Need help with home security

[JP]

I've heard him hit his kids and his wife screams at the kids (my dad suspects he's hit his wife at one point but I've never seen any real proof of that and that's a dark alley to go down with no proof). However never underestimate the power of "oh he's the father of one of my son's friends" factor.

I do hope your wrong about what you think is going on there.

You'll probably be right about his wife too as she's probably convinced herself that he loves her enough to finally change even though he didn't for any other women because he just didn't love them as much as he does her.

In case you haven't guessed I live on a council house estate, one that has one of the worst reps in my town. I can't afford to assume that 'the community' won't side with him.

Nothing wrong with council estates, I grew up on them and they're as good as anywhere else but there also some unfriendly estates that I'd avoid completely so I do know what you mean.

The security cameras may well help you but there is also the chance that you could accidentally post his name & address on here and if he was really unlucky then perhaps some people on here, depending on what their job is, would be unsavoury enough to make his life slightly less pleasant.

Not that I'd suggest anybody on here would or should do anything of the kind to somebody like him who may well hit his wife & kids but you never really know what would happen if somebody was to be careless with another persons details online.

[abigsmurf]

Only trouble with that is it also gives people a 50/50 chance of getting my home address too :P

[Spatial]

*bump*

So after the latest adventures round my way (see the car thread) I'm looking at something to help keep an eye on my car. Did you ever find anything suitable in the end smuf?

Independent of the earlier recommendation in this thread, I came across that iCatcher programme which looks like it could do the trick. Only problem is finding a camera that'll work properly in the dark (seeing as these bastards aren't man enough to do this sort of thing in the day where someone might catch them).

[abigsmurf]

you can get 'night vision' cameras that do infra red and light up the area with infra red LEDs. The range they light up is usually fairly short but it's enough for driveways usually. They require a PC on to work though (just get a cheap low powered atom or athlon system)

In the end, someone moaned about our camera ("WONT SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!") to the police. The patrol officer from our area came round to check it out. We explained to the reasons for it and he said it was fine, if a bit antagonistic but as we'd had issues in the past and it was aimed at our drive way, there was nothing wrong with it. The officer was actually a pretty decent and we had a long chat about football. Asked us if we wanted to file a report on the damage that had been done to our car but we said no (we had no evidence).

Think we got ours from Maplin. They're essentially just webcams with LEDs (remember infra red doesn't penetrate glass very well).

[Spatial]

Hmm that's a point. I'm going to have to think about if I can use them indoors. I don't really want to put wired external ones on the house and was hoping that I could locate them inside.

Was planning to pop around and see the immediate neighbours who might possibly be effected by a camera. I don't think any of them would have a problem with it as they're decent.
I think I'll have to locate it upstairs looking down on the car outside though to stop any unnecessary invasion of other peoples privacy.

Think I'll log the incident with the Po-Po too. They won't / can't do anything but that way if someone does complain I can say I've already told them there's been an incident (and previous stuff) and that's why it's been done.

[PrayforMojo]

Yeah, report it with the police. If nothing else, it will make you feel better. Not as satisfying as going all Charlie Bronson and hunting them down like the dogs they are, but at least you've done something.