goingbroke123
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? California.
Over the past 5 weeks I have had well over $1000 in damage to my property, mostly my vehicles. I've filed 5 police reports and I am certain that I am being targeted. I'm also nearly certain that I know who is doing it. When the police came after the 3rd report, they said assuming it is the same person, it is now a felony. I'm assuming this is true, although I really don't know anything about that sort of thing.
But really, there's nothing that the police can do, and as much as it angers me, I understand that, so I have just been sucking it up and paying for the damages. They said the last time or two that "if it keeps happening, we'll have to investigate further, but there's not much we can do right now". I'm really tired of hearing that
After the 4th instance, I decided to invest in a home video surveillance system. Before I finished getting everything setup and ready to go, the 5th instance happened - this was incredibly frustrating, because I more than likely could have caught them had I finished setting up the system (and who knows if they will come back - they may get smart eventually). When the police came out for the 5th instance, we did tell them about the cameras and they seemed to think it was a wonderful idea.
Now that I've finished setting the system up, I began to worry about the legalities of it. I'm sure it is legal to surveillance my own home and property. However, the video system I purchased also records audio. Should I be concerned about the audio recording? Should I opt to NOT record the audio? I was recording yesterday (during the day) in testing the system out and I could nearly make out the conversations of kids across the street (~30 feet away), playing basketball.
The cameras are well concealed because I do NOT want people knowing that they are there. While I would love for the vandalism to stop, I would much rather it continue because I want to catch this person - I don't want to just scare them away! Is this something that I will need to be concerned about? Do I need to put up notice that the cameras are there, since they are incredibly difficult to see?
Do I need to be concerned about the fact that the cameras are pointing at my neighbor's house? I need to capture the entire street in the video and about half of my neighbor's house is easily visible in one camera, and entirely visible in the other.
I really just want to make sure that I cover all bases so that if they do indeed come back and it is the person I think it is (or whoever is doing it!), I can use the recorded video as evidence.
I did do a search of the forums and found a number of other threads similar to mine, but none seemed to deal with the fact that they are experiencing vandalism.
Thanks for any help!
Over the past 5 weeks I have had well over $1000 in damage to my property, mostly my vehicles. I've filed 5 police reports and I am certain that I am being targeted. I'm also nearly certain that I know who is doing it. When the police came after the 3rd report, they said assuming it is the same person, it is now a felony. I'm assuming this is true, although I really don't know anything about that sort of thing.
But really, there's nothing that the police can do, and as much as it angers me, I understand that, so I have just been sucking it up and paying for the damages. They said the last time or two that "if it keeps happening, we'll have to investigate further, but there's not much we can do right now". I'm really tired of hearing that
After the 4th instance, I decided to invest in a home video surveillance system. Before I finished getting everything setup and ready to go, the 5th instance happened - this was incredibly frustrating, because I more than likely could have caught them had I finished setting up the system (and who knows if they will come back - they may get smart eventually). When the police came out for the 5th instance, we did tell them about the cameras and they seemed to think it was a wonderful idea.
Now that I've finished setting the system up, I began to worry about the legalities of it. I'm sure it is legal to surveillance my own home and property. However, the video system I purchased also records audio. Should I be concerned about the audio recording? Should I opt to NOT record the audio? I was recording yesterday (during the day) in testing the system out and I could nearly make out the conversations of kids across the street (~30 feet away), playing basketball.
The cameras are well concealed because I do NOT want people knowing that they are there. While I would love for the vandalism to stop, I would much rather it continue because I want to catch this person - I don't want to just scare them away! Is this something that I will need to be concerned about? Do I need to put up notice that the cameras are there, since they are incredibly difficult to see?
Do I need to be concerned about the fact that the cameras are pointing at my neighbor's house? I need to capture the entire street in the video and about half of my neighbor's house is easily visible in one camera, and entirely visible in the other.
I really just want to make sure that I cover all bases so that if they do indeed come back and it is the person I think it is (or whoever is doing it!), I can use the recorded video as evidence.
I did do a search of the forums and found a number of other threads similar to mine, but none seemed to deal with the fact that they are experiencing vandalism.
Thanks for any help!
