Please note: To avoid an unpleasant experience and conserve limited personal resources, we are not offering any services while we reclaim the cemetery.

The Narrows Pet Cemetery is Ohio's oldest remaining pet cemetery, established in 1926, with over 14,000 buried, including pet and human remains.  The cemetery was lost over several decades to debt, drug activity, and health code violations, followed by multiple foreclosures and bankruptcy filings, and is now heavily overgrown.  The primary house, kennel, foot bridge, and multiple neighboring structures were demolished due to condition.

If considering purchasing land previously sold as landlocked by prior cemetery owners:

Please see the site development plan below for more about the land situation, which contains information required to be disclosed by Ohio case law before selling and buying real estate within the pet cemetery.  Note 6340 Frederick Pike, Dayton, Ohio 45414, is landlocked within the pet cemetery, which includes only part of a house and a number of other zoning, legal, utility, and other issues.

In 2001 the cemetery foreclosed for the second time, selling for $50,000 with primary house and kennel, which were then demolished.  20 years later, in 2021, after again running out of resources, the cemetery, including 18 remaining acres, 6 of which are headstones (the other 12 acres can legally be developed with road and private river frontage) was sold for $39,770 ($2,200 per acre).  Unlike pure human cemeteries, pet cemeteries (and human cemeteries which also bury pets per a certified letter from the State of Ohio) must pay property taxes and then receive no income from tax dollars when they fail.  Combine higher expenses with general expectation of lower cost services for pets for the same or higher level of service as human cemeteries (as pet cemeteries are typically expected to also include services offered by funeral homes, otherwise not part of cemeteries), pet cemeteries tend to struggle financially.  Most pet cemeteries in operation today still do not charge a significant amount to cover long term maintenance.  $50 (the state minimum charge required) now covers about a year of general maintenance and property taxes for a single plot; while interest rates on the state bonds the money is expected to be in don't even keep up with rising costs.  Given lack of government assistance for pet cemeteries, in order to survive long term a more sustainable approach, higher prices than human cemeteries, and stricter management of resources are all required.  Again, there are no tax dollars to fall on for pet cemeteries per Ohio law, putting land value where it is.

Shared Driveway Issues

Shared driveway issues have contributed to multiple vehicle collisions, including at least one human fatality, as well as ongoing legal and financial issues spanning multiple properties.  Previous owners of most of the property along the shared driveway still owe debt to a number of others, including the State of Ohio and IRS (given mail we still get here and public court records).  To eventually end shared driveway issues, Butler Township Zoning has regulations which eventually make the landlocked properties worthless at the end of legal use to anyone but a neighbor who has road access.  In general shared driveway agreements may work initially, however they fail more often than they work.  In our experience with all five other lot owners over our time here since 2014, not one of them has contributed their agreed share as recorded with Montgomery County, even as the only legal access to their property.  Also in our time here, two owners of 6340 Frederick Pike, Dayton, Ohio, have carelessly dumped the bulk of their trash on cemetery property for years.  Butler Township has placed unpaid trash collection liens on 6340 Frederick Pike for the most recent two owners of 6340 Frederick Pike, which is then combined with unpaid tax liens.  To help protect the cemetery from continuing to be a community dump site, of which neighbors have stolen and vandalized cemetery property in retaliation for us eventually returning a large pile of trash in compliance with police order to not allow it, we are preparing for additional foreclosures, which puts visual progress on hold to preserve resources.  Please understand cemetery reclamation efforts are personally funded, where we have limited resources and can't throw time and money at everything all at once, while working full time to fund such.  Such an approach would continue to repeat history of foreclosures and bankruptcies.

If you are thinking of buying property within the cemetery, please don't.  Shortly after the last two owners acquired 6340 Frederick Pike in 2020 and 2023, they both stopped paying property taxes and other debts.  Similar situations have happened with all four properties on the shared driveway since at least the 1990s.  If you want to visit the landlocked properties, know the property lines before you visit; vehicles will be towed without further warning.  If you can't make it up the hill because of snow or ice and leave your car at the bottom of the driveway, it will be towed.  We've dealt with neighbors blocking access to our own property because they couldn't make it up the driveway, while they also didn't contribute to driveway maintenance and have overdone their welcome as previously mentioned.  Given it's been a theme here along the shared driveway since at least the 1990s, expect foreclosure of a worthless unusable lot.  This sounds harsh, but please understand we are trying to prevent you from going through such.  While normally property values go up, property dollar values here are all less than they were in the 1990s.  The shared portion of the driveway is due to be replaced, estimated to cost $130,000, which is to be split equally (three ways) per recorded agreement; this is in addition to regular maintenance costs already owed to us.  If unpaid, a lien will be placed and foreclosed.

Per Ohio case law the sellers of these properties must disclose all the information mentioned on this webpage prior to closing.  Per case law, no Ohio Revised Code exemption exempts a seller from having to disclose such issues when known.  You not knowing about past unpaid driveway maintenance, that you can't legally build anything here, that 6340 doesn't even include a whole house, which legally can't be finished, there's no trash service, no mail service, and no gas service, is between you and the seller.  Per zoning, once a landlocked use ends, that is it.  It's not our fault if you choose to buy a property with no road frontage.  We can provide evidence of prior owners knowing about dozens of issues to help you sue them for what you owe us, while we sue you into foreclosure; that's the reality of shared driveways.  Ignorance is not an excuse to trash the cemetery.  Ask Butler Township Police and Zoning how these shared driveway situations typically end around here.  Search the internet for the amount of lawsuits over shared driveways in general.  Operating with these issues being in the middle of the property would not be a good experience for customers, as it's been.  We will therefore not operate until the legal/zoning issues, which also resulted from past poor financial decisions, are resolved.  This means conserving resources to avoid another foreclosure for the cemetery, and prosecute those who used and trashed the cemetery.  We refuse to accumulate debt, which is really easy to do taking on lawsuits while rebuilding a business.  For now our main goal is protecting the cemetery from further damage, which means lots of cameras, signs, calling police, questioning, and prosecuting those who do not respect the cemetery.

Visit

The Narrows Pet Cemetery

6350 Frederick Pike 

Butler Township, Montgomery County, Ohio

Due to ongoing theft, vandalism, poaching, drug activity, and dumping issues, there is no sign by the road marking the cemetery entrance.  Even our address sign was recently stolen.  Putting up signage to advertise a pet cemetery also attracts more crime.

Rules:

1. Currently open for visitation 7 days per week, sunrise to sunset.  Subject to closure weekdays once fenced for groundskeeping animals to help clean up the cemetery.  Closed if snow and/or ice are on the driveway.  Vehicles with low clearance are subject to damage due to driveway issues.

2. The only parking is up the driveway narrow in the grass in front of the Narrows Pet Cemetery sign; if you are not parked here, are not lawfully and respectfully visiting the cemetery during open hours, your vehicle may be towed by Sandy's Towing, 1-800-762-4357.

3. If an area is blocked, the area is closed.  Rope, gates, and fencing may be electrified with 7,000 volts for agriculture purposes per ORC § 3781.1011(C)(6).  Animals are present who spit, bite, kick, ram, and stomp trespassers to death.

4. Do not feed livestock, unless provided by management.  Foreign foods, even including native plants and flowers, may choke or poison animals.

5. Dogs are welcome if kept on leash, quiet, and away from livestock.  As a guest on private property (legally on any property), it is your responsibility to control your animals, where it is our primary responsibility to protect our animals.  Montgomery County Animal Resource Center and Butler Township Police prosecute for failure to control animals, dumping, and animal cruelty, as they even prosecuted a prior owner here, also not allowed to return.  Animal cruelty is a felony per 18 USC § 48.

6. No littering or dumping of any kind, including pets.  Temporary memorial items are welcome, subject to cleanup at any time for safety and cleanliness.  Realizing you may be trying to help, do not simply standup fallen headstones, as they are likely to fall again and break.  Headstones are private property of pet owners who had the freedom to choose materials and construction.  Headstones may be replaced or removed after cocoordination with  management.  Theft/vandalism of cemetery property (headstones, fencing, security system, etc.) is a felony per ORC § 2909.05.

7. This is a privately owned cemetery, maintained entirely with personal funds, not a public park.  No unrelated business, smoking/vaping any drugs, hunting, fishing, swimming, going on ice, sex, or excessive noise.

8. No discharging a firearm upon, over, or within 100 yards of a cemetery per ORC § 2923.162(A)(1).

9. Please be respectful.  Animals, remains, headstones, structures, plots, land, and all adjacent properties, including river frontage, are all privately owned.  Anyone in violation of these rules, and anyone who has anything to do with landlocked properties, including 6340 Frederick Pike, going beyond the driveway right of way or leaving anything in the right of way without permission, is trespassing on private property.

10. By entering and remaining, you agree to video and audio surveillance.

11. Beware of rough terrain, collapsed graves, guard animals, electric fencing, barbed wire, rusty metal, dangerous equipment, cliffs, concealed surveillance, and typical hazards associated with farms and 100 year old cemeteries after multiple foreclosures with no government funds.

We do not charge a fee for the recreational activity of visiting this pet cemetery in which the general public is invited to participate, exempting liability "to keep the premises safe for entry or use" per ORC § 1533.181.

"WARNING: Under Ohio law, there is no liability for an injury to or death of a participant in an agritourism activity conducted at this agritourism location if that injury or death results from the inherent risks of that agritourism activity. Inherent risks of agritourism activities include, but are not limited to, the risk of injury inherent to land, equipment, and animals as well as the potential for you as a participant to act in a negligent manner that may contribute to your injury or death. You are assuming the risk of participating in this agritourism activity." ORC § 901.80

The cemetery and farm are managed by Narrows Farm LLC and Narrows Farm and Pet Cemetery, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.