New Hampshire
Family calls cops 37 times, receives death threats from encampment of violent vagabonds behind dream home: ‘I can’t even use my backyard’
Their dream home has become a place of nightmares.
A New Hampshire family is being terrorized by a homeless encampment that sprouted up behind their historic home, leading to violent encounters with the vagrants, according to a report.
Robin Bach and her husband spent years restoring their 19th-century dream home in Concord to raise their two children, ages 8 and 11 — but have been plagued by the campers living in the woods behind the palatial abode.
They’ve received death threats and have heard gunshots and screams from beyond the tree line. A swingset in their backyard, bought in 2020 during the pandemic, sits untouched by her terrified children, who will only play in the front yard.
“I can’t even use my backyard. My kids can’t go out there,” Bach told the Concord Monitor. “I would like my children to be independent and feel comfortable going outside and playing and they won’t.
“This is the worst it’s ever been, It’s the worst it’s ever been.”
Since purchasing the house in 2018 with grand plans to renovate and raise a family, Bach has called police 37 times, according to police records reviewed by the newspaper. Six calls were for an area check, another six for disturbances as well as domestic violence and criminal trespassing incidents.
During one of their first summers in the house, Bach’s husband found a man, who they had previously seen lurking in the woods near some tents, sitting in their backyard. When he asked the man to leave, the interloper threatened to shoot him.
The man returned several times until Bach filed a restraining order against him — and cops hauled him off in handcuffs as her young children watched, she told the Concord Monitor.
In another incident, she was teaching her son how to do laundry when they heard chilling screams of some yelling, “Get off me, get off me” coming from the encampment, prompting another police call.
A dumpster fire behind a neighbor’s home two doors down sent wailing firetrucks rushing up her street to put out the blaze, the outlet said.
When Bach asked for a quote to install a chain link fence around her property, she was disheartened to learn that it would cost $50,000, she told the Monitor.
“I can’t afford to clean it up. I can’t physically do it myself,” she said about the garbage visible from the house. “So the trash remains.”
What was once just one or two tents when she first moved in, the camp has ballooned to about half a dozen, as New Hampshire experiences one of the largest percentage increases in homelessness in the country, according to the paper.
The encampment on Bach’s property poses a unique challenge because it borders property and train tracks owned by CSX, a freight railroad company.
While Concord police can go and issue no-trespassing orders at any time, CSX also has its own police detail that will sweep the area and arrest people.
Police are able to clear out the camp and have done so a few times and tried to connect them with local programs to find stable housing — but that’s the extent of the city’s involvement on private property, meaning the litter stays.
And, after the police have moved the campers out, they just return in a matter of days, Bach told the Monitor.
“We have a pretty significant homeless problem,” Barrett Moulton, the deputy chief of patrol and police liaison on the city’s homeless steering committee, told the outlet. “They’re going to be somewhere.”
“It’s Whack-a-Mole,” Bach echoed. “You can’t just ask them to leave, they’re going to go somewhere else. You have to give them someplace to go.”
Bach understands that squatters behind her home need assistance and stability. She recently spoke to a man who holds a day job and tries to keep the area around his ten clean.
She and other local leaders believe a solution would be to create a designated campsite for the homeless in the city, where much-needed resources and outreach can be concentrated in one place.
“You can put your tent here, here’s bathrooms, dumpsters,” she said. “They’ve come here and told them to move a million times, they don’t move.”
The Supreme Court ruled last week that homeless people can be ticketed and fined for camping on public property in a landmark decision, which will likely lead to cities across the country to take legal action against the unhoused.
Last year, about 650,000 individuals in the US lacked a permanent place to live, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, a 12% increase from 2022 and the most since tracking began in 2007.
New Hampshire
6th Highest Powerball Jackpot, $1.25 Billion, Expected On Wednesday Night, New Hampshire Lottery Says
CONCORD, NH — The Powerball jackpot for Wednesday night is expected to be the sixth largest in history, according to the New Hampshire Lottery.
