What to do about trespassers?

[GreyTheOld]

Greetings, I've got a 5 cam BlueIris install up and running fantastically. My issue is that I live in a rural town with a lot of drugs and nonsense and I am CONSTANTLY getting people coming on my porch rooting through my stuff. I've only had one package taken and I dealt with that, but for example I was on vacation this week and had two different people come looking for things to steal. One at 1:15am and one brazenly in the middle of the day. I have great, clear video of both. These are just the most recent two in a long list. I actually have video of a guy dropping a pry bar beside my house after he thought he'd been seen.

The issue is that the police REALLY don't care, I had video of someone stealing out of my garage too, and was able to give the police the dudes name and the video, and nothing was ever done. Because these folks are not necessarily stealing, just digging around, there's no "crime" and so they really couldn't care less. The thing is that random losers on my porch at 1:15am with my children inside gets me riled up. The most recent dude came on with the porch light on.

I plan on installing a small sign that says "Look Up" with an arrow so they look directly into the camera and let them know they're being recorded, I considered doing a speaker install and letting it say "you are being recorded" or something but I occasionally get things like rain that give me false positives and I don't want it talking all day and night. My porch is at the top of like 6 large concrete stairs, I'm pretty tempted to use an arduino to snug a trip wire that pops up after they come on the porch so that they fall down the stairs face first, but then that potentially affects ok people in the daytime---neighbors, postal worker, etc.

 

[fenderman]

If you have the person's name you don't need the police... You can go to the local courthouse and swear out your own complaint...
As far as the speaker, you can set it so that are only talks after midnight and it doesn't have to be loud... Even a low-volume message it says get off my property will send them running..

 

[GreyTheOld]

Thanks. I don't have the most recent folks names, just the one guy, but I didn't know about swearing my own complaint. I will do that in the future, thanks.

I was thinking that with the speaker, overnight only. Having never done that sort of setup inside BI, is it difficult? I don't think my cams have a speaker-out, I'll look at that now. I've got the
IPC-HDW4431C-A-V2 cam on the front porch.

 

[fenderman]

Thanks. I don't have the most recent folks names, just the one guy, but I didn't know about swearing my own complaint. I will do that in the future, thanks.

I was thinking that with the speaker, overnight only. Having never done that sort of setup inside BI, is it difficult? I don't think my cams have a speaker-out, I'll look at that now. I've got the
IPC-HDW4431C-A-V2 cam on the front porch.

you will need a camera with a speaker out and an amplifier to power the sepeaker...or be able to run a cable from your computer audio out...

 

[GreyTheOld]

ok that's what I was just looking at. Running cable wouldn't be hard, probably easier than messing with buying and setting up another camera. Thanks for the input.

 

[TonyR]

I KNEW I'd seen that godawful avatar before....where you been the last 8 or 9 months?

P.S. - I've always like the distinctive sound of a shell being racked into a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun.

 

[GCoco]

Are they walking to your location or park a vehicle nearby? If vehicle consider adding a camera to capture license plates. You may need a high power zoom if any distance is involved.

The crimes being committed include trespassing. My state use to require a posted sign, now if you are on someone else’s property for no legitimate reason you can be arrested for trespassing.

You may also consider installing driveway alarm on your porch that would wake you at night to their presence. The you can greet him with an AR or shotgun. Even if he runs, he won’t come back. In Louisiana we can do that, not sure where you are. If he is at a window or door and you think that he is attempting to get in you can kill them if you are in the house, called the Castle Doctrine.

 

[GreyTheOld]

Thanks all! TonyR I've been tweaking the hell out of my setup, lol. I'm a work-from-home IT Engineer for a financial institution, so I can't ever leave well enough alone, lol. I have my whole network UPS'd and backed up and then had a power surge that came across my damned cable line---the only NON-surge protected bit, that ate my network and cams and I had to start over. Wheeee.

Answers to questions:

• the shotgun sound would be fun but idk that it would be convincing. I just want them to know they're being watched. I actually considered dropping in a xenon bulb and flashing them with it once they step on the porch, lol.
• I'm on a neighborhood street, I don't really want to put up no-trespassing signs, but I see the validity there. I was thinking "video surveillance" signs would work too, but seriously my cams are almost all visible on purpose...and nobody notices. That's kinda why I liked the "Look Up" sign, because then not only do I get their face 100%, they also know that I have it.
• I considered the alarm too, but I have spent HOURS and HOURS tweaking sensitivities and such, and rainstorms and nights with a lot of dust (here in WV we have a lot of dust) still set off a fair number of false alerts. I don't want to wake my neighbors for rain.
• We HAVE castle doctrine here, in theory, but they aren't (so far) attempting to gain entry to the home. I've also got dogs...but I seem to keep dogs alive forever, neither my deaf 13 year old or my deaf 18 year old are much help anymore, although I figure the 13 year old would put a hurting on someone coming inside.

