For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
#1662375
Make a bit of the fence that is relatively easy to climb over, hammer a huge amount of nails into some boarding, then “plant” the nail carpet below that bit of fencing. When they jump over and land on the nails, they won’t do it again. Adopt a “home alone” defence strategy !!
By Boxkite
#1662380
rikur_ wrote:... When they came to our house, one of them got about a stride up the front path, when his mate tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed at one of the CCTV cameras, and both then left. Fairly obvious they we're legitimate.

Maybe they were selling CCTVs, and saw that you already had one..... :lol:
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By OCB
#1662414
I have to be careful with any “home alone” stuff, I have 3 young kids, their friends who visit and a French Bulldog that swaps from using its left and right neuron on alternate days.

We’ve had the bigot and “privacy law” thing on our village Facebook as well. The latter could easily end the poster in trouble with the law here. Folk are careful not to post anything that is 100% identifiable, although have sent such photos directly to plod.

One of the mums at school is a local counsellor (and just graduated in Law), and quite active in her liaison with the cops. We know we are being targeted by determined and professional “not local” gangs.

The cops have, to their credit, most definitely stepped up marked patrols, actively question folk sitting in cars etc, although I’ve never once seen foot patrol outside office hours. We have “agent quartier”, local bobby basically, just one lad though.
#1662425
We have a Ring Pro doorbell and two wired Ring (spot light and flood light) cameras that cover the garden and driveway.

The best thing about them is the two way communication. We've only once had someone dodgy turn up. He rang the bell. After ascertaining his reason for doing so was not very valid, I asked him to look into the doorbell so I could get a good video of his face (even though I already had him covered). He turned and ran. The ability to tell someone they are being videoed is the strongest deterrent of all.

If buying the Ring equipment, the wired solutions work much better than the battery ones. They permanently record in a loop, until they detect movement then the recording carries on. This means there is no warm up and wifi sign on to do before letting you know. They record onto the cloud and record a month of events.
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By OCB
#1662461
Not a huge fan of recording onto the cloud, especially at the back of the house where kids play etc, but pretty much decided on the wired Ring video doorbells for the easy 2 way comms, good to read someone on here who uses them. I don’t think I found an answer to this - it only sends video to the cloud, or also audio?It was a trick I picked up from an ex colleague in the security game; thieves are smart enough to hide their faces - they assume there will be cctv, but almost never (good quality) audio recording...

Interesting point on the advantages of wired. I do find it rather “dumb” for a “smart” video doorbell that it cost 30 quid or something extra to add a wireless “ding-dong”, and it takes up a wall socket. I know someone who could do the same using Bluetooth for about 10 quid, battery on the ringer would last months...

I’ll be wiring the side door video doorbell to our existing ancient transformer and ringer, if it doesn’t die in the process... :oops:
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By OCB
#1662553
Bill Haddow wrote:
bar shaker wrote:The cloud recording works very well. The missus was in today but here's it in use.

It records the audio too.

https://ring.com/share/6642249592798222201


The black cat is the most effective part of your security - who will want that crossing in front of them !

Bill H


LOL - yeah, the missus and I both spotted kitty video-bombing :batman:

2x Ring (version 1) ordered.

Not overly impressed by the audio recording, but then again - I mentioned on a post here several years ago - I have a couple of very good microphones placed back and front of my place, linked up to iSpy and record above a certain decibel threshold. Things have never failed me, I can literally fart in the basement and the mic on the ground floor will pick it up even above the noise of washing machine and dryer a few feet away. :mrgreen:

Before anyone thinks I'm a total freak - it goes back to a time where someone with a court order against them managed to track us down across 2 countries and even though our details on the Belgian national register here were restricted. Not the first time I had to "bounce" someone, but it wasn't pleasant for my 2 yr old son to witness nor for my wife to hear (she thankfully wasn't near the door). If I'd had audio recording of the altercation, said person would have spent time behind bars - best the cops could do was give a warning and the courts send a reminder about non contact. It wasn't anything life threatening etc - just a nuisance, but it prompted me to invest time and energy into the audio surveillance subject.
By rjc101
#1662740
Smoke Cloaks and be quite effective, although may trip your FA too if they are purely optical and don't also need some heat.

This is just one company, they also add a unique tracer to the smoke so if anyone is caught they can be easily tested.
https://www.smokecloak.co.uk
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By OCB
#1662746
^^^^
Steve, yeah - I ended up with a sudden case of “can’tbe4rsedgoingbacktotheoffice-itis”. Apparently it’s quite common this time of year.... :oops:

Still managed to do more work yesterday than when the 80% of dead-weight return next week :oops:
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By OCB
#1662750
rjc101 wrote:Smoke Cloaks and be quite effective, although may trip your FA too if they are purely optical and don't also need some heat.

This is just one company, they also add a unique tracer to the smoke so if anyone is caught they can be easily tested.
https://www.smokecloak.co.uk


Hadn’t thought about the fire alarm - but then again our FA and security system feed back to the same central control centre, and we don’t have automatic fire suppression,

Got idiot response from the smoke bandit parent company here in Belgium - they wanted to send a rep to “fully assess our requirements” rather than just send me the technical sheets and pricing. What is this, the 1980s??!!

When I made it astoundingly clear they had less than zero chance of sending a shiny suit round, I got pinged over to the UK lot who quoted about 1k per unit without fitting, and 350 quid plus your alarm company on site if fitting was needed.

If it was 300 or 400 then maybe, but hitting 4 figures is a stretch too far.

One point the UK rep made was you absolutely need to have the system go off the instant you have unauthorised entry - not wait 30-60 seconds before disarm via internal keypad. That is a very good point.
#1662787
@OCB , if ever there was an indication it was time for a house move, this is it. :thumleft:

I don't think your home town was ever as bad as the impression you are giving of your present area? :wink:

How this thread makes me appreciate not living in such a neighbourhood.
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By OCB
#1662801
^^^^
Misc, indeed - there was a certain honesty about the brutal and sometimes fatal reality of living in Lanarkshire.

Folks never used to lock their doors, because quite honestly there was absolutely nothing of value worth stealing, and if you did get caught in someone’s house - you’d quickly be a greasy red stain on the anaglypta.

When I moved to Parkhead (could sound posh, unless you know Glasgow), had ak-47 drive-by just up the road the first day we moved in, had 17 yr old drug dealers driving fancy cabrio and trying to beat the mince out of the competition with baseball bats, feral 3-5 yr olds ripping 40kg security doors off their hinges like something from Gremlins, etc...

So, the fact I now live in the normal bit of a very posh area a bit south of Brussels, being targeted by pro thieves isn’t that bad....or much of a surprise.

The nice part is the fact we live on the border of Brussels, but the locals absolutely still have a village mentality is fantastic.

Downside of village mentality is the one time I stagger onto the train, ever mum at school is whispering behind my back the next day :oops: