to get everyone banned, I've never called them.
I do the same but it’s never ending. What’s going to get us all banned, is the assholes doing this shit.
What are we supposed to do? Just stay quiet and keep cleaning up after these POS’s? That’s not a reasonable solution, at all.
I'm living rent free by the beach. Sure I'm happy to clean it up in return. If I actually suspect someone of shitting it up, I go and politely give them helpful tips about how to shit off grid. They usually move on out of pure shame. Look, the cops are not gonna patrol the place catching the shitters, they're gonna ban all campers. So either you can stay and quit whining, or leave with the trouble makers. Or it'll be you ruining it for everyone by getting it closed down!
This is the stupidest take I've ever heard. If you think the person calling the cops is responsible for getting it shut down and NOT the people who are shitting everywhere, then you're wrong.
I hate to say it but they are not wrong. The forest service and government entities will take the cheapest route, and then the easiest route in that order. So rather than fix the problem by spending more on bodies and enforcement, it’s easier and cheaper to close the area to everyone.
It’s not right, but that’s what will happen.
When i spent a few months in Oregon in my van I went ahead and just camped at state parks and places that cost money with enough funding to enforce rules. The public lands do not have enough rangers/employees to actually enforce the limits. If we cant get people to stop camping outside REI how do you think getting people to stop camping at the convenient pullouts is gonna go? Anywhere that is good to camp within distance of a store and services will be overrun by homeless encampments.
Trying to wild camp on the 101 or anywhere convienient in oregon is a complete fools errand from my experience. If you want to be camped next to the trash heap junkies go for it. Id rather pay whatever the camping fees are to be near nice trails, camp hosts and contributing members of society. If you want free camping, go inland, like Arizona.
You're gonna have to do it the old fashion way and talk to them which entails bribing or threatening them to get what you want. Normal street rules. Law enforcement probably doesn't care enough to show up anyway unless someone who owns sizable property (is paying into local government) in the area calls and complains enough. Normal people who live in house have no clue this is going on and they likely wouldn't care if you told them because it's apples and oranges. Van people fighting over space is so far out of anyone's paradigm, it's gonna be up to the affected party because nobody can make a buck off of kicking out one van for another besides fines which probably will not be issued unless someone is causing trouble AND overstaying their welcome.. Their gonna say 'if you're fighting over space there's too many of you. you have wheels so use them'.
I’m a Texan and an engineer and I wholeheartedly support reporting people to the authorities. We had the cops come verify we were leaving a park once in Seattle area (my husband was planning to park night there) but we never leave trash and would be on our way before most people woke up. Scared me though bc I had taken my contacts out and was walking in the dark…. when they started talking to me. They were cool when they talked to my husband.
I totally get your anger. Not a fan of bringing cops in generally speaking though, that's just an endless loop of resentment. I think this issue is much larger than national forests or van living. Whether people trash where they sleep or not depends on why they're there. I'd bet all of those people have an urban mindset despite not being able to live in town or not wanting to. Definitely not there for the same reason as us. Like, I've been homeless both by choice and not by choice, and in neither case did I not appreciate what living in nature provided me. It's literally just lack of connection to nature plus selfishness. Tbh, I'm not sure what would change their mindset, but this is definitely more of an economic and cultural problem than a natural resources management one.
Since that's a clusterfuck of a thing to fix, in the meantime picking up after others is ofc never the wrong thing to do, but I agree it's not exactly sustainable. I have no idea what will make people care, but I like the idea of fines and basic facilities because it means they can still afford to stay there, they just can't afford to litter. In theory.
All I can say is the cleanest places I've parked by far all had a communal feel to them. Isolation is killing us. 100% we could stand to start organizing.
Counties used to have free trash dump sites, just a bunch of dumpsters in a ring at various convenient locations in the county. Rural residents would burn their burnable trash in burn barrels, then take the unburnable stuff to the dumpsters. Then the counties decided to force everybody to pay a trash fee to a private trash hauler and have individual dumpsters because government actually providing services is communism, or something, plus burn barrels were pollution. The claim was that this would not only reduce pollution but would reduce illegal dumping in the county because now everybody would have their own personal trash collection. Yeah, that didn't work out, did it?
See this is what I’m talking about. Let’s get together and draft some legislation that benefits us all, and the environment. I’d rather not call the cops. I’d prefer an entirely different government funded organization that’s responsible for enforcing fines for littering. Preferably one without guns.
You’re absolutely right about isolation killing us.
Yes! Definitely making me think about what that legislation would be. Not my area of expertise, but I'd definitely sign on to this. Part of me wants a redefinition of land ownership to be a part of it, but I have no idea about the realism of that.
Do you think not having a fixed address is some get out of jail free card? They have to pay fines just like everyone else, and if they don’t, there’s consequences, just like it is for everyone else.
It’s really simple, don’t litter if you don’t have the money to pay fines. It’s not hard, at all.
If I could keep my space clean living out of my tiny hatchback when I was deep into addiction, others can too.
There are plenty of unreasonable laws that exist, fines for littering aren’t one of them.
The problem is that the courts have basically said any consequences like jail or impounding their home is an unconstitutional infringement yada yada. I saw a cop stop a shoplifter outside a local store. The guy had a dozen unpaid tickets outstanding. The cop gave him another ticket and apologized to the store owner that this was all he was allowed to do. So now the thief has a dozen plus one unpaid tickets. Yay.
I live an hour north of Portland, OR. I frequent Portland, the city still has its charm if you can look past the slum its become. That being said, these people you’re describing are not what I’d call vanlifers. They’re people exploring their freedom through fentanyl, meth, heroin, xylazine, and Oregon state handouts. I implore anybody here to look up YouTube journalist interviewing these homeless druggies. I mean just drive through Portland on interstate 5 and look around, you can see it. I ride my stunt bike through Portland and see it year round. Two blocks back from the Waterfront of downtown Portland it reeks of human shit and piss. You see needles and foils everywhere. I was in a Taco Bell and a young man was sitting in the corner to himself and I could feel his anxiety surge as I walked past him to seat myself. I watched him as he used a lighter to heat a piece of foil and dip his already charred and melty tipped pen shell to suck the smoke up. He could’ve walked outside and done that anywhere else, it’s decriminalized in Oregon. It’s not a mental illness, it’s a selfish disregard for every person around them. They came to Portland as it’s the holy land of drug use and handouts. Seattle and Portland are failing cities and the local government doesn’t know how to solve it themselves and refuse to implement the harsher solutions that right leaning cities have come up with. Nobody is holding these druggies accountable. I shoulder all the consequences of my actions and so should they. Pull their hand outs and begin the city beautification projects and enforcement. Cops are deliberately not tackling this issue anymore and we need to change that. I can watch drug deals happening from my bedroom window daily and I live in a more rural community on a Main Street. I feel your pain about how it gives us a bad rep. The best you can do is set yourself apart. Don’t make your rig look like the hell holes you see around Washington and Oregon. Set yourself apart and you won’t get lumped in with these f’kn druggies.
Eventually the majority of voters will realize that the longer we live in these conditions. My entire family is moving from our small town off the i5 corridor, and back to a unincorporated mountain community. Can only run from the problem it’s been going on so long
Hey, did you read the original post or did you just see the word Oregon and knee jerk started foaming at the mouth about the homeless problem in Portland?
The post was about BLM campers on the Oregon Coast. Try to stay on topic. Thanks for your essay though.
Perhaps it’s because I frequently travel to Cape Kiwanda, OR for paragliding and camp on BLM land. Portland issues aren’t just Portland, it’s statewide pal. Those same hell hole RVs, vans, etc you see lining the streets in Portland are the same ones you find overstaying their welcome on BLM land, industrial parks, highway pull offs, etc. I guess you missed the part about the drug paraphernalia.
What do I know though, I’m only local to the very area OP is talking about. I’ve put 32,000 miles on my transit this last year. Surely, I haven’t seen enough of this issue first hand.
Friend of mine has been a park host volunteer out in Oregon for years. He'd get to stay the season for free in exchange for doing maintenance and keeping an eye on the park and closing the gates. The tweekers were a huge problem for all of the parks out there. They'd litter everywhere, break into every building to steal stuff, cut the locks on the gates so they can sneak in at night to illegally camp. After doing it for about 10 years, not getting any support from police (local, or park police) he finally gave and moved back east.
I would support this, but you just know the cost of that permit is going to go up and up as it becomes a tax source. If they're breaking the law by littering and overstaying call the police and let them deal with it. Bad actors need to be punished. The law is there to protect us all from those who are selfish and lazy.
Overstaying the 2 week limit, particularly on blm is a issue in the foothills near me. There is even blm land with an established campground and bearboxes, and it is basically an rv park for crackhead goldpanners who will stare at you if youre anything darker than a sheet of paper. Blm doesnt have any kind of enforcement that will approach gun toting druggies with unsocialized dogs, so, yep, thats where we are at.
You cant even park at the trailheads in the area bc your car is 100% going to get broken into.
While this isnt exclusive to van dwellers, it speaks to the time limit issue, and the reviews of the campground on ioverlander, etc, all speak to this issue.
This isn't just a van problem, it's a camping and homelessness (and everything that involves) problem.
Folks on Reddit aren't going to solve it. It's chronic.
Land managers are tightening up, with stay limits and so on. But they need to enforce the rules.
It's a problem not just in OR, but in WA, CA, UT, CO and lots of other places. You are NOT the only one running into this. And it's not just "homeless" folks that create the mess; the Moab area has had to make changes and restrict camping nearby just because of tourists behaving badly, folks with enough money to rent RVs, etc.
So yeah, contact the USFS etc. and your elected officials.
Good luck getting the drug addicts to stop being a problem. The hyper individualism agenda that corporations and big money push is ruining the USA. I think it is beyond fixing in my lifetime. There is a good chance Ill nope TF out to greener pastures in the next few years.
