Should you buy land that is TRASHED?!? 

When I was a kid. Dad almost bought a nice piece of land. Forested hillsides, nice big arable meadow, with good soil. He brought a spade, dug no more than eight-ten inches. All garbage, underneath. Guy must have been running a private dump.

I would be terrified of finding hazardous waste. That could bankrupt anyone!

My dad "rented" our property in east central WV to one of his nephews in the mid 80s... It's amazing how fast he junked up the place before Dad could get him out of there for not paying the rent..

One other thing to be careful of, depending on your state, is that you might get immediately tasked with cleanup by the local government if the garbage can be seen from a major road.

I got 5 acres, used to have a house on it in the 50's, but I burned down. People dumped on it for 20 to 30 years, and a little bit recently. I ended up finding a lot of metal, lots of copper, aluminum, and even found a gold pocket watch from 1870's. (plated) Pretty sure thieves were stealing bikes for parts too, cause I found a lot of bikes. Only downfall was finding barrels of old paint! 50 gallon! But they were all dried up so I took them to the transfer station and it just cost me about $37 to dispose of properly. Making way more than that from the copper! Plus I only paid $4000. To buy 5 acres in town. The house was on a 25' x 50' slab. Perfect flat spot for my camper! Have a beautiful view of the Mississippi River , wildlife including a fox that has befriended us. Him and his female friend love to sun in the front yard!

The homemade stove would make a great sap boiler for maple syrup😀. Lots of treasures...good stuff

People trashing land really irritates me. I don't understand why they want to live in the country and then fail to care for it. In addition, the money they saved by avoiding trash service was lost many times over in the loss of value at sale time.

Don't sweat it, my property was purchased by my grandparents, in 1947, Grandpa never put fence here. I have removed 4 rolls of woven and many rolls of barb wire, that I have to believe was here before 47. My grandkids will probably still be finding rusty wire on our 150 acres. Love the channel.

The bent pipe looks like the perfect radius to use as a front bumper on a chevy truck. :)

What you see can be like an iceberg there can be much much more underneath. I’ve worn out many pairs of gloves just cleaning up old trash heap dump sites on property

That is some cool stuff. Great idea about taking pictures, I moved on my farm 3 years ago and I wish I could have done that 20 years ago.

Thanks for having great audio!

I bought a house and 1/2 acre for $900 at a tax sale. Tore it down to the studs. "They were oak not one piece of pine and no rot" Replaced the wiring and plumbing roof siding over 4 years spent about 25,k. Been10 years now As you said getting trash out is still an on going project.

Love this channel. We just bought a house in WV and are looking to buy more land eventually. Youre living the dream my man!

I really appreciate that point, take pictures when things are at their worst! The difference will make it all seem worth it.

I'm a fan of the Hollar's, and I'd like to thank you two for helping them with their property. So now I'm watching your videos, and I really enjoyed watching this video. You are very good at explaining things. Thank you. I can't imagine living on 100 acres, so watching your channel will be a treat. Hey, from Florida.

Just found your channel. Great work and thanks! Rusty log chains work fine , just look rough. We occasionally drag them down remote gravel roads. They look sandblasted after a few miles.

Great Video Troy !!!

I hear ya! I spent the first 3 months, after buying my property, just clearing trash and beer bottles from around the 1acre surrounding the house. Each spring, I go further out and clear an area as it gets purposed for my animals. I still have a literal trash heap about 10000 sq ft near the center of the property. Had to fence it off so pigs wouldn't go rooting around in there. Each year, my county issues a landfill certificate for 1 ton of trash and I load a trailer and haul off what I can from that pile. Eventually, it'll be clear. Rehabbing a property is not for "city slickers". Takes patience. I am glad I took my time, because I have repurposed things that originally I thought would just be thrown away. Remove it when it's in your way or a hazard...but don't create extra work for yourself 👍

Good info and considerations

It is strange to find this video, we just got outbid for a farm that had only been occupied by the heir a few week out of the year for over 20 years. There were old tires old appliances and God knows what else in five huge trash piles also several smaller piles. 3 or 4 steel barrels with unknown contents and a septic system over 40 years old. The owner gave only vague answers to any of our questions. Maybe it was a good thing we were outbid.

Great information on buying and owning land. Nice video and thanks for sharing . Big 🐖

i found out how fast a person can and will trash up your land just cause they didnt have to pay for it, i found that when people just throw their stuff around its because they dont value what they have.. no sweat investment is involved so they think its not their problem.. but its the type of land i been searching for, the old run down places that get trashed are what i look for and turn into pasture, great video

the boat! that was the first thing that came to mind. great videos.

