California Surveyors Forums

Land Owner - "Didn't they used to put a cut or a slash in the curb to mark the property line?"

Me- "Yes, it was quite common during the construction phase of the project to cut or slash the curbs. And they probably are pretty close, probably within an inch of the true line. Later the surveyor came back and set the iron pipes at the front and back of the property."

Land Owner- "Well that's all I want is a slash in the curb so I can tear out all this crap between me and neighbor who is about to be forclosed on."

Me- "Well, I am not your guy for this project. Everytime I tell someone that this point is their property corner/line, there is either a found pipe with a tag in in or my monument with a tag in it. I am sure you can find someone out there who is willing to break the law."

Land Owner- "Well thanks for your honesty. Goodbye."

Me- "Yes sir and good luck."

(the sad part about this scenario is that there is somone out there who will just slash the curb and put a 1x2 in the back. And those marks are probably pretty close, but there ain't no pipe there, no record filed. But by God and that fella named Pete that Dane refers to, all that crap between the neighbors is cleaned up and that really is the whole purpose of the survey.)

The neighbors could just talk to each other, come to an agreement and then there is no need for a slash and 1x2, for Pete's sakes. I get more jobs trying to talk folks out of having a survey in the first place.

Dane you are right "the neighbors could just talk to each other, come to an agreement and then there is no need for a slash and 1x2," The could do that and they certainly wouldn't need me.

Whenever I try to talk the client out of having a survey, I do such a good job, that he doesn't get a survey, at least from me anyway.

"Yes, it was quite common during the construction phase of the project to cut or slash the curbs. And they probably are pretty close, probably within an inch of the true line. Later the surveyor came back and set the iron pipes at the front and back of the property."

In Sacramento there are thousands -- maybe hundreds of thousands -- of subdivision lots that were monumented in front with chiseled gashes (that's the term by which I learned to call them; slash will do, but please, not "shash"!) in the back of curb or sidewalk. I don't know when the practice started, but it was prevalent during the post-war housing boom and was still in use when I was doing subdivisions in the early 1980s.

For the most part these gashes weren't noted on the filed maps. However, they were set by the surveyor as original monumentation, not merely as construction guidance. When you find them today, you're golden.

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for bringing that typo to my attention. I shall try and do better in proofreading this stuff before I hit "submit reply".

Woodcutter: I've fund that those "slashes" are on oddball offsets because they're set at the top middle of hte curb. I've also found that, in some subdivisions, the curb "wanders" a bit making standard offsets even more difficult.

Of course, with a couple of ties to the CL monuments, you'll know exactly where the R/W lines intersect the side PLs. That's what CL monuments are for.

I just performed a survey in Riverside where several Lead and Disc monuments were found on the top of a wall, not on line with each other and no offsets were shown on the map. When we contacted the surveyor he said they were offsets on the prolongation of the sidelines, and that even he did not know what the offsets were. The original monuments marking the line were gone. We had to push further out to establish the line. Not recording the offsets of set monuments is poor practice.

In OC many lot lines are marked in the front with a L&T on TC on a 7.75 o/s to pl.


True story.
I come home one day and one of the trunks of a 3 trunk tree is freshly cut and lying in my dwy. The tree is near just on my side of the PL near the front corner of my garage. Now I like my trees.
I get out and make a agitated homeowner exclamation that Bruce probably heard. I hear the neighbor woman tell someone "You better go out there".
Her relative from the midwest cut my tree down and his response was "Its near the PL so I thought it wouldn't matter".
Uh, isn't that the time to ask the neighbor, or am I wrong here too?.