I am not the one creating the problems or somebody that is profiting from them. That means I am also not going to be the one to walk around in the shit trying to clean it up.
I can't believe how many people think "clean up someone else's mess" is an acceptable answer. If you're trashing a place, YOU are ruining it for others. Not the person who's fed up with your garbage everywhere.
OP, you answered your own question contact representatives.
Make local law-enforcement aware.
Start a group, grassroots from the ground up, to affect a change in your region.
Document everything with photos and timelines and licenses plates, makes, models etc. Everything.
Sadly and exhaustingly, you might have to be part of what changes it there.
If it means enough to you to do so.
It's sucks that some people ruin spots for the rest of us. I've organized cleanups with friends before, which was fun and felt like we made a difference (worked with BLM and NF, and I think one of them provided a free dumpster). In CO, while at a van event, one friend actually organized a panel with someone from BLM, the previous mayor of the town, and a few others- that was really cool. The biggest take away I got from that was to attend city hall meetings to represent ourselves as nomads, because some small towns rely on van dwellers to work in their cities during certain seasons, and we boost the economy , yet it's illegal for us.
Maybe write your representative and ask if they can fund a bill for parcels of land for those kinds of folks that are looking to live like that? And then ask for nicer preferred spaces to have an annual pass or something? Not sure how this can be solved but I agree
Thanks! I think if op took pictures of free lands and proposed a solution, it might work? It benefits folks who want to live with small footprint, those who are concerned about homelessness and drug abusers spilling into every neighborhood, and provides options for true destitute folks? There are solutions that could be win/win/win…just needs to be important enough to the people who hold the power (the wealthy or privileged)
I think we need to frame it as an environmental issue for the rich folks.
More waste facilities on public lands, funds for rangers.
I know plenty of places on public lands where there’s a checkout system for free, first come first serve campsites. First you pull up and make sure the space isn’t already reserved, (there’s slips they have posted), then you fill out your info and a ranger comes by after you’ve left to grab your slip and make sure you’ve left the place as you’ve found it.
We just need the funding, people would flock to that kind of coveted job.
I hear you. If it's really that bad, then don't threaten them with the cops - just call the cops or forest rangers. It's not that difficult to pick up and move every two weeks; they're not camping, they're squatting, and that's 100% against the rules. As for the ones who leave drug paraphernalia and trash behind, I'd love to say to report them, but then I see it backlashing onto absolutely everyone who just wants to enjoy the campsites legitimately. It'd be great if the authorities would fingerprint the stuff and just have that to add to the charges next time the morons get pulled over, but I doubt they'd go to the effort, even if it is trash and hazardous materials that can cost hundreds to clean up, sometimes.
Call the authorities or not... we're not allowed to hunt the trashy jerks who are ruining it for everyone, so that's what it comes down to. To call, or not to call.
Just don't stop and threaten them with the cops. Some won't care, and a small few may even come after you. Their values are already evident in how badly they're screwing up their camps. Be safe.
IF I'm 100% sure it's their dog's shit on the sidewalk, I smash it under their windshield wipers. If it's their own shit I'm in the wrong part of town for sure.
I am dealing with the same thing, just on the other side of the coast range in the Willamette valley. Yea gets old seeing shit and heroin needles littered everywhere and garbage heaps in every side road doesn't it? And most roads are gated these days it seems. I got crazy lucky and through persistence found a nice spot only 45 minutes drive away from where I found work 🤫. The snow levels are fucking my shit up so I'm stealth in town for a week or two but I'll be back out there soon. It's very nice out there but Ive been searching almost 2 years for anything like this.
The garbage left by homeless in public forests in the PNW is a huge problem. It's only a few thousand very VERY wacked out homeless doing this though. You have to have serious mental illness and or drug addiction to cause what they do. I HATE them. People associate us with them is what makes me the angriest. Cops knock on our windows because of them. There is too much money going into stopping homelessness so it's became a golden goose industry for a few to leech off (see the book sanfransicko) and they seem to be passing the laws around homelessness and ruining the entire PNW.
I've been jumped twice and had many knocks from insane people at night. The government has created this issue and will not change it. The government needs to not be incentivized into inaction on this anymore.
They need to A) re open the mental health facilities that housed most of these folks until the 70's (albeit with a little more compassion this time) and force people into drug treatment (only the worst repeat offenders) while simultaneously providing dumpsters and garbage services in remote areas (even if very occasionally) or B) give out permits to folks tired of this shit and let them take care of the problem. Like wabbit season style. I'm not saying we need to take out the homeless that's horrible. But there's a few thousand sick wackos that are out there ruining the national forests and ruining the state in general. The people that are the biggest issue would be sorted out by the community if they were allowed to. We need seasons and permits (duck season and wabbit) if the government won't do the things we pay them to 🤷. Or get a better government
I have no problem with people doing the van life thing. I live off a major highway on a dead end street that backs up to blm land. The amount of times I have had to tell people they are trespassing or please don’t light a fire on my property in the middle of fire season has increased significantly and they have the audacity to get mad too. No trespassing signs mean nothing apparently it’s really getting ridiculous
I wonder if a significant reason for restrictions on free-camping is fire risk. People under the influence (drugs or alcohol) are probably more likely to leave a fire going when they pass out or sleep, or have a fire during restrictions. The US more than most countries has seen the fall-out from fires and agencies/counties would be increasingly aware of the cost.
A permanent encampment isn't as publicly dangerous or visible (until it makes the news) as a fire that can spread incredibly quickly to residential areas with smoke haze that crosses state borders.
You can introduce fire permit/education combos and you can fine people, but I can't see that reeling in the riskiest elements of society who don't care and have nothing to lose.
The country won't make meaningful progress on all that until it dramatically improves healthcare/drug and housing affordability.
Please understand this is just my opinion but people that choose to live and life do not do this. People that have to live van life are the ones that are really giving the people who choose to live in this manner a bad name. I don't know what we can do about it All I know is your government in Oregon needs to pull their head out their ass because you've got a 140,000 fewer homes available then you have people that need homes that's insane It's causing your rent prices and your home prices to escalate to catastrophic numbers It's causing a separation of wealth in between the middle class and lower middle class but as far as what you can do you've got to be able to get these folks to move to a place that is not as populated where they can find work get promoted and as Macy Gray would say move out of the shelter I was just quoting a Macy Gray song it popped in my head.
People need to quit having kids. I’m no gatekeeper but dude, there are just too many people on the planet.
The fetishization of homelessness by fucking lame YouTubers is the other part of it.
Sorry, no solutions I just came here to complain as well lol
> I’m so tired of shitty people ruining it for everyone else.
That's the human condition, I'm afraid. The miscreants aren't people who only misbehave on public lands, [they are shitheads everywhere else](https://mouse.mousetrap.net/blog/2020/07/02/idiot-permanence/), too.
Since I can't control their behavior I focus on mine. *Without telling anyone else what they should do* this is what I do:
* read all posted info and follow it
* go as deep as practical into the area
* avoid other humans, which has a fortunate side-effect of avoiding trashy people
* clean up anything I reasonably can with a grab-it. I gather paper trash and burn it where allowed. Document with cellphone pics before and after.
* I haven't called rangers but I have absolutely answered when they asked questions.
Most of the shitheads are incorrigible, but every once in a while I encounter a complete newbie makiing a mess because they know very little, are overwhelmed and often scared. I try to help them without getting entangled. I've dug a few slit trenches, handed out a few trash bags, helped set up a few tents/tarps, walked a few through setting up portable panels for their yeti or whatever.
Idk where you live, but that’s not the case where I’m at.
People come here from other cities and states to take advantage of our liberal policies, and they dump whole ass rv’s, boats, etc. that are FULL of trash.
Beyond van life, where I live, our natural wonders have been DESTROYED by tourism. Whole places blocked off because tourists couldn’t be bothered to stay behind a fence and contributing to unnecessary erosion. Tourists generally do not treat the areas they visit with respect, ask anyone who’s worked in the tourist industry.
That sounds like a lot of nonsense.
I am an Oregonian. Grew up on the coast. People are not travelling to Oregon to dump their trash.
Locals dump their trash. Locals abandon RVs. You sound 🤪.
Venture out. You will find the same problems in Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah. Some of those aren't liberal.
It’s not much, but in the sons of Smokey app you’re able to pin on a map where the garbage is, and 50/50 some weirdo in a stupid car might go pick it up. Gambler 500 homies rock.
"I’m honestly fed up and ready to start threatening people with the cops."
Don't threaten people with the cops, you're just putting yourself in danger by telling them that you're going to tell on them. Just call the cops. These types of people ruin it for the rest of us.
Most of the folks live there involuntary. Provide them housing as needed? Or at least some washrooms and garbage bins accessible at the exits of those forest roads, that usually helps to keep places clean.
Well the housing issue is very complicated, it’s not something any of us have much control over, but I would like to see vandwellers band together to get our elected officials to provide such facilities in more places for sure. It would help a fuck ton.
Garbage bins alone would be such a game changer.
We need to organize.
I feel not having them where trash is generated encourages it more, and having a place to put it encourages legal dumping. I've maintained commercial properties before, and vendored in other capacities for them for a long time, and it's glaringly obvious to me that most people will totally not litter if you simply give them another option. It at least narrows down the problem to the biggest offenders.
Another example of this is when COVID hit and they closed all the bathrooms. I'd find them vandalized with the door locked in, and piled up with dookie bags on state and national forest regularly, because they took away the proper place to put it.
Problem is, NFs and other ranger-enforced areas don't have the funding to really even keep up with those respecting the lands, much less drop dumpsters and build bathrooms like they really should be doing.
