Installing CCTV and other ways of protecting our house?

McAzrael

Schools usually have laminated glass. It is not unbreakable, but is a little more resilient and if it does get smashed you do not get shards of glass everywhere.

Plimsole

Hello marge_simpson

I’m sorry to hear you are having problems.

I am afraid this is going to be a long post but well worth it…

I would go for the two pronged defence, first contact your local District Council and ask to speak with the Community Safety Officer highlight to him/her the problems you are having with the local youths telling him/her the Alarm Harassment and Distress you are feeling with these constant attacks and how every time a brick/rock comes through your window how you Fear for yours and your Children’s Safety also tell him/her how you feel Victimised and Dehumanised by these individuals (using this language I’m afraid is needed to push home the point, remember to be submissive and not aggressive in your demeanour, you are a victim not a complaining customer).

If you are lucky your local District Council may have a mobile CCTV unit they can attach to a lamp post near your house (Big money saving devise for you as you then don’t have to buy CCTV) this may disperse the local youths, if not and they play up to it then it will gather valuable evidence for Prosecutions, a sad fact I’m afraid but does sometimes happen.

For the second prong of your defence contact your local Police and speak with Police Community Support Officers it is best to ask for the PCSOs for your area as they are the community facing part of the Police service the “Grass Roots”, expresses your fears to them with the highlighted keywords above and inform them that you have spoken with your local Community Safety Officer, if you’re lucky they may even come around and have a cup of tea with you, while you are talking casually mention about their CCTV Vans and ask if it is possible for one to be parked in the area. They may have to seek the authority from a Sergeant or Inspector for this but (another money saving tactic) this also may disperse the local youths, if not, and they play up to it then again it will gather valuable evidence for Prosecutions.

Also if any of your neighbours are having problems get them to phone the above people, if you have a Residents Association then attend a meeting and air your problems you will be surprised how many people are having problems and the more people whom stick together reporting these incidents the more action will be taken, unfortunately this is the way of the country.

Your ideal situation if all else fails and you continue to have problems after contacting the above people is that incidents in your area (That is reported Crime and or Anti Social Behaviour) goes UP (meaning yourself and your neighbours should be phoning in to your local Police to report all incidents that happen) then the statistics will be noted and it will be pushed up to a Police Inspector who will appoint more manpower to your area.

Now people are reading this and thinking that if they want to see more Police Officers patrolling their area/neighbourhood that all they have to do is complain and report “Phantom” incidents of Anti Social Behaviour/Crime then lo and behold there will be a copper on every corner, well there won’t be a copper on every corner but regular Patrols may happen YES, just remember this is a double edged sword, all those reported incidents will be recorded and used for statistics for things like Car Insurance, Home Insurance and this may have an effect on House Prices (No one wants to move into a troubled area) so please BEWARE.

But with saying that; Anti Social Behaviour is not a victimless crime as I am sure marge_simpson will tell you, it must be reported and dealt with.

British people still maintain the stiff upper lip and the phrase “That what does not kill us only makes us stronger” it does not, Anti Social Behaviour is debilitating it grinds you down and makes life a living misery.

Sorry it’s a bit long, you touched a nerve.

I hope I have explained this well enough if you have anymore questions then please PM me.

Oh and Good Luck

Plimsole

roswell

I would ask you glazer about polly carbinate windows, its all well having it on CCTV recordings but if you can stop the expence of replacing the windows that would be better.

marge_simpson

hi - just to update this thread and thank the posters.
Plimsole I have done all the things you said, and we now have Community officers (not sure their actual titles) coming past on bikes, which is good as kids seem to be wary of them.
Around a month ago, we stood and watched as 3 youths cavorted outside our house, one of them urinating into our garden. I phoned the police at this point, and my husband picked up a camera as he saw them picking up stones in the road, and looking shiftily at our house. Although very nervous about it, he took several photos of them, and the flash going off in the camera meant they saw what we were doing.
One of the boys proceeded to get on his mobile and presumably make a fake phone call, saying "this man is taking photos of us, we arent doing anything, there are two men, this is their car" etc etc - all v odd and we wondered what would happen next. well they scarpered, and touch wood, we have had no problems ever since. I know it is a risky strategy because you just don't know how their minds work, and believe me we have been very worried about the situation for a long time now - but it seems to have scared them away from the weekly bait of breaking a window at our house.

mariejader

CCTV is good but I would suggest that you make sure the camera is inside the house, we had CCTV a few years ago and someone cut the camera!!!

Have you thought about when you see the kids hanging around outside your house, make a point of going to your car for some reason (or the area they are hanging around in) and then when you see them say Hello and smile and make good eye contact with them, keep doing this over a regular basis I found it often puts them off guard as they will expect you to go out all guns blazing, so by reversing the situation they are the ones now feeling bad, it may work and cost nothing to try it.

Fulham_Mark

We have the same problem, only smashed windows once but 100 kids screaming and throwing litter and urinating in the garden all weekend every week and now there's graffiti everywhere.

The CCTV kits seem to be £100 or so
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/cat.jsp?cId=100111&ts=03527

a dummy one is £30.

But kids probably know that they won't get caught using CCTV footage and you may become more of a victim because of it.

I'm ordering a 500watt external light on a movement sensor (£8) - I hope this will be really irritating to the eye and the groups will move on. the reason they are there is that it's quite nice, quiet and few people come past so it feels like their patch.

They aren't bad kids individually but in groups they try to outdo each other and show off by making more racket and doing more and more stupid things.

Sadly one slightly noisy group were told off by the police and stopped coming, soon a much worse group replaced them and are much better at running away when the police arrive.

Snow_Dog

If you have a broadband router then you could try cameras like the ones here

http://www.stn-systems.co.uk/

They aren't like your basic web-cams, some of them are full CCTV cameras which convert the signal to be able to view the camera output through your PC or any other PC in the world hooked up to the net.

This means you can also log in while at work etc using internet explorer.

As for IR cameras I wouldnt bother the image is next to useless, Fulham Mark has got the best idea with the 500W external lamp and then use an ordinary camera.

The website above has a live camera demo (works in IE not firefox for some reason), though I dont think they have floodlights up so its not great at night, but if you play with the camera during daylight you can zoom in on car tax discs across the car park (you can remotely pan tilt and zoom).

Pity they're not on a more interesting trading estate lol.

He, he, i've just watched the smokers at the factory opposite have a crafty smoke break at 7:30.

Snow_Dog

Just had a nosy on the live camera and I think someone else was too as it was being remotely moved around. I was quite surprised at the picture where the, presumably sodium lamps are in the opposite building.

I've seen these cameras with floodlight at night and its pretty good, when I was looking for one you can get them with alarm windows you can set so that you can set it to record and set off an alarm if someone is wandering round your garden or drive etc.

And you can even see the screws holding the license plate on the P-reg motor parked opposite.

jpvic

TBO I'd stick up the 8' fences and then argue with the council for 2 or 3 years about taking them down again.

Can they guarantee the security of your family?