Arlo outdoor cam deters vandals

[whatevah]

My mom lives in a condo in a nice area a few miles from me... their condo association is pretty good and does a great job of maintaining the property. They have one parking spot reserved for each condo and 20 or so extra spots for visitors. But, they've had a problem where several condos have multiple cars and park them all in the reserved spots. My mom has been reporting them to the HOA after trying polite notes with no change. The HOA issued their own warnings after that and began issuing fines after a month or so. That deeply irritated at least one couple who started throwing trash on my moms car and even keyed it. This started 2 months ago. This week, she got permission from the HOA to mount a camera to her bedroom window that overlooks the parking lot. She bought an Arlo camera and used command strips to mount it yesterday morning. Her immediate neighbors are loving the idea. The following are posts from her Facebook last night and this morning-

"Someone threw soda on my car Monday night/Tuesday morning, in my condo parking lot. I just mounted an Arlo camera on my master bedroom window and people are noticing already. Hopefully it will be a deterrent from this happening again. It is the third time something has happened to my car since August."

"UPDATE: Caught on recorded video! at 0151 this morning, the suspected individual(s) were coming home, had parked in front of my car. Before they did anything I could see they stopped and turned their car, angled to shine their headlights at my condo windows.... and then they saw the camera. They continued past and yelled Camera! (followed by the f-bomb)...."



I wish she was able to use a real camera that would have been able to get better footage. Maybe this will lead to the HOA installing real cameras!

 

[Firefighter]

If they'll allow the arlo camera, I don't see why a good camera couldn't replace it.
Get a small 4ch poe NVR and a good camera and see if they notice. Andy from Empire tech has a store on ali and amazon.
Depends how far your wanting to take this. As far as attachment, If it's brick exterior drill and put in some anchors and attach the camera with screws.
When you're done just fill the 2 or 3 small holes with mortor filler that comes in a tube for a couple bucks and no one will ever know.
You'll have to run the cat5e wire just under the window, Pinched it should close and not effect the wire enough to matter.
Its hard to really do a nice clean install if you can barely make any markings/holes etc... If it's become that big of a problem I'd probably spend the money. Especially if multiple car deductibles become a thing.
Just have the equipment come inside under the window or in a corner or something like a little night stand and it should look pretty good.

Here's the thing, the arlo may work as a deterrent but eventually they're going to test it... see if they get in trouble. When they don't, and you can't prove its them due to low quality they'll continue with their activities.
Best of luck

 

[whatevah]

Sadly, the condo association owns the building exteriors, so that's not an option. The exterior walls have vinyl siding, but my stud finder acts like there is concrete or brick behind the drywall, so I'm not sure what's behind the vinyl. I think she just has the camera stuck to the glass. She thinks that the couple doing the vandalism is trying to sell their condo, so hopefully this all blows over soon and the camera go on a back window so she can watch the deer or something.

 

[FoxCR]

Awesome, having eyes outside are great.
Sorry to hear the are vandalizing her car.

 

[58chev]

Does her WiFi extend to where her car is parked?

If you get a signal there, I would drop a camera in the car.

 

[whatevah]

Does her WiFi extend to where her car is parked?

If you get a signal there, I would drop a camera in the car.

Good thought! The wifi is too weak there, but I'm sure I could fix that. I'll talk to her about it. Maybe not that, but a dashcam with parking mode and wifi.

 

[BigFoot]

Good thought! The wifi is too weak there, but I'm sure I could fix that. I'll talk to her about it. Maybe not that, but a dashcam with parking mode and wifi.

Depending on what type of router is being used it may be possible to add a wifi extender

Whilst my CCTV installation is going to be Cat 6 hardwired, I'm adding a wifi extender (second wifi router configured as an extender) in order that I can 'play' with various wifi options - primarily for widlife cams in the garden