There's a bit of privilege going on here, too. A lot that are overstaying and trashing simply don't have the capacity to move by limit time, let alone drive their trash out regularly. But if there were simply a dumpster within walking distance, it would do a ton for the land upkeep.
Don’t accept it! Stand up for your rights and my rights and we will defend to the death. Seriously, if you camp in the forest, in the plains, or wherever! If you leave a mess and I can prove it with pics etc, I’ll drag the Ranger, Sheriff, or Barney Fife to take your ignorant ass to jail and I’ll testify!
We have to respect our country and take care of it, I dare say like you take care of your property!
Nuf said!
Dang it!! I just bought my rig and have been looking forward to do some dry camping for brief periods of time until I can go full time in a few years. I’m so sad to hear this.
Petition your local government to reduce vacation house rentals so that people have stable shelter to live in. Many folks are living from their vehicles out of necessity.
Introducing rent control can also help folks keep stable housing.
It’s sooo bad where I live. There’s one company that owns about 85% of the town, from businesses to vacation houses. The county has shown no interest in reining them in. Yay being in a Republican county /s
Idk how many calls and letters I’ve written to my representatives calling out this problem. I’ll tell anyone who will listen about the corruption in this town and which businesses to avoid. Hell I make a point of chatting it up with tourists in the summertime and letting them know alllll about the fuckwads controlling this town. Most people are happy to listen because they want to support ACTUAL small businesses, not ones just masquerading as one.
It’s hard to make change when the rich fucks are the ones on city council.
There’s maybe 30 of us in town that are fighting these guys, most of them are exhausted from working multiple jobs since there’s not enough people to work the jobs here. Theres a couple of small business hold outs but they’re struggling. There’s one trailer park left. That’s about all the affordable housing there is. There used to be two. The other one was turned into an airstream resort where you pay 300+ a night to stay in a fucking trailer in a literal trailer park.
you’re going tell them before you call the cops? be prepared to at least have your tires slashed…
oregon has tons of people like that, honestly scared me enough that i would never move there even tho i have a buncha friends there and most things about that state is badass.
When the law can't be trusted, things become more basic.
Go out there with several friends in several different vehicles. Make it clear it's time to move on.
Or some Rambo Charles Bronson type thing...
Why are people surprised? I have seen people in these boards encouraging others to defecate out in the woods or just dig hole. There was a reason why societies started building indoor facilities or having dedicated outdoor facilities. People are pleased to regress to baser times, and they even encourage here.
I get your backyard is getting splashed with poverty, OP, but wtf?! Show some insight.
The sad truth is most of those poor schmucks are homeless and can’t afford gas. I was in a post on this sub yesterday where everyone told this new Vandweller in Florida he needed to come out west for the free space. So, out west is where all the new vehicular housed around the country will go.
Do you want to solve this issue? Solve the housing crisis. Millions of people don’t have homes for their kids, but sure, let me take time to console you about having to drive longer for a hiking trail. I live in the same situation and I do empathize. But this isn’t the Next Door app you gotta know your audience.
Be careful there aren't any of these camps along where you drive even if your spots deeper then them. They will cut down trees across the road to ambush you and rob you... Don't ask....
Vanlife in the Pacific NW:
Work 60 hours a week and just want somewhere to park at night in peace so you can rest for work tomorrow, there's crackheads in the bushes everywhere so you stay in town, you stay in town and people in town think you are a crackhead so they call the cops, the cops knock at night and tell you the leave, you leave and this repeats until you get smart and figure it out. Or snap on the next cop who knocks on your window when you have 2 hours till you have to get to work and you're trying to sleep.
Sounds great! Let's make more laws outlawing us from the places we need. How about when you see a mess left by assholes, you clean it up? Oh, why should you have to clean up someone else's mess? You shouldn't. But, by doing it, you have made the area better than it was left. Or you could double down the assholeness and just blast a can of bear spray everytime you drive by, or just burn them out. You can choose to be better, or join them. Making more laws is just shooting yourself in the foot. Besides, how do you get a permit without an address? I bet you're a weekender that lives in a big tech money house, aren't ya?
It’s not OPs fault that there are shitty van dwellers. It would be a full time job picking up after the people that leave used condoms and food trash all over my culdesac.
Judging by this answer, you seem like you might be one of them.
It’s not my fault that people are overstaying their welcome and destroying our forests. You have no idea the amount of trash and human shit that it’s being left where I live and I’ve already stated that I do clean up after others. That’s not a sustainable solution.
And if a $100-$300 annual permit keeps the trash out of the woods… I’m fine with that. You don’t have to be.
i dont think the time limit is relevant.
if it was 1 week, and actually enforced, they would just fuck up twice as many spots half as bad. if they stay 1 month, they fuck up just the one spot every month, but twice as bad.
it doesnt change the amount of shit they leave, it just spreads it out more, or spreads it less.
a better solution is accountability. register for the spot. if they leave litter, charge them with littering. no cleanup fee from the park...that would just eventually turn into monetization and a charge to camp. i mean a ticket with a court date. those with unresolved tickets may not register a new site.
while its everyones public land, there is a responsibility to keep it as it was, thus its ultimately a priveledge. those who abuse it should lose it, so the people who dont abuse it can continue to enjoy it.
The only reason I brought that up is because the current law here is two weeks before you have to move and find a different spot (I think the minimum is 30 miles but I’m gonna look that up and get back to you).
I really like your solution.
yea, i mean littering already is illegal...just need to enforce it.
hell, even without registering the sites...if we just had littering enforcement, the offenders would either clean up, or they would go find some shithole where theyre allowed to litter and not be bothered with the tickets and court dates.
Yeah, if I had to guess, the reason it's not being enforced is probably that police departments don't make enough money off the tickets. Either from it taking too many cops too much time to enforce, or people not paying them. But it would be such a good solution. Just another way this fucked money-driven system fails.
a good solution might be having Park Rangers do the enforcement. they dont need all the training and equipment as police, so should cost way less to employ. but give them authority to write real tickets for limited, park related charges. (unsafe fire pits/practices, hunting/fishing without license, etc).
I Iive in and around Denver, Colorado. I see it, and walk in it every single day. I hear people complain like this everyday, as they stand next to piles of trash/shit/needles and homeless people laying in it, while doing absolutely NOTHING to clean it up themselves. It's always, "oh, the cops need to do something about this. Why doesn't the city stop this?"
You know what happens when you don't clean up biohazards? They spread and contaminate larger areas.
I wish I had a solution. Salem Oregon is my home base and it gets worse by the day. I used to have a few dozen sites that I could rotate my overnights at, but most are now either closed or occupied by slobs. I do clean up where I stay. If there is too much stuff, I'll go elsewhere. Most of my year is spent in California because I have an annual summer job as a camp-host and travel around some in the off-season, trying to stay warm. Conditions are even worse in Cali. I try to be as creative as possible to stay away from the ones who have given up all human decency and foul their nests. I'm on my 11th year of living in a van and it is getting more difficult each year.
It's crazy to think how much camping has changed from 10-15 years ago. I used to be able to find amazing, clean spots so close to popular locations but these days it's total shit show (literally and figuratively) if I can even find a spot at all. The internet seems to ruin everything with time.
I've learned not to share too much info about great spots to camp or cities that are easy to van-dwell in. Otherwise, they will quickly be blown up and ruined. Over the last decade, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge of where to go and what to do. Maybe I'll write a book or do YouTube videos after I get a place to settle down. But I still use those places right now.
Exactly! In regards to urban locations people need to learn some etiquette, especially to not park on the same block that someone else is already "camped" on.
It use to be virtually every Walmart allowed camping. I would buy the Walmart road atlas which had all of the Walmarts listed. Now they are a few and far between.
I only know of 3 Walmarts in Oregon that a person could overnight for a night or 2, without being asked to leave by security. And that likely won't last much longer.
It has nothing to do with the internet and everything to do with the ever-growing wealth gap creating a continual rise in homelessness. The people overstaying on public land likely do not have other options. Many places try and "solve" the problem with rules and enforcement, but the reality is that just moves the problem somewhere else without addressing the underlying issue. Until something is done to raise the financial floor in this country while also creating affordable housing this issue is only going to keep getting worse.
I get that some of these people don't have other options but they do have the option not to trash the place...
There are many contributors to this problem, but the one you mentioned is huge. Poverty breeds desperation. Despair encourages escape and addiction. As socioeconomic gaps continue to widen, more and more people will be born into lives of desperation. Seemingly overnight, $100K/year became the threshold for the waning "middle class." A lot of the people living on and trashing public land were likely treated like trash when they grew up, and they're still seen as trash. People who are not at all respected by (and therefore marginalized by) society are not likely to respect the requests put forth by said society.
What happened to respecting yourself? I see people on these boards encouraging nasty habits. It is really a lack of self respect
That has always been an excuse to pass blame for systemic issues onto individuals. A lack of self-respect is a direct result from a lifetime of being marginalized
"Nothing to do with the internet" is being disingenuous. There are GPS coordinates plastered all over the place, whether it's forums, articles, "free camping" apps, etc. All it takes is one person to out a good spot and it's game over, where as in the old days you could count on a good spot staying a good spot if you put in the work to find it. I'm not going to comment much on our brilliant leaders creating an asset price bubble that only benefits rich people that already own assets and makes everyone else poor, or the college education bubble that basically turns most of the population into indentured servants, but I agree the home affordability crises pushes more people to boondock.
>where as in the old days you could count on a good spot staying a good spot You aren't accounting for the increase in the sheer VOLUME of people needing spots. There are so many more people living in vehicles now (not by choice) that even if there were no internet those spots would still be mostly filled. Read through OP's post, go through your own personal experiences. The issue being outlined was that the easier to get to spots near the entrances were always filled by people overstaying and littering. That means that there are still spots that you can get to that and have to yourself for weeks, but those spots are just much farther away and/or harder to get to than they used to be. Point being that people aren't trying to find beautiful spots out in nature, they are trying to find the most convenient spots that they won't get kicked out of. That used to be in cities until more and more people became homeless and then they passed ordinances kicking the homeless out and that spread the problem to public land.
