No Trespassing and Purple Paint! What is That All About?

Stay Away, Keep Out, Keep Off, No Trespassing...or you'll be eaten alive. Okay, maybe I over stated the last one, but when you see purple painted on trees and fences, for sure it means Stay Away and Scram! But seriously, are you kidding, purple paint?

What is going on here?

There is a law in 22 different states that says in essence if you see Purple Paint, Stay Away, Keep Out, Keep Off, No Trespassing. When I heard about a law that I seriously had never heard of I wanted to dig deeper.

For private property wind, rain, the elements, people stealing signs and the like made it a bit of a chore to make sure NoTrespassing signs stayed up. If you've got a big ole piece of land and you don't do regular maintenance on it, a sign could come down and someone could wander onto your property.

Without proper marking or posting, you might have hunters or anyone on your land doing things you don't want them to do. Right?

So a lot of folks use PURPLE PAINT. You could spray it on a tree, several trees, fence posts, what have you. Wind won't blow it down and it's a legit, a different colored marking that will stand out.

I know Indiana and Illinois have a Purple Paint Law, but what about here is Michigan? NOPE, NOT HERE! Why?

The website World Population Review says we have to go back to 2005. The bill was passed by the Senate, but it never made it through the House of Representatives.

The sticking points were objections to THE COLOR PURPLE!

The DNR was against it because:

• An inability to see paint on trees in low light situations

• The fact that some people have certain variations of color blindness and aren’t able to see the color purple

• The potential for improper markings of property lines with paint that cannot be easily removed in the way an improperly placed signed could be

• The general belief that private property signs are the known standard for marking property and are easily recognizable to the general public. (Cadillac News)

It was brought back up recently, 2021, but again did not pass.

It is totally confusing because even in places where it is the law, a lot of folks really have no clue as to what it is and what's all this purple is on trees?

Just remember if you're out and do see it, you should go the opposite direction. But it's not a law here.