Stalker Help

[Jack5513]

Hello, I stumbled upon this group in looking for help for my family. I have a convicted stalker that keeps harassing my family over the past 2 year period. Although there is a current restraining order in place the police cannot catch the guy and or his associates in the act. We continuously have cars parked outside with flashers on at all hours of the night then drive away. We’ve had property damage. I have had cable cut to my license plate cameras. Neighbors have been vandalized and neighbors have also seen a hooded individual watching my home. I engaged a security company about a year ago and they installed a series of about 10 Arlo cameras (which I find unreliable and almost worthless). They also installed two low level license plate readers (glorified game cameras) which I find also worthless.

My home sits about 20-30 yards off the street so the distance for the wireless cameras plays a factor and not to mention the Arlo cameras get stuck in playback.

Unfortunately I need an economical solution as my family has already spent thousands of dollars on a useless wireless and ineffective system.

I have four small children at this point that cannot even enjoy going outside because of this situation.

My thoughts are I need a low voltage system of 2-3 cameras that has license plate ability but I’m not sure of the distance to the street makers that a challenge.

Any help would be very much appreciate by myself and my family.

 

[mat200]

... I engaged a security company about a year ago and they installed a series of about 10 Arlo cameras (which I find unreliable and almost worthless). They also installed two low level license plate readers (glorified game cameras) which I find also worthless.

My home sits about 20-30 yards off the street so the distance for the wireless cameras plays a factor and not to mention the Arlo cameras get stuck in playback.
..

Welcome @Jack5513

"a security company .. installed a series of about 10 Arlo cameras.. two low level license plate readers (glorified game cameras).."

Ouch, that's a lot of money to spend on less than effective solutions.

Do check out the cliff notes, and plan to spend some time doing some DIY learning.

Note an economical solution does not always result in an effective solution, thus I suggest first looking at what options would be effective and then from that point scale back to what you can afford.

 

[Jack5513]

Welcome @Jack5513

"a security company .. installed a series of about 10 Arlo cameras.. two low level license plate readers (glorified game cameras).."

Ouch, that's a lot of money to spend on less than effective solutions.

Do check out the cliff notes, and plant to spend some time doing some DIY learning.

Note an economical solution does not always result in an effective solution, thus I suggest first looking at what options would be effective and then from that point scale back to what you can afford.

Welcome @Jack5513

"a security company .. installed a series of about 10 Arlo cameras.. two low level license plate readers (glorified game cameras).."

Ouch, that's a lot of money to spend on less than effective solutions.

Do check out the cliff notes, and plant to spend some time doing some DIY learning.

Note an economical solution does not always result in an effective solution, thus I suggest first looking at what options would be effective and then from that point scale back to what you can afford.

Thank you

 

[bigredfish]

No offense jack but
Location:Philadelphia
....Is moving an option?


If not, (and assuming kinetic solutions are off the table), consider a Daha NVR and some 2MP Starlight cameras. You would be looking at $300 with 4TB HD for the NVR, and about $150 per camera plus running cable.

If a LPR camera is truly valuable to you, you should be able to at least step off the rough distance to where you can best capture plates from one corner of your home.

 

[TonyR]

Neighbors have been vandalized and neighbors have also seen a hooded individual watching my home.

In addition to what @mat200 & @bigredfish said.......would those same neighbors participate in the solution(s)? It sounds like they would have some interest in wanting to do just that. Not only would it ease your financial burden but more important, it could heighten LEO involvement if there were more neighbors reporting.

Perhaps a couple of quality, properly-placed cams across the street and adjacent to you at those "vandalized" neighbors' houses could help provide valuable evidence and help put that turd in jail.

 

[Jack5513]

In my opinion moving would be letting this guy win also what’s to say he doesn’t find my address again. The frustrating thing is the police are on it but just need a plate to catch him and my current setup stinks. I’d like to find a company that could install what I’m looking for.

No offense jack but
Location:Philadelphia
....Is moving an option?


If not, (and assuming kinetic solutions are off the table), consider a Daha NVR and some 2MP Starlight cameras. You would be looking at $300 with 4TB HD for the NVR, and about $150 per camera plus running cable.

If a LPR camera is truly valuable to you, you should be able to at least step off the rough distance to where you can best capture plates from one corner of your home.

No offense jack but
Location:Philadelphia
....Is moving an option?


If not, (and assuming kinetic solutions are off the table), consider a Daha NVR and some 2MP Starlight cameras. You would be looking at $300 with 4TB HD for the NVR, and about $150 per camera plus running cable.

If a LPR camera is truly valuable to you, you should be able to at least step off the rough distance to where you can best capture plates from one corner of your home.

 

[Jack5513]

In addition to what @mat200 & @bigredfish said.......would those same neighbors participate in the solution(s)? It sounds like they would have some interest in wanting to do just that. Not only would it ease your financial burden but more important, it could heighten LEO involvement if there were more neighbors reporting.

Perhaps a couple of quality, properly-placed cams across the street and adjacent to you at those "vandalized" neighbors' houses could help provide valuable evidence and help put that turd in jail.

Tony thanks, I thought about that as well. They know what is going on but I also don't want to be a burden to them if that makes sense. I did approach my one cool neighbor about installing extra cameras I have.