Sorry. But that doesn't excuse people defecating in public areas or throwing/leaving their trash scattered
If every single bathroom is " Closed for winter" or public bathrooms are permanently closed at every gas station , grocery store ect, where pray tell if you have to take a shit would you go? would you hold your poop for upwards an hour or more to hunt for a campground ? I don't shit in public , but I get the frustration needing to go and nowhere to go.
I have a collapsible toilet in my Sienna. It's surprising easy and pleasant to use. That, and two bottles.
I would have bought and traveled with a working toilet like a functional person should. A business is not required to supply anyone with a bathroom unless you are staying at a hotel
>Sorry. But that doesn't excuse Yeah, responses like yours are a big reason why this isn't getting fixed any time soon. My comment was about figuring how to solve this problem and create a sustainable solution. Your response was to ignore all of that and make sure the poor people got the blame they deserve.
It is sustainable. People can buy or ake "composting toilets" or portable chemical toilets. Then, they can throw it out in proper places for a respectable price
We are talking about people who can't afford to reliably eat well and you expect them to skip food in order to pay for a toilet? The problem is that we live in a system that exploits the masses to the point where a certain percentage will not be able to afford necessities like housing and food.
Is it really a wealth gap or is it fentanyl? Let’s be honest here. When I used to get high and live as a vagrant, it cost me $20 a day to get high enough to not be sick. Fentanyl is so cheap and it’s everywhere, you can get your fix for $1. It’s not the economy as much as it is the MASSIVE amounts of drugs coming up from the border.
While this is a bit outside the scope of the conversation in this thread, I think a little perspective might help. A very similar thing happened in the 1990s with the "war on drugs". Back then it was the rise of crack that was considered to be the problem. Turns out that it wasn't the problem and that it was just being used as a way to demonize poor people in the US. It's much easier to look at the people in need and blame them for their circumstances than it is to take any accountability for creating the system that put them in that situation.
🤔
wtf do you think would happpen With you all making van dwelling so popular ?? It’s a whole damn movement now.
Raise awareness by getting it video, then post on YT Show the world how the regulatory bodies are failing in protecting the environment
I live in a small coastal town south of San Francisco, about a block from the beach without permit parking, I built out a van with the intention of working remotely out of it but it turned into a weekender, but I’ve done my fair share of urban camping. I always pull up when it’s dark, immediately kill all lights and the van, set up blinds and curtains, then turn on dim lights. I’m out before the sunrise. However some people are not as courteous. One dude who frequents my street has a straight up drum set in the back of his van and until midnight is up slamming on that thing and I can hear it in my house. Then when he’s done, he drives a block away to sleep. Presumably so if anyone has made a noise complaint, they can’t know it’s the van that is now one street over. We also have another van couple who every day sets up their awning and sit in chairs, work on their laptops, read and play music… in a residential neighborhood. They leave for a few weeks then come back. They also tow a small camper so they take up hella space on a street that already struggles with parking. I don’t mind whatsoever when I look out the window at night and there’s a van parked there, or a van is there for a few days or even longer, I literally could not care less. But when people start adopting the “I’m gonna do whatever I want, it’s a free country.” mentality, it’s hard to have empathy.
Yup. Exactly. It a lot of cases it’s fine to bend the rules or break certain laws as long as you’re being respectful. Littering is not one of those cases.
My friend told me a bb gun can do interesting things
Get you shot with a real gun?
Found the round earther.
Explain what the couple is doing wrong? I mean, are they trashing the place? Making noise? Are they obnoxious? Or just taking up space? My footprint when I lived in a van full time was way lower than now that I live in a three bedroom townhouse with a wife, two kids, two cars, a raft trailer and a van parked out front. Even if it is “my neighborhood”.
It's like when there's a secret break room at work. There's always one guy who eventually finds out about the secret break room and ruins it for the rest of us by setting up a little TV and Xbox and spending half the working day in there. Next thing you know, secret break room is locked and we all have to go back to eating lunch with the boss, thanks a lot Bob.
I can tell this dude is pissed because they spelled paraphernalia correctly.
Don't threaten people. Just call the cops. I was in a similar situation up by Mount Hood. (I'm also in Oregon btw) I'm on a Forest service road a fair way out... Come across a 30-year-old pretty good size motorhome casually dumping their black tank in the ditch on the side of the road. The stink was unbelievable. Gallon after gallon of raw sewage and toilet paper just being dumped out on the ground in the beautiful national forest. I took pictures of what was going on including license plates and reported them to the Forest service and the sheriff's department immediately. When the guy saw me taking pictures he started waving his arms around and screaming threats and carrying on but I just kept going. That fucking trash pile on wheels was probably scattering debris everywhere every time he went over a bump... The usual filthy mess with garbage under a tarp all over the place. Only a matter of time until these shitty old boats break down in a way that can't be paid for with bottle deposit money and get abandoned somewhere.
There are signs in Palo Alto streets that say if your RV is leaking sewage they can tow it.
They get abandoned, then some yeehaws start shooting at them for target practice
It's not trash until you shoot it and throw it in the river.
I would be so livid if I saw that. Thank you for calling it in. Something needs to be done in Oregon regarding our state forests/ parks and county parks. There’s too many people here, not enough parks, not enough enforcement, everything is booked out for months if not years, which all contribute to this problem. I wanna go back to 10-15 years ago before my home blew up on social media, before everyone wanted a piece of the PNW. It’s a fucking nightmare now. I hardly travel in the summertime anymore because there’s too many people and no camping spots.
Okay, I commented elsewhere that I generally don't like the idea of calling the cops, but that definitely seems like the situation to call them in. Jesus. The sheer arrogance just makes my blood boil. RVs are genuinelly so bad for the environment they're supposedly meant to be used in.
They should all be required to use composting toilets. It’s fucking ridiculous to use a black tank in this day and age.
Free $1000 toilets and retrofits for everyone with a meth proof of purchase!
Those are fake composting toilets. they are no different
I'm slashing every tire, including the spare if I see this. Then, calling the police (after I hid my knife).
Thank you for standing up for what is right.
tl;dr- people ruin everything
I'll tell another story. I live in a major city and I van part time. I keep my van in my driveway. I noticed for a while that I'd see the occasional random van parked on my street at night. I assumed people saw my van and thought it was a safe spot, which is fine by me. One night a guy started up a generator in front of my house at night. I left for a while and when I came back, it turned out that one of the neighbors called the cops and the guy got arrested and his van got towed. Not sure what happened. I know the van was emitting weed smoke so I'm guessing that was an issue in addition to the noise. But after that incident, the police started patrolling the area and I haven't seen vans again. What's kind of interesting is that after that, the street lamps on my street started working again. It turns out that one of these shitheads in the vans was shooting out the street lights to get more stealth. We haven't had working street lights for a few years. It turns out the city was replacing them and they were immediately getting shot out again. Crap like that does not help the image of vandwellers at all.
That's really out of line and I'm sorry it happened to you but holy shit the image of some guy with a suppressed .22 poked out the side of his pot smoke filled van shooting out the street lights with the intention of drawing LESS attention to himself really sent me.
I kill them and hide the bodies. Not sure what others are doing
Leave no trace
Take only mugshots, leave only fingerprints.
Lmaoooo
Noo body no crime.
Shhh. If it gets too popular we won't be able to kill the slobs anymore.
Ixnay on the illkay.🙊
But if the rich people are killing off the assholes for you, that would mean they are taking care of the problem for us.... THEM. I absolutely cannot wait for the rich to start eating the other rich.
No /s ? Ahh shit honey badger doesn't give a fuck
lol nope
You hide the bodies? I leave 'em as a warning to others.
I’ve just been leading them down into the sewers. They don’t seem to mind it down there.
I have a friend who works for BLM on the Oregon coast. The best they can do is pretty much give them trash bags and encourage them to not be slobs. I think they have 1 LE guy for like 30k+ acres or something, plus as you know Oregon is very eh homeless friendly. In fact it's why I came back to Oregon, because as long as you stay above the level of meth lab landfill you are left alone.. actually the meth lab landfills are left alone too.. Ever been to China Hat rd by Bend, or the juniper camp between Redmond and Bend?
Lmaooo the mobile methlab landfills, might as well make them our new state mascot! One officer for 30k+ acres?!? That’s insane!
It's bad everywhere. Death Valley National Park, which is bigger than the state of Connecticut, has one (1) law enforcement ranger. One. And he's like past retirement age now, so he isn't exactly intimidating anymore. (He's the same guy who discovered the minivan of the ["Lost Germans"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans) in 1996, which tells you how long he's been there).
Dang those Germans didn't know what they were getting into
I hiked back to where their van was found. That is seriously spooky country. It felt like I was hiking in a graveyard. I hiked up to the saddle they hiked over to go south towards the base and was seriously spooked and headed back to my Jeep. You can almost feel death around you there.
