I have dealt with this in my area for 17 years. If the underground utilities are not located in your yard such as a fenced yard, out in the utility easement where they should be then yes they would need to contact you if you are NOT a customer of theirs. Now if you are a customer causing a service related issue and you do have service with them, then I am not sure. I would go in a yard unannounced if they was or I would have to disconnect their service until it was fixed, and I would rather try to keep them on myself. I am amazed how many use the trespassing word. It's trespassing only, and only IF you go in their fenced yard and the utilities are accessible on the outside of the fenced in yards meaning there was no reason for you to be in that area in the first place. The only issue I personally have with that is working in the pitch dark and you can't tell where anything is at due to homeowners yard layouts which is different at every location. Not knocking on 4 homeowners doors, when I have an outage to get on ASAP! I would lose 35 minutes driving around the block back and forth trying to make contact before starting on my project. NOT happening.
Now if you are one of these homeowners that has to have their entire yard fenced even if it was like that when you bought your house then NO! We see this all the time. They don't have to contact you whatsoever. YOU ARE RESTRICTING THEM FROM ACCESS WHICH IS ILLEGAL! I had one guy pull a rifle on me when I first started doing line work, and it was his worst mistake, cause he was in handcuffs from the police when I was done with him. Your fence or the neighbors is blocking the utility right of way which most are 10' wide. Five feet on each side of the pole or pedestals. There should be an open lane from one end of the block all the way to the other without having to walk in your yard! AND... if you landscape that then that is on you also! By the way you would be required to still mow that right of way, not let it grow tall like some do. Be happy if they make that perfect when they leave! YOU and everyone else that does this is going against city code! We have every legal right to that equipment. That is that little franchise fee you see on your utility bills every month. That franchise fee means WE have right of access to that equipment 24 hrs a day even if it is locked up in your yard! We will find a way to it. I guarantee it even if you have viscous dogs! We all want customers to be happy and will try to make it like it was, but technically that is not our job. I don't know who to blame on this but I want to blame the realtors when someone buys a home telling them what they can or cannot do, and the cities for not properly informing the public on this issue alone. We try to make the yard look like it did when we got there to be nice not to be an a** the other way around. I will refrain from saying breaking the law. Not all but the majority of my town alone does this and it is extremely ridiculous especially since the city does not have enough staff to enforce their city code, and no one wants to understand the code either. Code varies by town and are enforced way more in other towns I have worked in.
From fences and dog houses, grass piles, and shrubs and plants, trees and sheds to homeowner junk it is nearly impossible to do our jobs anymore without a fight to get to a pole or our enclosures because they want to hide them, then neighbors are wondering why we are looking over private fences all over to see whose yard our equipment it in like we are a criminal. Then they want to argue. "Why do you need in Myyyyy... yard?" And... customers always want to get on these type of chats to knock on companies about customer service. You get what you get. Leave the utility right of ways OPEN, and you would be amazed how quick an outage would get restored and how much of these type of issues would go away!
Also no utility company says. "You know what guys lets pick on Mr. and Mrs. Jernigans house this week and give them a hard time!" No. There maybe an issue that is affecting an area a block away from your house and the line just happens to be bad behind your house. Companies have to do preventive maintenance people even when you are not seeing an issue at your home. Yes they have a couple ways of finding these issues called leakage detectors, or unhooking the line temporarily and doing a TDR test to get an approximate footage from their location to the fault that need's repaired. That is how they know exactly what area to dig. Then yes they would have to dig at times mammoth holes depending on depth of the plant and the length of the damage to make repairs and this could take days especially if they have to deal with your fences, your plants, trees, your toys your kids left all over the yard and on and on and on. Worst case they are laying a temp line on your ground through all of this. WE are not miracle workers so quit treating us as such! We can't wiggle our nose and make everything go good again. Utility easements are just that. FOR UTILITIES ONLY! Not for what you feel needs to help hide our eyesores, (our plant enclosures) to you. Don't complain about any company out there if you are one of these people, because you are just as guilty as the rest when it takes hours to fix an issue that originally should have taken 30 minutes folks! You want great customer service as always stated on TV and radio and on these chat boards, then give us a non restrictive way of getting to our plant so we can keep it in great working condition. It's only common sense.
If I ruffled anyone feathers, sorry, but it's the truth. You can't have prison chained up yards and expect us to know which yard our equipment is located in unless we have been there before. Right? We all have plant mapping, but don't have mapping to tell us exactly which yard we have to go through to get to our equipment, because one yard I have always been able to get to something maybe fenced next month to my surprise the next time I visit that location. Happens. By the way especially with 911 service. We may have to get to that equipment behind your yard whether it's on the pole or on the ground at all times of the day whether it's lightening, or it -30 degree windchill's with 4 foot snow drifts. WE don't have a choice. We will be out in it regardless whether you want us there or not. I have been in customers backyards unannounced at 2AM to fix outages. Don't be surprised if it happens to you someday! We don't want anyone mad, but that's the job. You got to have nerves of steel to do what we do for a living and most of us take great pride doing what we do for good money along with it. Sorry for the rant, but it was time someone from our industry tell what the real world is like for us! It ain't always fun as most would think.