Tires might make good structure of an Earthen retaining wall or bunker.

I did that and made money removing all the metal and even got to sell some farm equipment that was on it and still worked. There must have been over 250 lawn mowers and snow blowers there. Even after cleaning it up stuff appeared and since I know how to fix lawnmowers and snow blowers I was selling fixed up after simple fixes.

We found 2 of those steel bars with the pointed ends on them on our property. Both have the flattened end. Our house sits on the rim of a quarry. Very cool, I did not know what they were for! Now I do :)

Very sage advice. Maybe I'll retook at some property I'd previously rejected.

Well done post Thanks

Thank you for the video

always good if the price is right!!! me love land especially farmland!

The joys of scrap metal. If it's metal then it can be scrap and melted. And made into whatever you want. Old tires last forever that's why they are great for retainer walls and road beds and erosion control. Rotten wood burns. Plastic burns as well but you can reuse it yourself with a press and some heat. Old stone and concrete and pavement can be reused as filler. The old speed boat hull can be used as filler or as a roof for a chicken coop or something. There's very little that is truly trash that can't be reused. And if YOU don't want to bother with it just let people know that your fine with people taking it, and watch how fast it disappears.

great video again

I bought a garbage pit, largely unknowing. I have spent five years working to clean it up. And, have years yet to go. Now, my efforts have added to the value of the land and gained the respect of neighbors. However, unless you have the ability to complete the clean up, your labor may have been in vain. That determination is still out on my efforts.

Anything metal is cash in my pocket. Everything else can be burned. Get the fire hot enough, rubber tires don't stink.

That’s real nice land

The other day going through the farm garage I found something I dug up 11 years ago after a tree stump was removed. What this piece of Iron turned out to be was a flintlock I really appreciated the antique value of it. Wondering when or who left it there? This farm has been in the family since 1869 but, it leaves me motivated to dig for the barrel 🤣. Take care Troy

16 foot speed boat sitting in a field? Just paint SS Minow on the hull upside down and you’ve got the makings of Gilligan’s Island. How many yards of garbage and trash did you dump? How many hours do you have in cleanup - 1,000 hours (40 weeks x 25hrs.) to get rid of your fiberglass boat just take a sawzall (n95 dust mask) and a bi-metal blade? and cut it up into pieces and toss them into the dumpster. Conversely, just flip it over and drag it out with a pickup or tractor. You still need to trash it, might be considered hazardous waste - I would call the county sanitation dept for advice?

We bought 18 acres in WV. A still furnished but destroyed by rodents 50s trailer with a 16x 40 pole barn built over it. The typical trash piles, etc (although not nearly as bad as some). Brought in the sawmill and built a 16x 20 salt box two story “shed”, cost about 3k to dry it in. We planned to build a house, but covid hurt our chainsaw carving business so we did up the shed. The old trailer at least had water and septic, so we put a water line in to the shed. Solar panels for the electric. Love these videos!

the property I bought is covered with trash piles. I had dreams of cleaning it all up right away but now know its going to take me years.

Our scout troop cleaned up state game land here in PA....Filled eight dumpsters with trash and had over 300 tires sent to the cement plant for burning. Four years later it was trashed again.....

Nice stove, bro

In survival games you build near the scrap ! This guy was ahead of his time !

I got a 3 acre plot that everyone around here used it for trash dump I've got it almost clean up by myself hope get it done this yr plus I remodel the house at same time so lot going on plus hunders Of small trees now getting little stumps out of ground its not been fun but almost see end of it maybe probably hope so this spring if possible ha ha

I would.

I think as long as there is no environmental damage from toxic waste it all good. As long as it has the location, features and attributes you're after at the price you think is a good value vs what it would cost if in cleaned up condition, I would snap it up. I just comes down to sweat equity. If you have a good sized metal detect club in your area, you could have them come out and sweep the property and flag all the metal and allow them to keep any coins or small value items.

Paint the speedboat & turn it into a raised planter. Quick & cheap.

useful information ..

If we are prepared to have the motivation, the energy, and the inspiration to do the needful which includes money needs. Some repairs can cost thousands.

Two years ago I almost bought an 18 acres trashed piece of property only to be out bid by someone by a couple of K. I like your comment that what ever you think it is going to cost to clean up multiply that number by four.

It would depend on the trash I think, If it is really crazy or its contaminated then probably not. Don't want to have to deal with toxic waste.