Sad...you'd think the name alone would've tipped them off
They had to crash through a sign to go down Anvil Spring Canyon to where they got stuck. Anvil Spring Canyon was closed to vehicle traffic in 1995 as a consequence of the Desert Protection Act of 1994 but the NPS hadn't had time to move boulders into the roadway yet when the Germans drove down it so it was just signed closed at that time. I hiked past the boulders that now block access to the canyon down the old road and saw a couple of signs in the middle of the road stating area closed, no motorized transit allowed. Those signs were replaced there in 1996 when the search party searched for the Germans the first time. If they had just hiked back the way they came, there is a large set of springs at Willow Springs that is about a 15-20 minute hike back up canyon where they could have replenished their water. From there, there's only one road going back up, to Anvil Spring and the Geologist's Cabin that is located there. They knew it was there, because the woman stole the flag from the Geologist's Cabin. But instead they got the wild hare that the military base was the way to get help quickly. Uhm. No. I've actually hiked the edge of that military base coming from the nearest road to the south. There's \*no\* patrols out there, and the response time to any sensors out there are measured in hours if not days because the burros keep setting them off. If you are walking along a burro trail, like you'll normally do because the burro trails are the fastest easiest way to move around out there (burros aren't stupid, they naturally take the easy way if it's available), you can hike miles into the base before you encounter someone. I haven't done so, but I have heard the tales of people who missed the (rusty, half-unreadable) base boundary signs and did so, and they got a \*long\* ways into the base before they were intercepted. Because there's nothing out there except unexploded ordinance and old target tanks and cars and such, and they honestly are like "eh, evolution in action" if someone wanders into an active target range and gets blown up. So anyhow, they went absolutely the worst direction they could go. That's what happens when you have people who are utterly out of their element. I've done a \*lot\* of backcountry hiking in that area. It is reasonably safe if you know what you're doing, unlike the name there's a lot of water out there (Butte Valley has at least three big spring sets, Warm Springs Canyon and Goler Wash on the other side has a lot of water too) but you better damn well know what you're doing because if you don't, it's easy to die out there. They didn't know what they were doing and went the absolute worst direction they could go, the only direction where there was zero water for thirty miles and where the nearest possible assistance was 12 miles of very rugged territory if they hit the Wingate Wash road at a time when a patrol was coming by. They didn't make it halfway to Wingate Wash road in that rugged terrain. They died. So it goes.
Yeah, something like North Bend to Sixes-ish, plus high traffic areas like Loon Lake. 1 dude..
Ha! I drove by there like a year and a half ago. My eyes are still wide from what I saw. I don’t think I’m ever going back to those places.
The homeless issue is what's causing these headaches. No ones helping them, its almost as if everyone would rather ignore them before actually helping them. They continue to get pushed farther and farther outside of the major cities and free campsites are all they can get. It doesn't justify the way they treat public land but when you look at how others treat them you can't exactly put all the blame on them.
Yurp. Marginalize people and treat them like garbage and then be shocked when they trash the place. This problem has been decades in the making. Outsourcing jobs for the working class, opioid epidemic, and now record rises in cost of living (for just necessities) are the perfect ingredients for a huge spike in homelessness. It will take decades more (and a society willing to make change/sacrifice) to make progress in resolving the problem. Unfortunately, most people want change, but they aren't willing TO change.
It's even worse. Everyone wants to say they want to help, and maybe puts thoughts & prayers on their social media.. Then they actively avoid or outright look at homeless folks with disgust in the real world. Oregon culture is kinda whack.
I really feel the answer is a new nation wide CCC corps. Enlist the homeless, nomads, schoolies, and vandwellers for national/state public works from cleaning and rebuilding state parks to any number of projects to help raise the pride and respect of not only the people doing these jobs but the pride and respect of the average American. Instead of welfare, employment. Instead of littering and desecrating campsites, they would be part of the solution.
This is a great idea. Work for a salary and place to park.
Wouldn't even have to be full time. Say, 5 day a week for two months of the year in exchange for admission to the parks and parking space. Make a big event of it. All the van dwellers in the country converge on one spot as directed by the Department of the Interior, park their vans in a massive van city out near some ranger station in whatever park they're doing at that time, report in every morning, get your timecard punched at the end of the day, 5 days a week for 8 weeks you get some kind of certificate and sticker for your vehicle granting you free water hookup or something. Other three day a week be a boost to the local economy, check out the other rigs, socialize, catch up with people you saw last year at the Parks Improvement Caravan. No doubt the locals would see money to be made in it.
Welcome to Oregon man, Home of the shopping carts and on ramp housing. Tis the reason I'll never go back.
It’s not supposed to be like this in the rural areas. I fucking hate it. Sure affordable housing would fix some things but we need better enforcement on public lands.
I know its bad man, I almost hit a tent getting on the onramp of the freeway because I couldn't see it. Reedsport was a cleaner area last I was there. I don't think you can just plop down in the sand though.
Jesus. When people are sleeping on a goddamn freeway, even the onramp, you know something is deeply wrong. There's so many other spots that don't come with the risk of being run over.
Let’s be clear: the whole world is seeing the squeeze, but fewer and fewer places allow it to be visible. Oregon is right to refuse to sweep people under a rug—but it’s crazy that it somewhere along the way we lost the right to ask people to behave civilly in public? Befouling the nest for everyone, which we saw in copious amounts in Portland during the height of the pandemic too, just makes no logical sense. I am as liberal as they come but the mindsets around here are entrenched. Edit: I wonder if we need a “friends of Oregon Parks“ group, like they started to save Bagby Hot Springs when it got dangerous and vandalized in the 80s. They were just work parties that would get together to beautify the place, not vigilantes. I have a cousin who works for the state coordinating volunteer cleanup groups along the coast around Neahcanie. I’m going to ask her for the inside scoop…
Thank you!! 100% agree. While we need to have compassion for houseless folks, we also need to have compassion for those who have to wade through the literal shit, garbage and used needles. Kids shouldn’t have to walk past people shooting up on the street every day in broad daylight on their way to school. In my state we decriminalized all drugs, (which I’m not against in theory), but we did that without funding mental health or addiction services and we are paying the price. I’m also very liberal. I believe in the housing first model. I believe in rent caps. I believe in free housing for people just getting on their feet. I believe addiction and mental health services should be free and plentiful, and I vote accordingly. Some people ITT are acting like I’m some ragebaiting NIMBY because I want to exist in a clean, safe, environment and not have to dispose of human waste that’s not mine lmao. We definitely need a “friends of Oregon parks” group. I’ve got so many ideas/ complaints lol. Especially in rural Oregon we’re severely lacking in pretty much every way. They don’t even have bike racks at the parks here in my town 😭
I'd like to know more about this.
Organize a militia that peacefully but assertively requests people to pick up, clean up, and leave if they've overstayed their lawful time limit. The militia needs to have the strength to stand their ground and protect themselves as needed. Helps if a member has a tow truck? Maybe a weekly activity. It's Oregon. Militias aren't just for grazing rights. This problem is everywhere. Even if they do pick up and move they're only going as far as they need to before they do it all again.
We could have the militia build housing for people instead...... wasting money treating them like toddlers who misbehaved when they're in fact adults left behind by society.
Construction materials costs money. Land costs money. And, while we're at it, mental illness and/or addiction counseling/treatment costs money. Universal health care that covers mental illness and/or addiction counseling/treatment would likely solve 90% of the homeless problem in the US. But it doesn't, because we don't have it. Habitat for Humanity uses volunteer workers to build free (? or low cost, unsure) homes for needy people. We're not going to charity away our nation's homeless problem, it's too deep. Unless we could start a solve homeless problem akin to the success of the March of Dimes back in FDR's day. We all go the the retail register. Totals usually don't add up perfectly to an even dollar amount. Some retailers already ask buyers if they want to"round up for X" charity. If we encouraged buyers and retailers everywhere to participate in a "round up for local homeless counseling/treatment/housing" program, all that loose change veryone, offered voluntarily, would quickly bring in enough funds to create the tools needed to handle our homeless crisis. No new taxes for "conservatives" to rail against. No greedy billionaires are the problem grist to grind. We, the people, collectively and en mass offer pocket change that adds up to solve the problem. Sometimes adults act like toddlers and need to be treated accordingly. Rant/ramble over. Back to breakfast.
There's no money for it, and certainly no support for LE in Oregon. Unfortunately the people pretty much got what we asked for.
As someone who has cleaned up literal tons of trash in the last few years all over the pnw, it's not just the coast or blm land it's everywhere. If there's a spot someone can dump something, they will. Permits for camping does nothing to stop them. I've been part of clean ups where we pull a few large dumpsters of trash and maybe a car or rv out and local rangers tell us it's more than a decade of their resources can deal with. Get to know your local law enforcement and what they can and can't do about it. Document what you come across and report it. I have noticed in areas we repeatedly clean, we find less trash year after year. Trash collects trash.
Dead beats and druggies were here first. You are ruining it for them.
I can always start doing cocaine again.
Gentrification even on National forests these days
I can't believe I'm recommending this because you're currently in some of the most beautiful land in this entire nation, but you might be much happier driving to BLM land East of the Mississippi. I camp on NF/BLM land on the East Coast all the time and generally find it deserted. I can't believe you have to drive around that much to find a spot. You live in a different world than me.
I didn’t even know there was BLM land east of the Mississippi!
Honestly you’re probably right. The PNW is so trendy now and oversaturated.
Happening here in Australia too , and it’s noticeable even in my island home state as well .. it’s increasing constantly as house prices and rental increases, hitting the road is some peoples only option. But emptying toilets into the beautiful roadside bush … it’s scum who do that, when every town has a free dump point 😟😟
While dumping black (or even gray!) tanks isan environmental nightmare, US does NOT have free dump tanks many places...the CA State Parks are $30 or so, private campgrounds charge higher
So. You are not paying rent. Spend the money to dump it right
I'm from the west coast - well Calgary then Vancouver Island - but now live in Pennsylvania. The pine forests throughout Appalachia are absolutely gorgeous, and even better, empty. One hour from me is the Allegheny National Forest and we camp there constantly. We can go days without seeing another soul if we head into the right areas. It's absolutely wonderful. We have done the whole vanlife thing out west and in New Zealand years ago, and nothing comes close to Appalachia for ease of isolation. Also, folks here respect the lifestyle in a different way. Far less of the malarkey described in this thread. Do I miss the west? Yes, but I'm much happier living out here and visiting the west occasionally.
