Ask Slashdot: Video Monitors For Areas That Are Off the Grid? 340
An anonymous reader writes "I have a cottage at the end of a long dirt road, no electricity nor internet, and recently some (insert expletive here) wads are using the area as a trash dump: countertops, sofas, metal scraps, tvs — all the stuff they don't want to pay to dump at the landfill. I can't block the road because it's a fire access. But I would really like to have a way to catch who is doing this. Are there any a) waterproof, b) self-contained, c) self-powered, and (ideally) d) inexpensive video-recording units out there? Are there any other creative ways to get the guys? I was thinking of something like a device that will cycle, so that the last week of video is recorded. It could take photos or video, and as long as it's small enough that I could camouflage it well, I suspect I'd be able to figure this out soon. And any idea of what my legal rights are to videotape or record?" Hunters have been doing this for years (with film, and now digital) to figure out prey patterns with cameras that are built for concealment; what else would you recommend?
Re:Use a Drone (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not get creative and just use old cell phones.
People are just tossing these things out. they have a good battery and some you can actually program. plus send data back to your base unit wirelessly.
Re:Where Do You Live That That Is Considered Okay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if it is a dirt road, it's not your property and if you don't have permission to be leaving shit all over the place then you don't do it. Where do you live that you can just legally drive around and say "this looks good, I don't see any signs" and dump shit to rust and rot and look terrible? Am I the only person that is appalled by that?
Nope; I grew up on such a dirt road, and cheap-ass idiots dumping shit because they don't want to pay $10 at the landfill were always the bane of my existence.
Related anecdote: For about 8 months when I was a kid, my dad and I used to see the same damn people dumping bags of trash on our road every week (I assume city folk who refused to pay for trash service). One time, after they drove off, father proceeded to open one of the trash bags and rifle through it (eww, I know) until he found - drum roll please - a piece of mail with the name and address intact. Several mornings later, the people who dumped the trash awakened to find every last fucking piece of it we had collected over the months spread across their own front lawn. Needless to say, that particular group stopped dumping.
Re:Deer cams (Score:5, Interesting)
Put up the IR deer cams. Hide them because they will steal them.
I've had tremendous success by putting them inside bird houses. No one steals birdhouses, or even thinks twice when they see one 15 feet up a tree.
Re:Do you have a sign? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not buy a broken camera from your local junk store and very visibly install it?
Came here to say this!
Years ago, I had a computer store, and wanted to cover my hindquarters - we had large, street-access store windows protecting lots of gorgeous, expensive hardware, but I couldn't afford a full-blown solution. So I found some mounting brackets at the hardware store and bought a large, gaudy 8 mm film camera at the local thrift store for $1. I bolted the camera to the mounting brackets, and stuffed a thick, black wire into the headphone jack and jammed it into a hole in the ceiling. It wasn't subtle; it was pointed right at you as you walked in the door.
Also, when I left for the night, I'd leave a computer running and run a tone generator to simulate the warning sound that an alarm makes for 30-60 seconds before it goes full derp.
For 4 years I ran that shop without a single incident. About 3 years in, I asked to get a quote from an actual security company, and the camera was good enough fool the consultant who came out to do the quote! Another time, I opened the store for a police officer in order to answer questions about some stolen hardware I'd identified, and he was also worried about the alarm going off. (from the tone generator) I showed him what I was doing and he laughed out loud.
Appearances can be deceiving and that's good enough in many (most?) cases. As a shining example of this: The TSA!
Re:Neighbors (Score:4, Interesting)
Depending on the age of the tires, you may have stumbled upon a historic dump! Tires hold up remarkably well over time.
The land that forms Shenandoah National Park was condemned in the 1930s. Most of them have passed on, but you might still find some folks who remember being evicted off their land and have an abiding hate for the Federal government which is part of a long tradition among mountain folk dating back to the Whiskey Rebellion, carried on by Prohibition, and nurtured by various other grievances to this very day. Their children are certainly still alive and brought up on the stories.
I haven't seen a dump site, but I have seen a marked site where a school and some other buildings formerly existed. Only the stone walls endured. Some of the smaller parks in Virginia have backstories like this too. Bull Run is fascinating--ruins and Civil War brestworks which are kind of like half-open trenches. There's another web site out there that explains how a "ditch in the woods" that I never thought twice about is actually the channel for a mill that once ground grain.
Anyway, you might have found an archaelogical site as opposed to a modern dump. When the trash was left, there was a poorly graded road which is now overgrown with trees. Finding 80 year old roads in the woods is an art; it's amazing how quicly nature reclaims things.
Re:Where Do You Live That That Is Considered Okay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Deer cams (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, a general piece of advice given to people who are arming themselves for self defense; When using lethal force (a gun), use it with intent to kill, not wound or disable. Not only is 'only wounding' hard, but it you are less likely to lose or even be hit with a wrongful death civil suite than a personal injury suite. One of my online buddies shotgunned three armed bad guys invading his home, killing two, the only criminal charges were misdemeanor possession of a loaded firearm (illegal, even in his own house, in his jurisdiction) which he got 3 months probation for after pleading no contest. One of the guy's families sued him for wrongful death, and it was dismissed with predjudice the first day. The surviving bad guy successfully sued him for various things (had two fingers amputated because the blast hit him in his gun hand as he was firing at my friend.), however it was overturned on appeal. But his defense has cost him roughly $100k. (and they are appealing the appeal). This is a person who is currently service a life sentence for 2 felony murders (he gets saddled with the guild of his two buddies deaths) and on trial for 6 more home invasions that had happened in the prior month.
Re:Deer cams (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's what I've never understood. If the thief is going to sue for injury, why not plead no contest in court, allow the judge to make the ruling for the thief, and then turn around and immediately sue him for trespassing, for the total amount the thief won, since his trespassing caused those actual damages? Even better would be to file for treble damages, since in trespassing, the thief was willfully negligent in his actions. The instant I owe any money for something you did while illegally on my property, I don't see how that doesn't immediately become actionable against you as damages for trespassing. IANAL, of course, so if any out there are, I'd love an explanation as to why this isn't possible. (At least, I am assuming it isn't, as I've never seen it done.)