The jackpot is expected to be $1.25 billion. The one-time cash payout should be around $572 million before taxes. No one has won the jackpot since Sept. 6, when winners who purchased tickets in Missouri and Texas split a $1.78 billion jackpot.
Top 10 Jackpots
- $2.04 Billion, Nov. 7, 2022
- $1.787 Billion, Sept. 6, 2025
- $1.765 Billion, Oct. 11, 2023
- $1.586 Billion, Jan. 13, 2016
- $1.326 Billion, April 6, 2024
- $1.25 Billion, Dec. 17, 2025 (anticipated)
- $1.08 Billion, July 19, 2023
- $842.4 Million, Jan. 1, 2024
- $768.4 Million, March 27, 2019
- $758.7 Million, Aug. 23, 2017
The odds of winning the jackpot are 292.2 million to 1. The odds of winning the $1 million prize — matching five numbers without the Powerball are 1 in 11.7 million.
Charlie McIntyre, the executive director of the New Hampshire Lottery, said last week, $2.4 million worth of tickets were sold in the state.
“We’ve gone a number of drawings without a winner, giving this Powerball jackpot plenty of time to rise to the sixth largest of all time,” said “There’s still time to make your holiday season brighter with a chance at this $1.25 billion prize — all you need is $2 to play.”
Revenue from the sales, he said, helps the commission “continue our daily mission to deliver the maximum amount of revenue to public schools in New Hampshire.”
Since 1964, more than $3 billion has been contributed to schools in the Granite State.
Deer have evolved to survive the stark winter months, with adaptations like a warm winter coat and stores of body fat they can use for extra energy. The animals also reduce their activity and food intake to conserve energy and migrate to a forested shelter called a deer yard, which can provide some protection from the elements.
“Although people may feel badly for deer and want to help, the Fish and Game Department would like to remind the public to never feed deer as it may actually harm them,” said Becky Fuda, the deer project leader at New Hampshire Fish and Game.
In 2015, 12 deer were found dead around a feeding site in South Hampton, after they were given food they could not digest, according to Fish and Game.
Microorganisms in the deer’s stomach help them to digest food. The natural diet of deer gradually changes with the seasons, and the microorganisms also change over the course of a few weeks to help them digest different foods.
But a sudden shift from a high-fiber woody diet to a high-carbohydrate diet offered by humans can disrupt the deer’s stomach chemistry, making deer less able to digest food, and releasing toxins.
And Fuda said feeding can have other negative consequences for deer, like increased risk of getting hit by a car and increased risk of disease transmission.
“Fish and Game strongly discourages the practice,” she said.
There are about 100,000 white-tailed deer in New Hampshire, according to an estimate from Fish and Game.
This story appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, a free newsletter focused on New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles elsewhere. To receive it via email Monday through Friday, sign up here.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
NASHUA, N.H. — An investigation into a September burglary involving the theft of $150,000 in jewelry from a store led to an arrest on Tuesday.
The Nashua Police identified the suspect as Nathan Ladue, 34, of Nashua, who was taken into custody on a felony warrant for receiving stolen property.
The case began on Sept. 28 when officers were called to a burglary report at Euddy Jewelry, located at 108 E. Hollis St. Police said that surveillance footage showed a white male driving a vehicle in the area that was registered to Ladue.
Detectives from the department’s Criminal Investigation Division obtained search warrants for Ladue’s vehicle and residence, which allegedly uncovered multiple pieces of stolen jewelry along with illegal drugs.
Ladue was subsequently arrested on a felony warrant on Tuesday.
He is charged with two counts of receiving stolen property, a Class A felony; two counts of possession of a controlled drug, a Class B felony; and receiving stolen property, a Class A misdemeanor.
Ladue was held without bail pending his arraignment at 9th Circuit Nashua District Court on Wednesday. The outcome of the hearing was not immediately available.
Police are asking anyone with information about the case to call the Nashua Police Department Crime Line at 603-589-1665.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
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