Love the videos. Like you we recently purchased 35 ac in SW Va sloped terrain as well and had quite a bit to clean up. Frustrating is an understatement! Maybe you can do a video on long term soil concerns of these trashed properties since you have been there 20 years and we are in our first year. Yea we got a great deal on the front end but what are we paying for later for someone using property as a landfill. Thanks!

if you can hook up with the local scrappers they will come get that metal for you.

Our house was built on 1 of 3 lots that the hood didn't mind dropping off unwanted stuff in before the builder came. So the builder cleared the first lot and pretty much dumped most of it along with the trash already there onto the other lots. Built the first house and then couldn't get the other 2 lots to perk and just left it. The first owners of the house were related to the builder so they didn't care about it and just left it that way. We bought it and then spent 2 years cleaning in phases. First was going through the woods in the fall and hacking all the Kudzu vines that had nearly killed every tree on the property. Then it was months of trash, logs, stumps, concrete, etc, etc, etc.... 12 years later after a big hard rain (we have mostly sand soil) I'm always finding something but it's always a lot less than the year before. What used to be, see a little blue thing sticking up out of the dirt that ended up being a 12X12 blue tarp buried is now just a small chunk of glass or metal. You are so right though. Pictures, pictures, pictures. I look back at some of my pictures and can even imagine it like it was.

I bought my house in 2017. 1/4 acre in a neighborhood, 3 2 typical cookie cutter house and I was Clearing trash from around the yard the attic and bottle caps from disposal. People trash whatever they have no matter the size of the property.

Tires and rebar and dirt make great small retaining walls

One thing you may be interested in looking into is using mushrooms for bioremediation.

10:55 that is not a drill bit of any kind that is a tool used for working on railroad tracks

Trashed to the extent your talking about sounds really rough and time consuming. Now if its cheap just because it's overgrown with alot of brush,that don't sound so bad. But when you start talking about over 2 hundred tires,nah,probably not for me.I'm glad you made this video to remind folks what to look for,and that goes double on the hazardous stuff. While I don't consider myself an environmentalist, I don't want to deal with contamination and such. I prefer clean safe water and hope someday to buy usable land.

the fun videos are to have goats come in and clean off the leaves and twigs. what they uncover is food for another video.

My land is trashed too every ditch is a dump

There are mobile scrap shredders that can come to your property and shred anything you want it would have been easier to haul out of the property or even pay them to haul it out too, love watching those giant shredders in action those thing will eat up anything

6 years or so ago, while being homeless I bought 2 acres that was trashed, still is. I was tired of not having a roof over my head other than my Chevy HHR. I bought a 10x20 shed and lived in it for a year or so while trying to clean the place up and make the shed more like a cabin . One section of the property was where they buried their household trash, cans ,broken jars you name it and it stunk the more I bagged it up and got deeper into the trash. also within 2 months I came down with tic fever, wow,got it twice within that 2 month period, shortly after recovering from those 2 cases and all that antibiotics, I had 2 heart attacks within 4 days, that I was told may have been trigged by the tic fever and antibiotics that weakened my heart, well, that along with the stress of being homeless for a few years and I was still working hard on the property clean up in high heat and humidity. I now live with my son and granddaughter not 6 miles away from that property, I still mow her but it does depress me going over there, the land has potential for living and a nice view, (so far) but it is still tic heaven and some game camera footage I have would blow one away, a deer with so many tics on its ears that you could think they were deformed,and one deer with wasting away disease, patchy fur, white, ribs exposed, and stumbling as it tried to walk. You dare not step out on the ground without some sort of tic repellent before exiting your vehicle , even then ,you will still have a couple, that you’d better find soon.

20 years is a long time to still not have that cleaned up yet. Put in the time and funds (it can’t be that much) and within 2 months you can flip it or make it your home.

Found you from the hollers channel

weird that i stumbled on to this video.... i have ancient trash piles at my place that is incredibly hard to get to. lot of glass and tin cans in huge piles, appliances and some unidentifiable steel objects, probably pieces of farm equipment

only if you buy more land than you can manage to clear in a year. but deffinatly food for thought.

My wife and I bought a 5.5 acre parcel in waterford michigan, and it was a dump. The previous owners, burned their own trash and left the rusted out burn barrels all over. They dumped any and everything all over the property including lots of tires. After three years, it's all cleaned up. Though I continue to find scrap metal here and there that rain and weather expose.

What👀 100 acres for less than $60G

I looked at a piece of land that had an old caved in mobile home and a couple half crushed campers on it in the ad. No big deal I thought, a couple dumpers would take care of that. I go look at it and the three structures were stacked floor to ceiling with old asbestos ceiling tiles and there was drums of either used motor oil or maybe even PCBs all over the property. They were asking like $40k for 30 acres. It'll probably cost two or three times that just to clean that up legally, not counting any soil contamination.

tires can be used to biuld a ramed earth home.

