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How do you feel about cameras on housing?

(44 Posts)
Flippin2 Sun 17-May-26 16:06:36

My son's neighbour installed a camera that followed you down the street,very creepy,you could hear it move, needless to say he was advised to remove it

JaneJudge Sun 17-May-26 16:05:06

that's really sad silverlining sad I'm sorry

MT62 Sun 17-May-26 16:02:09

silverlining48

Police knocked and asked to look at our camera. After half hour they found a young man who had been missing from home for a few days walking past.
It meant they were able to take other officers off checking cams in the vicinity and within half hour they had found his body. A tragedy, but it saved the family from yet another night of not knowing.
We were glad we could help, but it was upsetting as we saw the pictures of him walking past our house. Had I been in the garden I might have spoken to him as he passed by, but I didn’t get much sleep that night.

How awful. Good yours helped the police & his family, to a point, get closure.

silverlining48 Sun 17-May-26 15:47:53

Police knocked and asked to look at our camera. After half hour they found a young man who had been missing from home for a few days walking past.
It meant they were able to take other officers off checking cams in the vicinity and within half hour they had found his body. A tragedy, but it saved the family from yet another night of not knowing.
We were glad we could help, but it was upsetting as we saw the pictures of him walking past our house. Had I been in the garden I might have spoken to him as he passed by, but I didn’t get much sleep that night.

MT62 Sun 17-May-26 15:39:38

Doodledog

We have door cameras, but they only show movement near the doors. You can hear and speak through them, but only when you press a button to do so. Ours are set to human height, but will occasionally pick up flapping sheets on the line, swooping bats or (oddly) a cat. We can't see into anyone's gardens, and the speaker facility is only used when someone is delivering something and we are away, so we can ask them to put it somewhere genuinely safe, and not leave it on the doorstep. I wouldn't want my phone to be constantly picking up random conversations anyway.

I wouldn't like a neighbour's camera trained on our house or garden, and would ask them to adjust it if they did.

What brand is yours if it doesn’t pick up any noise?

nanna8 Sun 17-May-26 14:28:51

JaneJudge

It definitely isn't a wildlife camera unless he's pretending to be a badger.

Thanks for the link Graphite I suppose I'll have to talk to them. I really don't understand why they need cameras to talk to one another on. We just live in ordinary suburban houses with relatively small gardens (in the grand scale of things) I just didn't know if I was being over sensitive

Gave me a laugh Jane. Visions of someone with big teeth and a Mohawk hairdo 😃

4allweknow Sun 17-May-26 14:18:59

Had a camera on back of the house for years. Woodland at the back and people (other residents) were cutting trees down illegally. Reported a couple who cut down two beautiful fir trees as they didn't want them shading their newly installed hot tub. Also had sound but only used to highlight to neighbour (illicit childminder) all tge noise tge children created whilst she sat using her phone at her garden seating. Our Alexa had to be switched off indoors as kids yelling etc was constantly setting it off. Alsi DH had a cochlear implant and noise especially screaming was a nighmare for him. When she heard the recording plus the threat of being reported it all stopped. Noise system has been turned off since.

Esmay Sun 17-May-26 14:05:52

I want to plant a hedge because I feel spied on by one particular neighbour .

He is hell to live next door to according to his immediate neighbour. He spies on her and has lists of complaints when she returns home from her very demanding job as a policewoman in one of the toughest parts of London
He has put cameras up everywhere and records everything that happens on our street.
Some people don't like it.
Some have complained.
If you complain about anything it's the end of your friendship with him as I know to my cost .
I'm now asked when am I moving on the rare occasions that I'm spoken to .
I personally think that he's neurotic and paranoid-possibly mentally ill !

JaneJudge Sun 17-May-26 13:49:29

It definitely isn't a wildlife camera unless he's pretending to be a badger.