 

[bigredfish]

So can you measure the distance from a corner of your house to where you might capture a tag?

Give us something to work with

You want the least amount of angle from camera to plate.

 

[Jack5513]

So can you measure the distance from a corner of your house to where you might capture a tag?

Give us something to work with

You want the least amount of angle from camera to plate.

Big Red Fish

front of my home from corner to my driveway is about 40 yards. The guys tends to sit right in front of the driveway before the useless trail cams that are being used as license plate readers. He also puts his blinkers on so as to make his plate unidentifiable. I have tall trees with at the front. One is at about midpoint right now has an arlo that catches all the activity (when its working) but nothing else. I would think I would want one at the corner tree/midpoint facing the driveway and one at the driveway facing the opposite direction. I can put out some additional monies but I really want it to be what me and my family need and not another useless solution.

 

[mat200]

Big Red Fish

front of my home from corner to my driveway is about 40 yards. The guys tends to sit right in front of the driveway before the useless trail cams that are being used as license plate readers. He also puts his blinkers on so as to make his plate unidentifiable. I have tall trees with at the front. One is at about midpoint right now has an arlo that catches all the activity (when its working) but nothing else. I would think I would want one at the corner tree/midpoint facing the driveway and one at the driveway facing the opposite direction. I can put out some additional monies but I really want it to be what me and my family need and not another useless solution.

FYI -

40 yards = 120 feet. You'll need a good varifocal lens / stronger magnification to capture details out to that distance.

 

[Jack5513]

FYI -

40 yards = 120 feet. You'll need a good varifocal lens / stronger magnification to capture details out to that distance.

Thanks Big Rd-Is that more of a commercial application?

 

[bigredfish]

I use 2 of the 5231-z12s at that exact distance for LPR

The angle will be key, the more straight on the better, anything past about 30 degrees for me was problematic at that distance.

You’ll may need extra IR help also.

Do you have an aerial photo of the property and can you get us a snapshot from a proposed camera location to the plate capture point we can see?

The other overview cameras will be much easier to decide

 

[tangent]

The first thing I would do is install an alarm system with the usual door, motion, and glassbreak sensors. There are some relatively inexpensive monitoring options, but finding someone to install it for you that won't require you go with their monitoring service would be difficult. Make sure the alarm system has an outdoor strobe and siren or siren mounted by an attic vent.

On the alarm front, I would also do something a bit unusual that some alarm installers may not be willing to do: install some outdoor motion sensors and put a sensor on your gate. These obviously couldn't be monitored for a police response, but would be used to provide a very reliable indication someone was outside your house or particularly close to certain areas of your house. A home automation system could be used instead of an alarm system. The Interlogix RCR-REX is a fun sensor for this application as it's PIR & Microwave for higher accuracy and has a built in buzzer. It's intended for exit doors in access control systems to alert to propped open doors, but you can also use it to scare people off outside / draw attention. You wouldn't want that enabled all the time, so you'd have to do something to turn that on/off and you may not want to use it at all as it could help them figure out at when the detector triggers and would draw attention to the detector.

Are any of your cars parked outside at night? Garage them if possible. Otherwise consider adding an aftermarket car alarm and adding a microwave motion sensor to it (search ebay or amazon for DEI 508D, requires a compatible alarm system). You've probably encountered this type of alarm before on some jackass's convertible when the alarm went off as you tried to get in or out of your car nearby. You can be that jackass . The basic idea is your car starts squawking before they've broken anything. This could be rigged up minimally so it can't even control the door locks and you could only arm it at home.

As for camera placement advice a satellite view with labels turned off (to hide street names) or some pictures of the house would be helpful. I realize you may be reluctant to post this, but it could always be deleted after you've gotten your advice and attachments to the forum are only visible to members. I'm quite sure you'll need more than 2-3 cameras to adequately cover things, but you can expand the system over time.

The cheapest option is to learn how to install some of this stuff yourself, but I imagine your kids could make that challenging. Trying to sell some of the arlo cameras is worth considering.

There may be some other security measures worth considering like reinforcing door jambs, modifying or installing different locks, window laminates, planting some thorny plants (like a nice Pyracantha with 2-3" thorns), rock that's nice and noisy to walk on, securing sheds and ladders...

There are also things you should consider doing to make it harder to find some information about you online and to protect yourself from identity theft. Freeze your credit, sign up for USPS informed delivery, UPS My Choice, Fed Ex Delivery Manager, opt out to have your info removed from privacy invading websites, make your voter registration and property ownership info private, secure your social media, don't post about trips or photos of keys...

 

[bigredfish]

Ditto all that @tangent said, he has much more knowledge/experience with these things.

On the cheap, right now route, a simple $100 Guardline sensor/alarm has worked well for me for two years for notifying me of someone crossing into my driveway with very few false alarms.

 

[looney2ns]

Definitely you could sell the Arlo's on Ebay and recoup some of that.

It takes time and planning to do it right.
The so called "security firm" that installed your Arlo crap and game cams, should have their ass kicked around the block.

Everytime someone parks in the street with their flashers on, if they stay more than a short time, call the police for a suspicious vehicle report.