Prowler outside - what should we do? Photos attached

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I've just been woken by our 3 month old DD and saw that our home security camera sent us an alert triggered by a motion sensor at 1am (stills from the footage below).

Somebody with a rucksack seems to be checking out the front of our house and it looks as if he might have taken a photo of the front door as he was leaving the driveway.

I'm so freaked out. It seems like he's scoping us out for a burglary. What should we do? We'll contact the local PCSO in the morning but should we call 101 or anything . . . ?

That's so frustrating, @WTFPeople - what a ridiculous scenario, where we're expected to protect their privacy! Infuriating.

Then neighbours hadn't noticed anything. One of them has CCTV as well but it stopped working and they never got round to fixing it. Hopefully they'll sort it now.

@LennyPugGoat that is terrifying!

Although . . . it does sound as if you went a bit Kevin McAllister on them

Well, the police can alert the local force - and if they’re quiet, they could patrol your road at that kind of time.

No, my love, nothing was terrifying, it all happened as it happened, we had no control over any of it.

The baseball bats etc came after the event - so, ready for their 3rd attempt, never happened...

Phew. Well, I didn't sleep, which was a combination of fractious baby and obsessively checking my phone for security camera alerts. Thankfully the only prowlers we had last night were the neighbour's cats and a badger.

We'll continue to beef up security . . . I think it will take a while before I can relax though.

Do you have something particular they might want OP? I mean obviously you do, or they wouldn't be looking to break in, but anything specific? We were broken into twice for expensive easy to sell sports equipment. My OH was fairly visible in the sport locally and people had been to our address to pick up equipment from him so we assume it was easy enough for people to get hold of our address and we think there was a low level crime ring (that sounds much more glamorous than the reality of scum who tend to associate) who shared the details since it was different people each time. They never took anything else and we were incredibly lucky in that they only ever went into the garage although it was still sufficiently horrendous that we sold that house.

If you have something like that, or if they are after car keys, make sure they don't have to pass you to get the items. I'm not suggesting gifting them anything, but you don't want them to come looking for you/whatever they want upstairs.

I agree with what someone else mentioned about a light overnight looking like exactly what it is (depending on which light it is). I remember reading somewhere about burglaries and someone pointed out how vanishingly unlikely it is that someone would genuinely be awake with just a hall light on. Obviously other lights are more effective/harder to dismiss but maybe it would be better to leave the tv and a light on although you may find that uncomfortable if you wake up and hear the tv and get confused momentarily, thinking it's voices.

Lastly, I know it's terrifying but we don't tend to have US style home invasions here. They are almost certainly opportunists who would want to be in and out with whatever they can take in minutes. They do not want to see you.

Have you got Euro cylinder locks or abs locks on your doors?.

@tentative3 yes, reckon they could be after our mountain bikes. They're locked in the garage, and have heavy chains on them. DH has also ordered a ground anchor now as well. Thankfully they don't have to come past us to get them, and I kept our cats upstairs in a spare bedroom overnight to keep them safe.

Not that they were in any way grateful for that this morning 

@Fluffycloudland77 our doors and locks are crappy, although after last time we installed extra bolts on the front and back doors. We'll be replacing our doors and windows in the next couple of months as it's something we really need to do.

I’d be tempted to put the clearest still from your security camera in the window and write underneath it in big red letters “we’ve seen you. Fuck off”

What cars do you have OP?

Tempted, @Milbo, but someone else said it could antagonise them so best not. It probably wouldn't scare them anyway, the police can't do anything.

DH has a nice German company car, and mine is nice but old, so less fancy but probably easier to steal. We played car Tetris on the drive last night to block mine in

Oh and our keys are kept in an RFID box.

I did a thread similar to this but was a man creeping round with a torch shining it into everyone’s windows. It’s truly frightening! NRTFT but hope you get it sorted and feel safer soon OP

They’ll be after the fancy one! I’m a police officer and it’s rare that burglars steal rubbish cars anymore, they want top spec Audi’s, BMW’s, VW’s....etc. I would imagine that’s why you’ve had two separate prowlers and would suggest getting a crook lock for your husband’s steering wheel.

It's creepy, @starrysimon - I had to make myself stop watching the footage obsessively 

Both our cars are from the makes you've listed, @GoBackToPartyCity, but mine is eight years old so probably not desirable. Steering locks are a good idea, I'll get a couple of those.

I had a car stolen off my drive a couple of years ago.

Police told me that high end cars tend to be more difficult to steal and are often tracked which means they tend to be stolen by organised gangs.

I was advised to leave keys in the hall table. If they’ve broken into your house for keys they’ll be in an out in seconds. The last thing you want is someone waking you up because they can’t find them.

When my parents were broken into (multiple times, first time it was fairly clear they were after car keys), the police told them to hide keys upstairs as burglars will rarely venture upstairs if there's a sleeping family home.

We set them up with an alarm system and security cameras that are clearly visible from the front and back plus CCTV stickers.

As well as causing fear, worry and interrupted sleep, prowlers cost a lot of money in equipment to deter them

A penguin bollard at the end of the drive to stop anyone removing cars, fit smart lighting downstairs to go on & off through the night as if someone is up. I leave a lamp on in my living room if I'm home alone.