Why remove them? The next owner may want to keep them. Or you might one day need them for another cable company.

They just get abandoned. My house built in 1974 has at least three sets of cable TV wires (buried) running in from the street that pop up out of the ground by the house. None are active (we have fiber optic TV service now).

What makes you think that they ever need to be removed?

"Anyone with a pair of wire cutters and a ladder can remove them"

One more thing is needed - enough knowledge to know what's a wire for a cable signal and what's an electrical or phone wire.

I'd leave it unless it's unsightly.

Speaking of "unsightly" - my house had power coming to the left side; two phone lines coming to the middle - and then running around the corner to the right side; and coax (Comcast) coming to the right side. I got fed up with the mess and moved the phone lines and coax to the left side below the power wires.

When I switched to FiOS they removed the phone wiring. And I left the cable connection dead ended at the ground block outside the house. Later when the fiber snapped Verizon cut the coax - it sort of annoyed me at first but I finally cut it and coiled it up hanging from the pole. At some point somebody came out and removed it. Now I like the clean look of a that single strand of fiber :-) .

I had some abandoned, aerial CATV cable entering my house from the pole. It was in my way on a painting project. I called and was told it would be removed within a week. In the second week it was still there so I cut it off, coiled it up and hung it on the pole. Within a week or two it was gone. I suspect the POCO got on the cable co to clean it up.

Bumping this ancient thread, as we're dealing with this issue now. We are painting our house, and have old cable and cable grounding wires that we'd like to remove. The house hasn't had cable service in the 15 years we've lived here, and even if some future owner wanted it, I can't imagine they'd still be using these old lines.

The lines are clearly marked with "Stop! Do not remove! Call cable company!" but no indication of which cable company. (They were likely installed in the mid-90s, and I don't even think the current cable companies in our area are the same as those that existed then!)

Our painters say that in their experience, no one is likely to come do anything about it even if we figure out who to call, and if we just cut the wires and wrap them around the pole, the rogue wires will get cleaned up the next time someone comes through to service the pole. (There are currently companies hanging fiber on the poles, though not companies that have anything to do with cable television.)

I am 100% sure these are cable lines. Is there any safety reason not to just pull them out ourselves, given that we do not care at all about preserving the lines for future use?

Anything from the Cable Co. Dmarc to your house (aka the exterior cable box) is yours to decide what to do with. I only need one (active) coaxial cable coming into my house. From there everything is wireless and/or ethernet to the cable modem on the interior side. Cleaning up years and years of different tech on the side of the house is great bc its unsightly and not needed. (Pots, dsl, old type Coax, antenna connections, etc..) Electrical wiring should be toned out to know if its hot so you don't cut into it by mistake. Also Elec wires are typically ran above everything else - for obvious reasons. Good luck!

So I'm clear here. When I say demarc I mean the termination box attached to your house. Don't disconnect anything from the poles on the street or there headend demarc near your front sidewalk. That is the Cable Co' property

Thanks--we went ahead and pulled it off the house, except for a wire pinned to the rafter that we couldn't reach. Painters will get that one. There's no termination box--just a coaxial cable line that runs off the electrical pole and is nailed to the house, and a green grounding line, also nailed to the house. Planning to just wrap it around the pole once they get the last end off the roof rafter.