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Happy Holidays… and thanks for the responses.
grizcoach: Unfortunately, the BTVPOA’s (the HOA) CC&Rs expired for good earlier this year. The issue of security cameras has come up at a few Association meetings so I think there is a “concern” but no direction…yet. Would be interesting to see how other HOAs handle this.
DER8391: We do plan to plant trees to block, but that will have an expense plus 2 to 3 years to grow to block the cameras. We may erect a tarp fence until the trees grow to block. But that conflicts with the BTVPOA’s “Design and Use” Guidelines which prohibit such barriers because they impede the movement of wildlife and are unsightly.
What is offensive is not that someone can view our property and inside our house as if they’re standing out in their yard. It’s that they can do it 24/7 remotely (from the Bay Area) and that it can be videoed. And, there is the potential that others can view it. It’s a definite feel of loss of privacy and it greatly bothers.
As said, our 20 year relationship with our neighbor ended over these cameras. We requested that they be re-aimed so not to intrude. He became angry and wrote back, “ …we will do our best to not view your property, while keeping the integrity of our security cameras in place.” (Emphasis added.) Successive attempts on my part to calm the waters failed. …In addition, we also are having to deal with his outdoor light which shines all night across our property and into our home. Two letters from the Association were ignored. That issue is now with the county. I can’t speak to his intentions — I don’t trust him at all — but I do know he could care less what we or the Association thinks. Do I think that he will really do his best not to view our property?
michelle s: Thanks for the website and your discussion about photographers’ legal restrictions. As I understand from the neighbor, the cameras pan internally, i.e. the external body does not move. So the cam can pan “across” our yard and our home. As it crosses our home, it can look “inside” and video, as well as anywhere on our yard, including the deck area where our hot tub is. Connecting this to your photographer discussion, this would be illegal in areas where there is presumed privacy.
With respect to the “intrusion”, it IS very creepy. And not one person (of many) we have discussed this issue with, have thought what our neighbor is doing was okay.
And here is an irony: Our neighbor put these cameras up for his security, yet it potentially jeopardizes ours. When we’re loading our truck up for a long trip, our actions can be viewed by the cameras tipping off our soon-to-be-absence. Do we know how many other people can view this? This further makes us feel vulnerable.
I invite any other ideas you may have. There are good uses of these cameras. But the dark downside is that they can intrude on privacy, which is something most of us greatly value, especially up here in the mountains. In response to our concern about his cameras intruding, our neighbor sarcastically said, we’d better get used to it because the city was coming. Technology has it’s wonderments, but is that okay to sacrifice an important value such as privacy? Surely there exists some happy medium.
Yuck, I cannot imagine deliberately pointing cameras at someone else’s property, to the extent of seeing inside their house! That definitely seems wrong and creepy. If their goal is to protect and monitor their own property, they should not need to include yours in the field of view. For security purposes, it works better to image the points of entry to the home (eg., doors, windows, driveway), not looking out into the surrounding properties. Sorry you have to deal with that.
It would feel like a violation, whether or not there are any laws dealing with that yet. Incidentally, there are such laws for photographers. A quick search found this for example: “When photographers take photos of people, they must be careful to not invade their privacy. This happens when someone enters a person’s private domain in a manner that would be considered offensive to the average person. As a photographer, the act of going on someone’s land without permission would be trespassing and also may violate the person’s right of privacy. You don’t have to take a photo or publish an image photo for the action to be unlawful. Some courts have found that a photographer has violated privacy rights even when photographing someone in public. Instances would include cases where the photographers harass their subjects, use hidden cameras, or wait for a woman’s skirt to be blown at a fun house. It also is unlawful to view and photograph people inside of residences or other places where privacy is normally expected, even when the photographer is standing in public.”
(from http://blog.kenkaminesky.com/photography-copyright-and-the-law/)California Law on surveillance camera’s has somewhat of a gray area when it comes to security cameras outside. Basically the Courts have said, you are allowed to install cameras covering any area that you can see “legally” from your property.
Audio recording’s are illegal in California unless both parties in question have signed a waiver saying they’re okay with the recording, but I highly doubt your neighbor would be able to hear your conversations.
If possible I would plant something to block the view of the camera’s if it’s bothering you. I highly doubt your neighbor has bad intentions otherwise he wouldn’t have told you.
vallecito check your CC&Rs to see if they offer you some relief. If the issues not addressed in the CC&Rs now, lobby your HOA to include it in the CC&Rs.
I understand security cameras have a value to “protect”, but what about “on the other side” when they invade privacy of neighbors? Our neighbor set up 4 cams, with 2 or 3 pointing across our property. That neighbor said he could see inside our house. His cams have night vision, audio and he can video, all from his home in the Bay Area. We asked him to re-aim the cameras, but he refused, ending a long time friendship. He’s only here one weekend a month, yet we’re “on” 24/7 with loss of the privacy we used to enjoy, given that privacy was one of the values that we assumed came with living here in Big Trees. What do you think?
On the battery life issue, I was pretty annoyed when the batt indicator for each camera dropped to 50% after just a few (cold) days on my Arlo cameras. Corresponding with the company was helpful, however. Apparently there is a bug that causes the icon to show low battery life in temp below 30 degrees or so, but actually the battery is still good. So, sure enough, once it warmed up, the battery icon showed full again. OK.
Yes, the Arlo cameras have an App so you can view them all on your phone, or on their website from computer. You can set the controls independently for each one, as far as how sensitive to motion you want it to be, and turn them on or off with the flick of a phone button, or set them on a schedule.
As for the neighbors, yes, if you point it in the direction of a neighbors property, you would pick up their motion. But by adjusting the parameters you could optimize so it mostly only triggers on your property. You can easily readjust position and pose with magnetic mounts. I had to fiddle a little to make sure passing cars wouldn’t make it go off.
The magnetic mounts would not work well in trees however. One avalanche or branch falling and it would knock off the camera. You would either need to tie it up there somehow, or search for a new mount. There are many accessories available, including silicon skins to cmamaflague it. Some of the mounts may allow panning, but I don’t have that. As for zoom, you can manually zoom in on the images since they are HD.
It is amazing how diverse cams are getting. But a couple of Qs to all of you: (1) While your cameras view your property, curious, does it also catch your neighbor’s property, as well as their house? And (2) Do your cameras have the ability to pan the surroundings?
My arlo cameras are inside so a bit less susceptible to temp variations which probably extends battery life but the 4-6 months is probably fairly accurate. I am going on my 3rd month with current batteries and they are showing full strength per the battery monitor. The batteries are standard digital camera batteries, CR123 lithium 3-volt photo batteries, and can be found easily on ebay, amazon or other online sites for a about $1.50 each in bulk.
I just got this system, doing the research after the mention here. I’m so impressed! Unlike our old wired system, this only took about an hour to set up with 3 cameras outside and is really easy to work with.
One thing I’m not sure about though is the battery life. Some of the reviews said it was only a few days in very cold weather — I’m not sure if our weather qualifies as very cold. Sort of need to plan ahead because the Ace in town said they don’t stock these batteries. What has been your experience?
Michelle
I am using Arlo (Netgear) wireless camera system. Cameras are battery powered.
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