What to do about a Prowler/peeping tom?

[offroadking208]

You are responsible for injuries that occur on your property, even when someone is trespassing. And now that you've posted this on the internet, you've displayed intent.

You know, you can sarcastically respond to my warnings all you want, but the OP was looking for serious solutions to an actual problem. Booby-trapping his house will likely land him in some serious trouble. It will be exacerbated by the evidence presented in this thread, which will be presented as proof of intent. If you don't think subpoenas are a regular part of INGO life, then I have a surprise for you.

Correct. I don't need to be the next Zimmerman. That would be why I look for LEGAL ways to solve the problem. As nice as it'd be to actually be able to do something, I'm sticking with the game camera for the time being. Although the bamboo spikes sound nice...

I really dont want to thread jack, but...

Its important that family get involved in this decision. In some cases the elderly need to go into assisted living to get the proper care they deserve. Also unless you can be there 24/7 the elderly get to a point just for their safety they need someone around all the time. Believe me I know first hand what a hard call it is as I was the sole care giver for my father for over 11 years. But dont let your desire to keep them home overrule the necessity of the care they deserve.

They aren't so bad as to need assisted living. They still mow their own yard and can get themselves around town. I just do the more difficult things like trimming bushes, trees, etc. They just don't do so well with stairs.

 

[greyhound47]

Why not just +1 my post?

I didn't see your post until I after I wrote mine. Let's just say great minds think alike!

 

[SSGSAD]

Take NO action....you're kidding, right




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Take NO action, NO, but when I read that post, I thought it meant with a gun, and DO some DAMAGE... Now when I read of the one that hid, dressed in black, and "racked" the weapon, I now see how that COULD settle everything down ..... A word of CAUTION, if the weapon is LOADED, then be SURE NO ACCIDENTS, and if UNloaded, then have a backup plan READY ..... JMHO, IANAL.....

 

[04DarkShadowGT]

Why dont you and a buddy stay with the grandparents for a couple weeks and see what happends. If a younger guys jumps out of the house, chances are they will stop.

 

[Coach]

Nothing illegal or dangerous needs to be done. The police are not going to be able to handle this situation. Stay there and make the confrontation yourself. Be prepared for trouble. Booby traps are stupid and a bad idea.

Someone is bothering your family, report it to the police, spend a night or two and stay there yourself and put and end to it. Probably some kids, but maybe not. Putting an end to it does not mean shooting, stabbing, blowing them up or what ever.

My original post was pointing to the fact that we as free individuals need to take action not wring our hands and not no what do do. Do we risk a lack of action due to the rights of the tresspaasing criminal,and the family members end up getting robbed or beaten or worse? What would a reasonable man or woman do in the same circumstances? This is the bottom line test in our legal system. If you carry a gun for self defense then you have to worry about these issues all the time. You carried a gun because wanted to shoot someone.

 

[FFM173]

This has my vote!

One of these under every window you have seen footprints should do the job in one night.

I know a man that had a problem with a person breaking into his house. He placed a couple of these under the window the person was using and went and sat in the next room in the dark and waited. Caught the guy and broke both bones in his lower leg. Police asked why they were out and the gentleman told him he was "oiling" them. Police had to let the homeowner release the man as the police didnt know how to use them. No charges filed and badguy went to hospital and then to jail. Homeowner had a beer and went to bed.

 

[offroadking208]

Update:
Now they are receiving phone calls. 3 last night after 2am. I don't know if they actually said anything or called and hung up, but I'll find out this evening when I go to check the trail camera.

 

[gvsugod]

Id would stake it out for sure, either indoors or ghillied up. And not just for one night, but until you catch him.

 

[cg21]

pretty scary situation i wish you the best of luck.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Most phones anymore have ringer defeat switches. They can turn the ringers off before they go to bed. The caller can just listen to it ring and ring and ring. If there's an answering machine/service, it should be pretty straight forward to delete all the messages in one fell swoop. Ideally, the answering machine/service will log the Caller ID and you can just give them all to the police for the reverse lookup.

 

[Doug]

It sounds like they are escalating.
I honestly and sincerely hope you can get this stopped before anyone gets hurt.

 

[Magneto]

Hope you catch this bag and scare it out of him!

 

[canav844]

If you want to go the Ghille suit route, DSLR and a speedlight (even a cheap Chinese import one, but off camera with a bright flash head); prefocus for where the footprints have been, kill the flood lights, crank the flash up to full power, stop down the aperture a little (this will also give you some leeway in the focusing distance) and have medium ISO with a shutter fast enough to be crisp. When their head turns your way, aim close your eyes and click; great shot of their face and their nightvision gone for at least 30min (red eye or harsh flash on skin tones aren't a concern for these purposes); then get on the cell with the police and have them respond, if the tresspassers are gone, you can give them the photo (a cheap smaller memory card you can hand over with just photos of these guys and nothing else that you can live without for a while is a good idea) they can search the area and use the photo for evidence purposes. A few trailcams is certainly a safer bet, and they likely won't know they've been burned.

Planting some thorny bushes will slow fence jumpers and if they are able to keep up with watering, roses look pretty and can be therapeutic to take care of if they've the inclination. Also rearranging plants (and lawn furniture etc) near the home so there isn't something to hide behind will help deter, and when outside is lit and inside isn't puts the advantage on the homeowners side. Also canine "land mines" around the fence area make a poor to mediocre fertilizer, but aren't fun to land in. Motion sensor lights above the doors, ADT and No Tresspassing and even if there isn't one beware of dog signs, and a big food bowl, real and dummy security cameras, may deter them if it's innocent ding dong ditch.

Remember while Noblesville is thought of as low crime there have been bleed outs of home invasions and robberies to the area, and there's one organized home invasion from a few months ago where an armed homeowner was disarmed taken hostage and his safe cleaned out, then he was locked in his crawlspace and left. If you surprise a group of organized criminals you may end up in a bad spot, so don't assume that it's middle schoolers until you've got proof, and even if it's middle schoolers, don't assume they're unarmed; there's parts of Indy not too far away that "hot" guns are common and dirt cheap, and bad guys have cars and know the rich neighborhoods.

 

[BoilerWes]

Any trail cam updates?

 

[offroadking208]

Nothing on the trail cam unfortunately. The delay was set up for 30 seconds for some reason. So the delay has been reset for 3 seconds, and then it records a one minute video.

 

[Doug]

Any updates?