Thanks for the link Graphite I suppose I'll have to talk to them. I really don't understand why they need cameras to talk to one another on. We just live in ordinary suburban houses with relatively small gardens (in the grand scale of things) I just didn't know if I was being over sensitive

nanna8 Sun 17-May-26 13:33:23

We have a wildlife camera pointing into the back garden. I like to watch the possums in the trees at night. I wouldn’t dream of pointing it at another house ( can’t see any from the back anyway )

Missedout Sun 17-May-26 13:13:11

We have several cameras around our house (we were burgled a while ago - so we added the cameras afterwards). We are able to set ‘trigger’ zones within our property boundaries so the cameras only activate the video camera and notify us when someone (human motion) enters the zones. We also set privacy areas for our neighbours. These are blacked-out areas on the camera live views so we can't see anything on any of our neighbours’ properties.

Grannynannywanny Sun 17-May-26 12:56:31

I inherited a ring door bell when I moved into my semi bungalow last year. Recently my neighbours next door were away on holiday and I woke at 3am to what I thought was the sound of my front garden gate opening although my door bell camera hadn’t activated.

I had a look on the camera via my phone to check the noise and it was actually my neighbours arriving home from holiday and the noise was their metal gate opening . I was surprised that my doorbell camera clearly picked up their conversation as they walked up the path to their own their front door.

Doodledog Sun 17-May-26 12:41:16

We have door cameras, but they only show movement near the doors. You can hear and speak through them, but only when you press a button to do so. Ours are set to human height, but will occasionally pick up flapping sheets on the line, swooping bats or (oddly) a cat. We can't see into anyone's gardens, and the speaker facility is only used when someone is delivering something and we are away, so we can ask them to put it somewhere genuinely safe, and not leave it on the doorstep. I wouldn't want my phone to be constantly picking up random conversations anyway.

I wouldn't like a neighbour's camera trained on our house or garden, and would ask them to adjust it if they did.

MT62 Sun 17-May-26 12:25:08

No I wouldn’t be happy having cameras pointing towards our property.
We have ring doorbell but we have aimed it so that it only covers half the drive & not people walking past the on the pavement.
The other thing is they pick up conversations, much to my friends horror. She made a comment about her daughter’s boyfriend being short, he’s quite touchy about it. The daughter is away abroad & they have heard every word, as they have sent a text back saying so 😳

ViceVersa Sun 17-May-26 11:31:11

A few years back, a neighbour across the street from us put up a camera which was pointed directly at our house. We complained to the police - he claimed it was just to protect his car, but they looked at it and it wasn't pointed at the car, but at our house, so he was made to take it down.

Allira Sun 17-May-26 11:21:38

Is it a wildlife camera? Our neighbours have one.

Otherwise, I would not feel happy or at all comfortable about it.

BlessedArt Sun 17-May-26 11:20:09

Came to give the same advice as above. You are entitled to privacy. Please follow that link.

Graphite Sun 17-May-26 10:45:29

Read the ICO’s comprehensive guidance on this:

ico.org.uk/for-the-public/home-cctv-systems/

Where possible owners should position their cameras to only capture their own property. However, if this isn’t possible and the CCTV captures someone else's property, a public area or communal space, then data protection law applies. This is because CCTV can capture images and voices of other people, and this counts as their personal information.

Try to solve this informally of you can but if your neighbours fail to comply, there’s a formal template letter you can use.

Obviously, make sure the position of your own camera is compliant.

JaneJudge Sun 17-May-26 10:30:29

I have a doorbell with a camera (not ring) so I'm not completely innocent in all this but my neighbours at the back have a camera on their garage which I'm pretty sure can see into our lounge, so I close the curtains if we are sitting in there in an evening...

but now my next door neighbours have installed cameras at the back which they can obviously listen through as they are talking to one another through them whilst one is in the house and the other is in the back garden. Presumably they can listen to me and my family talking too?

I actually feel a bit violated, as though my privacy isn't being respected and I don't know if I am being unreasonable. Obviously I am quite boring so they wont be watching or listening to me anyway... who knows

I'm growing a tree in front of the garage camera