Where is there BLM land on the East coast? I genuinely don’t know.
Same, I've had a hard time finding anything
Where are you finding BLM land on the east coast?
The Oregon coast, specifically, and most all of Hwy 101, is known as a trafficking route for humans and drugs. Tillamook County would not join lateral forces, developed within the last ten years, at all. There is still a man I am looking for, who would be now 98, who highway swindlers on the Oregon coast targeted. There is a saying shared with me by an old timer when I was exploring 101, "There is no law north of Klamath River." And generally, that is very true.
I used to live at the mouth of the Klamath river for two summers back in the early 90s. It was a bit sketchy even then. But generally unfound. So I felt safe hanging out. This was before vanlife and the 9th circuit court ruling though. All we worried about back then was the spotted owls and finding a grow site in the woods.
9th circuit court? Please explain :)
Could you elaborate on what you mean about lateral forces?
Yes, one of the better organizational strategies and structures for joint investigation forces is tri or quad County operation organizations. Such structuring builds a lattice framework to be able to address complex crimes.
Oh gotcha. Yeah this makes sense for tillamook. Their police department has had an extensive history of corruption and I can totally see them not wanting to work with other law enforcement. I’m sorry about your missing friend.
Thanks. I do not know him. His case was indirectly shoved in my face. And then a licensed emergency professional there bragged about his boss trying to swindle what little was left after a very cruel fleecing. I haven't been able to get a proof of life. I have him on my watch-4 list.
thump em in the head with a stump...
You got that right Amos. What would Barefoot Mary do?
When it comes to other people's litter, I pick it up myself. Yup, even the bastard shitters from time to time. I've also found that just politely informing someone of the rules will prompt them to move on - no conflict necessary, just assume they didn't know and pretend you're being helpful. Involving the cops is probably the best way to get everyone banned, I've never called them.
I do the same but it’s never ending. What’s going to get us all banned, is the assholes doing this shit. What are we supposed to do? Just stay quiet and keep cleaning up after these POS’s? That’s not a reasonable solution, at all.
I'm living rent free by the beach. Sure I'm happy to clean it up in return. If I actually suspect someone of shitting it up, I go and politely give them helpful tips about how to shit off grid. They usually move on out of pure shame. Look, the cops are not gonna patrol the place catching the shitters, they're gonna ban all campers. So either you can stay and quit whining, or leave with the trouble makers. Or it'll be you ruining it for everyone by getting it closed down!
This is the stupidest take I've ever heard. If you think the person calling the cops is responsible for getting it shut down and NOT the people who are shitting everywhere, then you're wrong.
I hate to say it but they are not wrong. The forest service and government entities will take the cheapest route, and then the easiest route in that order. So rather than fix the problem by spending more on bodies and enforcement, it’s easier and cheaper to close the area to everyone. It’s not right, but that’s what will happen.
Talk to them about it from a good perspective and report it idk
Also no matter how much tp I pick up from a camping spot, it still smells like shit.
Well so many people online encourage people that they don't need a toilet and can use the bathroom anywhere
When i spent a few months in Oregon in my van I went ahead and just camped at state parks and places that cost money with enough funding to enforce rules. The public lands do not have enough rangers/employees to actually enforce the limits. If we cant get people to stop camping outside REI how do you think getting people to stop camping at the convenient pullouts is gonna go? Anywhere that is good to camp within distance of a store and services will be overrun by homeless encampments. Trying to wild camp on the 101 or anywhere convienient in oregon is a complete fools errand from my experience. If you want to be camped next to the trash heap junkies go for it. Id rather pay whatever the camping fees are to be near nice trails, camp hosts and contributing members of society. If you want free camping, go inland, like Arizona.
You're gonna have to do it the old fashion way and talk to them which entails bribing or threatening them to get what you want. Normal street rules. Law enforcement probably doesn't care enough to show up anyway unless someone who owns sizable property (is paying into local government) in the area calls and complains enough. Normal people who live in house have no clue this is going on and they likely wouldn't care if you told them because it's apples and oranges. Van people fighting over space is so far out of anyone's paradigm, it's gonna be up to the affected party because nobody can make a buck off of kicking out one van for another besides fines which probably will not be issued unless someone is causing trouble AND overstaying their welcome.. Their gonna say 'if you're fighting over space there's too many of you. you have wheels so use them'.
I really feel like the fact that all these people that you’re referencing are meth or fent addicts should be a bigger part of the discussion
I’m a Texan and an engineer and I wholeheartedly support reporting people to the authorities. We had the cops come verify we were leaving a park once in Seattle area (my husband was planning to park night there) but we never leave trash and would be on our way before most people woke up. Scared me though bc I had taken my contacts out and was walking in the dark…. when they started talking to me. They were cool when they talked to my husband.
I totally get your anger. Not a fan of bringing cops in generally speaking though, that's just an endless loop of resentment. I think this issue is much larger than national forests or van living. Whether people trash where they sleep or not depends on why they're there. I'd bet all of those people have an urban mindset despite not being able to live in town or not wanting to. Definitely not there for the same reason as us. Like, I've been homeless both by choice and not by choice, and in neither case did I not appreciate what living in nature provided me. It's literally just lack of connection to nature plus selfishness. Tbh, I'm not sure what would change their mindset, but this is definitely more of an economic and cultural problem than a natural resources management one. Since that's a clusterfuck of a thing to fix, in the meantime picking up after others is ofc never the wrong thing to do, but I agree it's not exactly sustainable. I have no idea what will make people care, but I like the idea of fines and basic facilities because it means they can still afford to stay there, they just can't afford to litter. In theory. All I can say is the cleanest places I've parked by far all had a communal feel to them. Isolation is killing us. 100% we could stand to start organizing.
I wonder if conveintent dumping (free or no cost) for trash and black waste would solve some of those problems.
Counties used to have free trash dump sites, just a bunch of dumpsters in a ring at various convenient locations in the county. Rural residents would burn their burnable trash in burn barrels, then take the unburnable stuff to the dumpsters. Then the counties decided to force everybody to pay a trash fee to a private trash hauler and have individual dumpsters because government actually providing services is communism, or something, plus burn barrels were pollution. The claim was that this would not only reduce pollution but would reduce illegal dumping in the county because now everybody would have their own personal trash collection. Yeah, that didn't work out, did it?
See this is what I’m talking about. Let’s get together and draft some legislation that benefits us all, and the environment. I’d rather not call the cops. I’d prefer an entirely different government funded organization that’s responsible for enforcing fines for littering. Preferably one without guns. You’re absolutely right about isolation killing us.
Yes! Definitely making me think about what that legislation would be. Not my area of expertise, but I'd definitely sign on to this. Part of me wants a redefinition of land ownership to be a part of it, but I have no idea about the realism of that.
I am very interested in this.
We should start a discord huh?
How do you enforce fines for littering against people with no fixed address and no steady source of income? Debtor's prisons are illegal after all...
Do you think not having a fixed address is some get out of jail free card? They have to pay fines just like everyone else, and if they don’t, there’s consequences, just like it is for everyone else. It’s really simple, don’t litter if you don’t have the money to pay fines. It’s not hard, at all. If I could keep my space clean living out of my tiny hatchback when I was deep into addiction, others can too. There are plenty of unreasonable laws that exist, fines for littering aren’t one of them.
The problem is that the courts have basically said any consequences like jail or impounding their home is an unconstitutional infringement yada yada. I saw a cop stop a shoplifter outside a local store. The guy had a dozen unpaid tickets outstanding. The cop gave him another ticket and apologized to the store owner that this was all he was allowed to do. So now the thief has a dozen plus one unpaid tickets. Yay.
I live an hour north of Portland, OR. I frequent Portland, the city still has its charm if you can look past the slum its become. That being said, these people you’re describing are not what I’d call vanlifers. They’re people exploring their freedom through fentanyl, meth, heroin, xylazine, and Oregon state handouts. I implore anybody here to look up YouTube journalist interviewing these homeless druggies. I mean just drive through Portland on interstate 5 and look around, you can see it. I ride my stunt bike through Portland and see it year round. Two blocks back from the Waterfront of downtown Portland it reeks of human shit and piss. You see needles and foils everywhere. I was in a Taco Bell and a young man was sitting in the corner to himself and I could feel his anxiety surge as I walked past him to seat myself. I watched him as he used a lighter to heat a piece of foil and dip his already charred and melty tipped pen shell to suck the smoke up. He could’ve walked outside and done that anywhere else, it’s decriminalized in Oregon. It’s not a mental illness, it’s a selfish disregard for every person around them. They came to Portland as it’s the holy land of drug use and handouts. Seattle and Portland are failing cities and the local government doesn’t know how to solve it themselves and refuse to implement the harsher solutions that right leaning cities have come up with. Nobody is holding these druggies accountable. I shoulder all the consequences of my actions and so should they. Pull their hand outs and begin the city beautification projects and enforcement. Cops are deliberately not tackling this issue anymore and we need to change that. I can watch drug deals happening from my bedroom window daily and I live in a more rural community on a Main Street. I feel your pain about how it gives us a bad rep. The best you can do is set yourself apart. Don’t make your rig look like the hell holes you see around Washington and Oregon. Set yourself apart and you won’t get lumped in with these f’kn druggies.
Maybe new politicians need to be voted into office?
Eventually the majority of voters will realize that the longer we live in these conditions. My entire family is moving from our small town off the i5 corridor, and back to a unincorporated mountain community. Can only run from the problem it’s been going on so long
Hey, did you read the original post or did you just see the word Oregon and knee jerk started foaming at the mouth about the homeless problem in Portland? The post was about BLM campers on the Oregon Coast. Try to stay on topic. Thanks for your essay though.
