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Brewsky88

Neighbor surveillance including my property

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Been a while since I've posted on here, but lately I have been having an issue with a neighbor that has called the police multiple times with complaints against me and what I do in my garage and then contacted my landlord demanding that I be evicted (landlord forwarded me the emails and explained the phone calls). The police haven't even so much as walked across the driveway to my door to discuss any of the incidents which automatically tells me that there isn't a single law that has been broken, not even to say "hey, would you mind closing up a little earlier" or "can you try to keep certain activities to earlier in the day." Today when I came home from work, I saw this neighbor finishing up the installation of a new camera and seemed surprised to see me, guess they weren't expecting me to be home until later. Anyway, I have no issue with someone wanting to have coverage of their home. However, this camera is positioned at the front corner of the roof, their property from the house to my driveway is only about 6' wide in that section and extends about 20' back where it terminates at the fence of their back yard which reaches about 8' high. The problem that I have is that where their fence starts, so does my garage, and anytime the door is open, that camera can see every square foot. Would this have been suspicious a year ago? Absolutely not, but in light of the recent events I believe that the new unit was installed specifically to watch my garage. Is this legal?

 

I went to the police station last week to request copies of these calls which they had no problem giving since the claims were against me, all caller information was edited out but process of elimination prevails since there hasn't been a peep brought to my attention from any other neighbor...that all personally know the landlord. I have nothing to hide and even offered the camera footage of my garage to the police department in the wake of these claims and they respectfully declined. The fact of the matter is, what happens in my garage is my business and someone else having video footage of the exact contents that it holds and also seeing when my home is empty by the vehicles that depart does NOT sit well with me.

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I haven't talked to them about the new camera yet, I spoke with them last week regarding the calls and the camera was new since I left for work this morning, going to call them tomorrow when I can. Came on here to see if there was a quick definitive answer. I understand that each jurisdiction may vary but figured that a forum based more or less on security cameras might understand privacy regulations. I've seen situations where the forums sometimes know the law better than an officer. In terms of both when an individual is actually breaking a law but it is not being enforced, and also when officers is trying to submit a charge when the law has not been broken.

 

My feeling towards it is I will not point my cameras in any manner that I do not wish them pointed in my direction, if I live in a condo with basically only a porch in the back, I will not place a camera pointing straight out to see everything in the surrounding area. Basically if the view of the camera in comprised of at least 75% of the property which it is installed it's all good. In my case, every single one of my cameras is pointed primarily at my property with minimal view of anyone else's. This neighbor's new camera (we all know how wide angle they are now) has my property in AT LEAST 75% of its view

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Talked to local PD about it yesterday and they said that, as suspicious as it is, it is legal but to take note of when in went up in relation to the false/inflated claims and to keep a log of things that happen in case it ends up going to court for harassment. Also, if there is ever a break in, inform the responding officer about this current situation and they will be asked to relinquish the recordings from that camera, if it magically did not record the incident then they will be brought in for questioning. "That neighbor doesn't like you, they have a camera that watches your garage, your garage gets broken into, conveniently that camera didn't record anything, they would be a prime suspect."

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Hi. Always two sides to a story you say your next door are not happy about what you do in your garage.

 

You will know what the complaint is as you have had letters off next door and landlord and police

 

But you don’t tell what it is you do in your garage.

 

Next door now have a camera looking at your garage he has probably been told by police to collect footage and make a log of anything going on

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I'm a mechanic by trade and have 4 motorcycles and 2 cars of my own that I work on. I also buy dirt bikes that aren't running, engines that don't work, axles that need rebuilding, and transmissions that need a refresh. I fix them and sell them for a small profit. I am rarely in the garage past 8pm, never running an engine later than 7pm, nothing is left outside, and my property management company knows all about it and doesn't care as long as I'm not running a shop out of the garage with people bringing their stuff to me and paying me to fix it. Basically, I'm allowed to make money from what I do, but it can't be a business. The noise complaints where the police department was called involved: 1 call at 2pm on a Saturday when I was tuning the carburetor on one of my bikes, 2 calls at on a Thursday afternoon around 4pm when I had 2 colleagues from work over for a small BBQ and working on one of my cars (1 call for the "noise" and 1 call because one of the guys had unknown to me parked his truck in front of their house...yes, you read that right, they called the cops because someone parked at the curb in front of their house), 1 call at 8am on a Tuesday because now when I take the bike to work, I start it up by the garage instead of down at the street, and another 8am call because I let my stock diesel truck warm up in the driveway.

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