 

[GCoco]

Look at Dakota Alert driveway alarms, they aren’t cheap but they work well. To avoid cats and dogs setting it off just position it 3 or 4 feet high.

https://www.amazon.com/Dakota-Alert-MURS-HT-Kit/dp/B001DO407Q/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1533826813&sr=8-20&keywords=Dakota+alert

 

[GreyTheOld]

Thanks. You meant a separate alarm, which I hadn't considered or realized. Much obliged for this. This plus a tripwire would be fun, lol.

Edit: Just realized that I didn't answer your other question. My porch sits ~30' off the street and ~20' off the sidewalk, ish. Daytime cam records all motion on the sidewalk or through the parking spaces plus extra alert if they come up the steps/on the porch. Nighttime records everything with special alert for motion on the steps/porch. Most recent guy appears to have crossed the street ~3 houses up, walked between cars, down the sidewalk, and onto my porch like he effing lives here. I had the porch light on on purpose because of the other guy who appeared to be scoping in the middle of the day the day before. They weren't the same guy. Again, I wasn't home. I have solid video of any car parking anywhere near me on both sides of my house with roads.

 

[GreyTheOld]

Follow up, does anyone have a favorite cam with two-way audio that might have quality on par with the dahua's I've got?

 

[looney2ns]

Locked gate at the bottom of the stairs comes to mind.
Most people don't notice signs, nor cameras. Waste of time in my opinion putting up signs.

Do have anything on your porch for them to look through? If so, then clean the porch off of anything of interest.

 

[bp2008]

Follow up, does anyone have a favorite cam with two-way audio that might have quality on par with the dahua's I've got?

http://a.co/cFPaZXI

That is a rebranded Hikvision camera that is loaded with features including two-way audio, micro SD slot, and passive infrared motion detector. It won't be great for image or audio quality compared to a Dahua Starlight, but it should get the job done and be reliable as long as you don't rely on its wifi. I have an older 3MP version and was able to set it up to play a siren sound when it detected motion. I don't know if you can replace that sound with a different one, but it should be enough to startle anyone who walks up if that is your goal.

 

[fenderman]

I don't know if you can replace that sound with a different one, but it should be enough to startle anyone who walks up if that is your goal.

hikvision wont let you change the sound in the firmware, but, in my testing with BI the hikvision cubes work well with any alert audio you push to the camera. My favorite Dropbox - HA.wav

 

[Francisco73]

Thanks. You meant a separate alarm, which I hadn't considered or realized. Much obliged for this. This plus a tripwire would be fun, lol.

Edit: Just realized that I didn't answer your other question. My porch sits ~30' off the street and ~20' off the sidewalk, ish. Daytime cam records all motion on the sidewalk or through the parking spaces plus extra alert if they come up the steps/on the porch. Nighttime records everything with special alert for motion on the steps/porch. Most recent guy appears to have crossed the street ~3 houses up, walked between cars, down the sidewalk, and onto my porch like he effing lives here. I had the porch light on on purpose because of the other guy who appeared to be scoping in the middle of the day the day before. They weren't the same guy. Again, I wasn't home. I have solid video of any car parking anywhere near me on both sides of my house with roads.

Any pictures of the porch and the steps?

 

[Francisco73]

Locked gate at the bottom of the stairs comes to mind.
Most people don't notice signs, nor cameras. Waste of time in my opinion putting up signs.

Do have anything on your porch for them to look through? If so, then clean the porch off of anything of interest.

I have often guys urinating on the road in front of one camera. The closest camera to the big road. I can only assume that they have an emergency and do not know of the camera.

 

[GreyTheOld]

Sorry all I stopped getting notifications. In order:

I DO have a lot of stuff on the porch, nothing really of value save my boots, because we're in the middle of some significant renovations and I need space to work. Also, it's my gotdamt porch and if I wanna put stuff on there I should be able to, lol. Here's a picture from right this second, aspect is a little wonky because that's a screencap over RDP, rest assured it's recording in 1080/30.

 

[bababouy]

You might be better off letting these guys steal some of your porch stuff so that you can have room to enjoy it.

 

[GreyTheOld]

Lol, as I said above, renovations. Hoping to box it in before the cold weather gets here anyway, but thanks for the comment.

 

[Francisco73]

Sorry all I stopped getting notifications. In order:

I DO have a lot of stuff on the porch, nothing really of value save my boots, because we're in the middle of some significant renovations and I need space to work. Also, it's my gotdamt porch and if I wanna put stuff on there I should be able to, lol. Here's a picture from right this second, aspect is a little wonky because that's a screencap over RDP, rest assured it's recording in 1080/30.

Thanks for the picture. The porch and your stuff are really near the road and clearly visible attracting unwanted attention. Looney suggested a gate and I think it is a good idea.