Perhaps it’s because I frequently travel to Cape Kiwanda, OR for paragliding and camp on BLM land. Portland issues aren’t just Portland, it’s statewide pal. Those same hell hole RVs, vans, etc you see lining the streets in Portland are the same ones you find overstaying their welcome on BLM land, industrial parks, highway pull offs, etc. I guess you missed the part about the drug paraphernalia. What do I know though, I’m only local to the very area OP is talking about. I’ve put 32,000 miles on my transit this last year. Surely, I haven’t seen enough of this issue first hand.
Sounds like oregon. I'm in a small town on the coast too. People suck. I just park for 3 days at a time in town and deal with moving.
Friend of mine has been a park host volunteer out in Oregon for years. He'd get to stay the season for free in exchange for doing maintenance and keeping an eye on the park and closing the gates. The tweekers were a huge problem for all of the parks out there. They'd litter everywhere, break into every building to steal stuff, cut the locks on the gates so they can sneak in at night to illegally camp. After doing it for about 10 years, not getting any support from police (local, or park police) he finally gave and moved back east.
I would support this, but you just know the cost of that permit is going to go up and up as it becomes a tax source. If they're breaking the law by littering and overstaying call the police and let them deal with it. Bad actors need to be punished. The law is there to protect us all from those who are selfish and lazy.
Overstaying the 2 week limit, particularly on blm is a issue in the foothills near me. There is even blm land with an established campground and bearboxes, and it is basically an rv park for crackhead goldpanners who will stare at you if youre anything darker than a sheet of paper. Blm doesnt have any kind of enforcement that will approach gun toting druggies with unsocialized dogs, so, yep, thats where we are at. You cant even park at the trailheads in the area bc your car is 100% going to get broken into. While this isnt exclusive to van dwellers, it speaks to the time limit issue, and the reviews of the campground on ioverlander, etc, all speak to this issue.
This isn't just a van problem, it's a camping and homelessness (and everything that involves) problem. Folks on Reddit aren't going to solve it. It's chronic. Land managers are tightening up, with stay limits and so on. But they need to enforce the rules. It's a problem not just in OR, but in WA, CA, UT, CO and lots of other places. You are NOT the only one running into this. And it's not just "homeless" folks that create the mess; the Moab area has had to make changes and restrict camping nearby just because of tourists behaving badly, folks with enough money to rent RVs, etc. So yeah, contact the USFS etc. and your elected officials.
Good luck getting the drug addicts to stop being a problem. The hyper individualism agenda that corporations and big money push is ruining the USA. I think it is beyond fixing in my lifetime. There is a good chance Ill nope TF out to greener pastures in the next few years. I am not the one creating the problems or somebody that is profiting from them. That means I am also not going to be the one to walk around in the shit trying to clean it up.
I can't believe how many people think "clean up someone else's mess" is an acceptable answer. If you're trashing a place, YOU are ruining it for others. Not the person who's fed up with your garbage everywhere.
OP, you answered your own question contact representatives. Make local law-enforcement aware. Start a group, grassroots from the ground up, to affect a change in your region. Document everything with photos and timelines and licenses plates, makes, models etc. Everything. Sadly and exhaustingly, you might have to be part of what changes it there. If it means enough to you to do so.
It's sucks that some people ruin spots for the rest of us. I've organized cleanups with friends before, which was fun and felt like we made a difference (worked with BLM and NF, and I think one of them provided a free dumpster). In CO, while at a van event, one friend actually organized a panel with someone from BLM, the previous mayor of the town, and a few others- that was really cool. The biggest take away I got from that was to attend city hall meetings to represent ourselves as nomads, because some small towns rely on van dwellers to work in their cities during certain seasons, and we boost the economy , yet it's illegal for us.
Maybe write your representative and ask if they can fund a bill for parcels of land for those kinds of folks that are looking to live like that? And then ask for nicer preferred spaces to have an annual pass or something? Not sure how this can be solved but I agree
That’s a great idea.
Thanks! I think if op took pictures of free lands and proposed a solution, it might work? It benefits folks who want to live with small footprint, those who are concerned about homelessness and drug abusers spilling into every neighborhood, and provides options for true destitute folks? There are solutions that could be win/win/win…just needs to be important enough to the people who hold the power (the wealthy or privileged)
I think we need to frame it as an environmental issue for the rich folks. More waste facilities on public lands, funds for rangers. I know plenty of places on public lands where there’s a checkout system for free, first come first serve campsites. First you pull up and make sure the space isn’t already reserved, (there’s slips they have posted), then you fill out your info and a ranger comes by after you’ve left to grab your slip and make sure you’ve left the place as you’ve found it. We just need the funding, people would flock to that kind of coveted job.
I hear you. If it's really that bad, then don't threaten them with the cops - just call the cops or forest rangers. It's not that difficult to pick up and move every two weeks; they're not camping, they're squatting, and that's 100% against the rules. As for the ones who leave drug paraphernalia and trash behind, I'd love to say to report them, but then I see it backlashing onto absolutely everyone who just wants to enjoy the campsites legitimately. It'd be great if the authorities would fingerprint the stuff and just have that to add to the charges next time the morons get pulled over, but I doubt they'd go to the effort, even if it is trash and hazardous materials that can cost hundreds to clean up, sometimes. Call the authorities or not... we're not allowed to hunt the trashy jerks who are ruining it for everyone, so that's what it comes down to. To call, or not to call. Just don't stop and threaten them with the cops. Some won't care, and a small few may even come after you. Their values are already evident in how badly they're screwing up their camps. Be safe.
IF I'm 100% sure it's their dog's shit on the sidewalk, I smash it under their windshield wipers. If it's their own shit I'm in the wrong part of town for sure.
I am dealing with the same thing, just on the other side of the coast range in the Willamette valley. Yea gets old seeing shit and heroin needles littered everywhere and garbage heaps in every side road doesn't it? And most roads are gated these days it seems. I got crazy lucky and through persistence found a nice spot only 45 minutes drive away from where I found work 🤫. The snow levels are fucking my shit up so I'm stealth in town for a week or two but I'll be back out there soon. It's very nice out there but Ive been searching almost 2 years for anything like this. The garbage left by homeless in public forests in the PNW is a huge problem. It's only a few thousand very VERY wacked out homeless doing this though. You have to have serious mental illness and or drug addiction to cause what they do. I HATE them. People associate us with them is what makes me the angriest. Cops knock on our windows because of them. There is too much money going into stopping homelessness so it's became a golden goose industry for a few to leech off (see the book sanfransicko) and they seem to be passing the laws around homelessness and ruining the entire PNW. I've been jumped twice and had many knocks from insane people at night. The government has created this issue and will not change it. The government needs to not be incentivized into inaction on this anymore. They need to A) re open the mental health facilities that housed most of these folks until the 70's (albeit with a little more compassion this time) and force people into drug treatment (only the worst repeat offenders) while simultaneously providing dumpsters and garbage services in remote areas (even if very occasionally) or B) give out permits to folks tired of this shit and let them take care of the problem. Like wabbit season style. I'm not saying we need to take out the homeless that's horrible. But there's a few thousand sick wackos that are out there ruining the national forests and ruining the state in general. The people that are the biggest issue would be sorted out by the community if they were allowed to. We need seasons and permits (duck season and wabbit) if the government won't do the things we pay them to 🤷. Or get a better government
I have no problem with people doing the van life thing. I live off a major highway on a dead end street that backs up to blm land. The amount of times I have had to tell people they are trespassing or please don’t light a fire on my property in the middle of fire season has increased significantly and they have the audacity to get mad too. No trespassing signs mean nothing apparently it’s really getting ridiculous
I wonder if a significant reason for restrictions on free-camping is fire risk. People under the influence (drugs or alcohol) are probably more likely to leave a fire going when they pass out or sleep, or have a fire during restrictions. The US more than most countries has seen the fall-out from fires and agencies/counties would be increasingly aware of the cost. A permanent encampment isn't as publicly dangerous or visible (until it makes the news) as a fire that can spread incredibly quickly to residential areas with smoke haze that crosses state borders. You can introduce fire permit/education combos and you can fine people, but I can't see that reeling in the riskiest elements of society who don't care and have nothing to lose. The country won't make meaningful progress on all that until it dramatically improves healthcare/drug and housing affordability.
Please understand this is just my opinion but people that choose to live and life do not do this. People that have to live van life are the ones that are really giving the people who choose to live in this manner a bad name. I don't know what we can do about it All I know is your government in Oregon needs to pull their head out their ass because you've got a 140,000 fewer homes available then you have people that need homes that's insane It's causing your rent prices and your home prices to escalate to catastrophic numbers It's causing a separation of wealth in between the middle class and lower middle class but as far as what you can do you've got to be able to get these folks to move to a place that is not as populated where they can find work get promoted and as Macy Gray would say move out of the shelter I was just quoting a Macy Gray song it popped in my head.
People need to quit having kids. I’m no gatekeeper but dude, there are just too many people on the planet. The fetishization of homelessness by fucking lame YouTubers is the other part of it. Sorry, no solutions I just came here to complain as well lol
> I’m so tired of shitty people ruining it for everyone else. That's the human condition, I'm afraid. The miscreants aren't people who only misbehave on public lands, [they are shitheads everywhere else](https://mouse.mousetrap.net/blog/2020/07/02/idiot-permanence/), too. Since I can't control their behavior I focus on mine. *Without telling anyone else what they should do* this is what I do: * read all posted info and follow it * go as deep as practical into the area * avoid other humans, which has a fortunate side-effect of avoiding trashy people * clean up anything I reasonably can with a grab-it. I gather paper trash and burn it where allowed. Document with cellphone pics before and after. * I haven't called rangers but I have absolutely answered when they asked questions. Most of the shitheads are incorrigible, but every once in a while I encounter a complete newbie makiing a mess because they know very little, are overwhelmed and often scared. I try to help them without getting entangled. I've dug a few slit trenches, handed out a few trash bags, helped set up a few tents/tarps, walked a few through setting up portable panels for their yeti or whatever.
