Big Brother Petch Is Watching

I think this will be my last post on the neighbors for a while unless anything bad happens. I really want to get back to regular house stuff and not dwell on this. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions yesterday. I have been taking notes and photos. Everything up until the dead rat on my truck has ended in the letters to the Planning Dept. so it is all on record.

I called the Police Dept about reporting the dead rat. They do a mail-in report for this sort of thing. An officer takes down basic information over the phone and then mails me the report. I fill it out in more detail and then send it back. She did ask if I knew who did this and I said I was sure it was one of the idiot sons next door. As a side note, I was on hold for 17 minutes when I called the Police Dept. I usually don’t have that kind of patients but I was reviewing the security tape.

That’s right, I said security tape. Last night after I posted to the blog I ran down to Radio Shack and got a camera. They only had one available and it was on sale and with a rebate. How could I say no. I think I paid a little over $100 for it. That was money to buy a small sink for the kitchen island, so that kind of sucks.

It irks me that I found out a few days late that the neighbors had been contacted by the city. I would have loved to get the dead rat incident on tape. Now I’m sort of torn between wanting to catch them in the act of something, and also hoping that was it for them in the vandalism department. I have this image in my head of one brother throwing the rat on my car and then both of them high-fiving or something and saying to themselves, “Yea, we got him alright!”

The camera is cool, though. It is color and has some night vision. It broadcasts to a receiver which is plugged in to a VCR, which is plugged into a 14” TV. A T-120 tape will record 6 hours at SLP speed. The camera itself is weather proof and can either be run off a 9-volt battery or be plugged in.

The camera is about 2X4 inches. I mounted it to a board and then placed it on the porch roof. I have easy access to the porch roof from an upstairs window so it is easy to set it up and move it around without even getting out on the roof. I get a picture of the whole street, both sidewalks, and a bit of my front yard and the yard across the street. Of course, my truck is centered in the picture.

It takes such a nice picture I would like to get another one for the other side of the house. I would then also need a VCR and another TV. Kind of a lot of trouble. It is funny that these guys go after my truck, which I don’t give a shit about, and not the house. My big fear is that they do something to the house. That would really suck.

I also worry about the 2 piglets. They stay in the house these days. The weather is bad so it’s not too bad for them. The problem is, when I leave them in the house while I’m at work I can’t set the alarm system because they will set off the motion detectors. I could lock them in a bedroom with food, water, and poop dirt but Mortimer would probably shred poor little Sadie half way through the day. They get along ok, but Mort needs his space or he gets nasty.

Someone yesterday commented about the possibility of bringing a law suit against them. I spoke with a member of the City Council about this a few weeks back. He said there is a law on the books for suing a homeowner for monetary damages when there are repeated problems in the neighborhood. He said this was mainly for drug houses, though. That doesn’t mean it can’t be applied here, but it is not a given. Anyway, that is a last resort.

When I reviewed the tape today I just fast forward through it to review it. It took about a half hour, which kind of sucked. I did about half of it while I was on hold with EPD. Nothing happened to the truck while I was at work so I didn’t expect to find anything. I was just curious. A dog peed on the back tire about noon today. Naturally I called the police. They sent out the SWAT Team and the dog was hauled away. His tire peeing days are over.

The other interesting thing was that I saw one guy who walked slowly down the sidewalk and stopped at my truck, the truck in front of mine, and the car behind mine. At each vehicle he stopped and looked inside for a very long time. It was not someone I recognized but it made me glad I don’t keep anything in the truck. I only saw him from the back too so it would be hard to ID him if cars got broken in to soon.

The other funny thing about this is that I actually locked my truck for the first time in forever. After work I went out to get in and the door wouldn’t open because it was locked. My first thought was that someone had screwed with the truck. I must have tugged on that door for 5 or 6 seconds before I remembered I had locked it. The paranoia is setting in just a bit. I can’t wait until this is over. The idiots are moving out more equipment as I write.