I'm literally looking for property that needs cleaned up. We don't mind sweat equity because the lifestyle we plan is all sweat equity anyway

If you got money to clean up it’s nice

Loggers are rough in Maine where I have off grid camp. They take out the smallest spruce and don't leave much left. It does take away the remote feeling and it's not very pretty. Does help the moose and deer with opening clearings

Oil, transmission fluid and other fluids are probably in the ground and can't be removed. Could also seep into the ground water. Wouldn't buy any property that had equipment repair unless you know for sure that all was recycled right.

Actual trash can be picked up and removed, but I'd be worried that where there's trash, there could be toxic chemicals as well. And that can ruin your land for farming forever,

would love to have the money to buy a property, no matter how bad it looks. as long as it is big enough.

That old stove would make a nice cold smoker.

BauBau yes you should!

FREE SPEED BOAT!? *_YES!!!!_*

You got a lot of land for a very cheap net price, but I would have not bought that property because of all the continued work you have had to do to clean it up. Here it is 20 years later and you're still cleaning it up. Damn! Yeah, you're a lot younger than me, so maybe you saw it as a challenge you could tackle. For me, it would have been a walk away. 🤔😉

A couple questions you have to ask yourself. Are you willing and able to put in the work. Helpful hint, usually you underestimate the amount of labor involved. Can you operate the equipment needed to complete the job. Or can you afford to pay someone else to do the dirty work. If you're considering buying land that is "trashed" money is tight or you would not be looking. So think of the cost for rentals- equipment, dumpsters, possibly even tools. It may be cheap upfront, but it doesn't take long to spend a lot more than anticipated

You also get the satisfaction that you returned a piece of trashed property to beauty and productivity.

The tires could be used for a bermwall if you had and need of one otherwise oh those are pricey to dispose of lol

You should have all that old gas pipe checked. Are you familiar with all the lawsuits surrounding reclaimed gas and oil well pipe? If it’s been in the ground long it becomes radioactive. You should find a cheap Geiger counter and at least check it. Ashland oil settled a lawsuit stemming from gas pipe they gave away to farmers to build fence and whatnot.

Its OK if you have a mini excavator then buy it all up and use the mini excavators blade to find all the hidden gems. Just make sure creosote and diesel wasn't stored in big tanks all over the place. You can't live long enough to make it good. Steel and trash make good burning barrel material unless you have negative Nancy living next door then you have to push it onto her property.

No, only if the land is cheaper

alot of that oil goes as runoff and takes some years to get down into the ground, who knows what was dumped, if you see places that dont grow anything than thats a sure sign

that woodstove looks like it was a homemade smoker

Troy - Have any of your pigs been injured by buried treasures they turn up?

I'm looking at a house with it's own gas well and comes with the oil lease royalties.

Hello, Is it natural in the US to leave your stumps that tall? Because here in Finland, if you take down trees during the summer,we cut the stumps as low as possible, so it wouldn't cause a problem in the future and it looks better

The reason that scrapper lost interest after you ran out of car frames was because when ever you take steal to the recycler and include a car frame, that bumps up the price per lb significantly. Once that was gone, it wasn’t very profitable anymore for him. But if you had enough scrap steal laying around, if i were that scrapper, i would have been on the look out for old car frames and then come back

In Northern France farmers keep unearthing bomb shells that date back to WW1, some of which are unexploded. What the earth can't absorb it rejects and metal comes up to the surface. The farmers have no choice but to keep working that fertile land.

That boat would be an awesome blackberry patch just like it is . If that wasn't a hole in the bottom, just make one. GOD BLESS

i like those pants

I'd love to have a huge piece of property like that. Problem is I grew up in the suburbs of baltimore and I don't know the first thing about living in the sticks. I am sick of living close to civilization and am good with my hands and wouldn't mind needing to clean up for the long term. Something i'll have to think about for a good while. What are the property taxes like for something that size?

Both you and the previous owners got extremely lucky that the West Virginia state government did not learn about all those tires. Salvage law states that a person cannot have more than 100 tires on a property. More than that 100 and fines start happening.

My land is similar and I worry about all the small metal scraps, wires bits, nails and such left in the soil. I worry how this might affect animals in the future. I can’t cover 50 acres with a magnet.

Very difficult to find cheap land in Connecticut anything 10 miles near the coast