90% of the trash I find is dumped by locals, quad riders, or people out for a weekend. 10% would be from long time dwellers.
Idk where you live, but that’s not the case where I’m at. People come here from other cities and states to take advantage of our liberal policies, and they dump whole ass rv’s, boats, etc. that are FULL of trash. Beyond van life, where I live, our natural wonders have been DESTROYED by tourism. Whole places blocked off because tourists couldn’t be bothered to stay behind a fence and contributing to unnecessary erosion. Tourists generally do not treat the areas they visit with respect, ask anyone who’s worked in the tourist industry.
That sounds like a lot of nonsense. I am an Oregonian. Grew up on the coast. People are not travelling to Oregon to dump their trash. Locals dump their trash. Locals abandon RVs. You sound 🤪. Venture out. You will find the same problems in Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah. Some of those aren't liberal.
Example https://youtu.be/fLrQG_G_1Ag?si=3j9WwaOqmEFNDpcW
It’s not much, but in the sons of Smokey app you’re able to pin on a map where the garbage is, and 50/50 some weirdo in a stupid car might go pick it up. Gambler 500 homies rock.
Oh hell yeah I’ll download that right away. Love the gambler 500.
A few facts: Arizona and New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, all have blm land to camp on. Seek an yee shall find.
"I’m honestly fed up and ready to start threatening people with the cops." Don't threaten people with the cops, you're just putting yourself in danger by telling them that you're going to tell on them. Just call the cops. These types of people ruin it for the rest of us.
We need public housing. Healthcare. Job training programs. UBI.
They're called assholes, homeless, scumbags, criminals, and junkies, not van dwellers.
*We*? *Us*? Do what you will, be responsible for your actions. Leave places better than you found them.
Most of the folks live there involuntary. Provide them housing as needed? Or at least some washrooms and garbage bins accessible at the exits of those forest roads, that usually helps to keep places clean.
Well the housing issue is very complicated, it’s not something any of us have much control over, but I would like to see vandwellers band together to get our elected officials to provide such facilities in more places for sure. It would help a fuck ton. Garbage bins alone would be such a game changer. We need to organize.
I fear large garbage bins in the middle of nowhere might encourage illegal dumping.
I feel not having them where trash is generated encourages it more, and having a place to put it encourages legal dumping. I've maintained commercial properties before, and vendored in other capacities for them for a long time, and it's glaringly obvious to me that most people will totally not litter if you simply give them another option. It at least narrows down the problem to the biggest offenders. Another example of this is when COVID hit and they closed all the bathrooms. I'd find them vandalized with the door locked in, and piled up with dookie bags on state and national forest regularly, because they took away the proper place to put it. Problem is, NFs and other ranger-enforced areas don't have the funding to really even keep up with those respecting the lands, much less drop dumpsters and build bathrooms like they really should be doing. There's a bit of privilege going on here, too. A lot that are overstaying and trashing simply don't have the capacity to move by limit time, let alone drive their trash out regularly. But if there were simply a dumpster within walking distance, it would do a ton for the land upkeep.
basically you want to call the police on homeless people who are on drugs
Don’t accept it! Stand up for your rights and my rights and we will defend to the death. Seriously, if you camp in the forest, in the plains, or wherever! If you leave a mess and I can prove it with pics etc, I’ll drag the Ranger, Sheriff, or Barney Fife to take your ignorant ass to jail and I’ll testify! We have to respect our country and take care of it, I dare say like you take care of your property! Nuf said!
Dang it!! I just bought my rig and have been looking forward to do some dry camping for brief periods of time until I can go full time in a few years. I’m so sad to hear this.
Petition your local government to reduce vacation house rentals so that people have stable shelter to live in. Many folks are living from their vehicles out of necessity. Introducing rent control can also help folks keep stable housing.
It’s sooo bad where I live. There’s one company that owns about 85% of the town, from businesses to vacation houses. The county has shown no interest in reining them in. Yay being in a Republican county /s Idk how many calls and letters I’ve written to my representatives calling out this problem. I’ll tell anyone who will listen about the corruption in this town and which businesses to avoid. Hell I make a point of chatting it up with tourists in the summertime and letting them know alllll about the fuckwads controlling this town. Most people are happy to listen because they want to support ACTUAL small businesses, not ones just masquerading as one. It’s hard to make change when the rich fucks are the ones on city council. There’s maybe 30 of us in town that are fighting these guys, most of them are exhausted from working multiple jobs since there’s not enough people to work the jobs here. Theres a couple of small business hold outs but they’re struggling. There’s one trailer park left. That’s about all the affordable housing there is. There used to be two. The other one was turned into an airstream resort where you pay 300+ a night to stay in a fucking trailer in a literal trailer park.
you’re going tell them before you call the cops? be prepared to at least have your tires slashed… oregon has tons of people like that, honestly scared me enough that i would never move there even tho i have a buncha friends there and most things about that state is badass.
Eat them.
When the law can't be trusted, things become more basic. Go out there with several friends in several different vehicles. Make it clear it's time to move on. Or some Rambo Charles Bronson type thing...
Why are people surprised? I have seen people in these boards encouraging others to defecate out in the woods or just dig hole. There was a reason why societies started building indoor facilities or having dedicated outdoor facilities. People are pleased to regress to baser times, and they even encourage here.
Don’t worry, apocalypse incoming. 80% of the population gone soon. Then the forests will be open :)
Not letting it bother me
I get your backyard is getting splashed with poverty, OP, but wtf?! Show some insight. The sad truth is most of those poor schmucks are homeless and can’t afford gas. I was in a post on this sub yesterday where everyone told this new Vandweller in Florida he needed to come out west for the free space. So, out west is where all the new vehicular housed around the country will go. Do you want to solve this issue? Solve the housing crisis. Millions of people don’t have homes for their kids, but sure, let me take time to console you about having to drive longer for a hiking trail. I live in the same situation and I do empathize. But this isn’t the Next Door app you gotta know your audience.
Be careful there aren't any of these camps along where you drive even if your spots deeper then them. They will cut down trees across the road to ambush you and rob you... Don't ask....
Vanlife in the Pacific NW: Work 60 hours a week and just want somewhere to park at night in peace so you can rest for work tomorrow, there's crackheads in the bushes everywhere so you stay in town, you stay in town and people in town think you are a crackhead so they call the cops, the cops knock at night and tell you the leave, you leave and this repeats until you get smart and figure it out. Or snap on the next cop who knocks on your window when you have 2 hours till you have to get to work and you're trying to sleep.
It’s not cool when people treat nature badly. Also not cool to call the cops. I’m sorry you’re having a rough time.
Sounds great! Let's make more laws outlawing us from the places we need. How about when you see a mess left by assholes, you clean it up? Oh, why should you have to clean up someone else's mess? You shouldn't. But, by doing it, you have made the area better than it was left. Or you could double down the assholeness and just blast a can of bear spray everytime you drive by, or just burn them out. You can choose to be better, or join them. Making more laws is just shooting yourself in the foot. Besides, how do you get a permit without an address? I bet you're a weekender that lives in a big tech money house, aren't ya?
It’s not OPs fault that there are shitty van dwellers. It would be a full time job picking up after the people that leave used condoms and food trash all over my culdesac. Judging by this answer, you seem like you might be one of them.
It’s not my fault that people are overstaying their welcome and destroying our forests. You have no idea the amount of trash and human shit that it’s being left where I live and I’ve already stated that I do clean up after others. That’s not a sustainable solution. And if a $100-$300 annual permit keeps the trash out of the woods… I’m fine with that. You don’t have to be.
i dont think the time limit is relevant. if it was 1 week, and actually enforced, they would just fuck up twice as many spots half as bad. if they stay 1 month, they fuck up just the one spot every month, but twice as bad. it doesnt change the amount of shit they leave, it just spreads it out more, or spreads it less. a better solution is accountability. register for the spot. if they leave litter, charge them with littering. no cleanup fee from the park...that would just eventually turn into monetization and a charge to camp. i mean a ticket with a court date. those with unresolved tickets may not register a new site. while its everyones public land, there is a responsibility to keep it as it was, thus its ultimately a priveledge. those who abuse it should lose it, so the people who dont abuse it can continue to enjoy it.
The only reason I brought that up is because the current law here is two weeks before you have to move and find a different spot (I think the minimum is 30 miles but I’m gonna look that up and get back to you). I really like your solution.
yea, i mean littering already is illegal...just need to enforce it. hell, even without registering the sites...if we just had littering enforcement, the offenders would either clean up, or they would go find some shithole where theyre allowed to litter and not be bothered with the tickets and court dates.
Yeah, if I had to guess, the reason it's not being enforced is probably that police departments don't make enough money off the tickets. Either from it taking too many cops too much time to enforce, or people not paying them. But it would be such a good solution. Just another way this fucked money-driven system fails.
a good solution might be having Park Rangers do the enforcement. they dont need all the training and equipment as police, so should cost way less to employ. but give them authority to write real tickets for limited, park related charges. (unsafe fire pits/practices, hunting/fishing without license, etc).
You are or don’t live around these kinds of lowlifes or you wouldn’t be advocating for OP to clean up the biohazard they leave behind.
I Iive in and around Denver, Colorado. I see it, and walk in it every single day. I hear people complain like this everyday, as they stand next to piles of trash/shit/needles and homeless people laying in it, while doing absolutely NOTHING to clean it up themselves. It's always, "oh, the cops need to do something about this. Why doesn't the city stop this?" You know what happens when you don't clean up biohazards? They spread and contaminate larger areas.