Neighbour watching me on ring doorbell

[fencedispute2024]

My neighbour keeps watching me through their ring doorbell. I’ve asked them to stop (via the doorbell when they were watching me) but they’re continuing to watch me.

they’re definitely watching, rather than just the doorbell being triggered by motion, as the blue light comes on. They’re not very tech savvy so I don’t think they realise that a blue light is on.

I’ve got multiple photos of their doorbell with the blue light from the last few months. Including a video where I asked the doorbell to stop watching me that shows the blue and red lights going off after my request.

I'm starting to feel harassed and think this is in response to the previous issues we’ve had with a fence. (See old post if you’re interested)

where do I go from here?

Yeah it would be pretty stupid to vandalise it when… it will film her

My neighbours' doorbell is lit up blue all night (and probably all day but I have only noticed it at night) so unless they take shifts at doorbell monitoring, it doesn't necessarily mean anyone is "watching" you. It's also blue when I know there's nobody in the house at all, apart from the dog. And for all those talking about doorbells recording people, nothing is actually recorded unless you pay a subscription, which not everyone does. In fact, I don't know anyone who does. It's just like having a spyhole in your front door but you don't actually have to go to the door to use it.

If I get a movement notification I will often open the app, and go onto "live" as it's quicker than waiting for the recording. Didn't know it showed a different light though!

I don’t have a front garden it films the street, which is perfectly legal, and the home of the neighbour across the road, from whom I have permission. It doesn’t film any of the next door neighbour’s property because the camera can’t bend round corners. She walks back and forth in front of my house huffing and puffing. I can see her car from the camera and that’s it

I think people need to start properly understanding laws on home CCTV.

Some people are absolutely mad and have main character syndrome in the neighbourhood don’t they! Like why would I want to watch you going skulking round the street all the live long day

Why on earth do you think that?!

Im gonna have to stand outside my door and play around seeing which colours do what!

This is really useful info, thank you.

I hate my neighbour's ring doorbell. The thought they can, if they want, know all my movements is unnerving and unnatural. She listens in i know, because she has said things she could only know if she did. I am now super careful what I say which is stressful and unnatural.

So now I know I can drain her battery by taking my time doing up my coat, coming back for something I've forgotten and oops passing by the doorbell, oh dear never mind...

Wouldn't you find it unsettling if a neighbour stood and look at you out of their windown every time you left your house? That's what it feels like. My neighbour has one and I can hear her phone going every time I walk by after work, not on her property but on a public footpath past her house

I think this anecdote shows,exactly what others have said. In general people are much less interested in you than you think. So if you think your neighbour is spying on you they probably aren't and you're just being paranoid.

Hello - I was watching your other thread, I'm glad you got the fence situation sorted!
Regarding this one, can you clarify a bit? I'm not clear as to what area the ring doorbell covers - are they watching you when you come in and out of your front door? Or is it covering another area, where they can see you more often? For example, if it was somehow filming you in your back garden, could you put a large plant in a pot in the way? Perhaps you could add one of your excellent clear diagrams.

Why are you photographing their door? That could be construed as invasive too.

Also surrounded by cameras and door bells .The halfwit next door put his at an angle to my doorway rather than straight ahead to anyone coming to his door. I am the most boring person ever so he was just being thick , I just went round and told him straight, he moved it, they also pick up sound so wherever someone came to my door I told them what an idiot the neighbour was, lucky for me his wife decided same and got rid. She now watches kids playing out to check no child is bullying hers. I am getting too old for all this!

Most of our neighbours have ring doorbells nowadays. Handy if someone car gets broken into or knocked in our narrow road - our street whatsapp twitches big time.

The only one that does annoy me is my nextdoorneighbour who changed where their front door was during a recent renovation so it directly overlooks our front door 6ft away. We have a wire fence between us which you could see through so I planted some fast growing creepers up it so I'm not spied on when I take out my bins naked - joking obv 🤣

I live in a semi detached new build. Our front doors are almost touching so I hope they don’t get a notification every time I’m getting out of the car and coming home 😂

I feel like there’s very little privacy with the ring door bells. I know my friend has one and he often watches it when there’s anything going on in the street which gives me the ick.

They might not be watching you in particular. My Ring camera is set to detect motion and will record when someone passes or comes to the door. Our property is detached and well away from the road though, so is only triggered by people actively on our property.

Also, as others have said you receive a notification and if I'm on my phone I'll click on it to see who it is and this will record for longer. They probably aren't just looking at you, but at anyone who triggers their camera.

Oh god they're awful things. My friend gets a notification from hers every time a bus drives past her house. I'm not sure there's anything you can do about it though unfortunately.

Mine is a Blink doorbell. It has a facility where you can blank out areas of the screen to give neighbours privacy but also to prevent spurious triggers. I didn't actually want one but we have had some worrying happenings round here. My neighbour's front door light got completely taped over. We live in a three house cul de sac so somebody came onto the property to purposely do it.

Yes this, I would start getting a life and stop worrying about your neighbours, I doubt very much if they’re watching you, why would they do that, unless you’ve let them know it winds you up, then they’re probably doing it to annoy you if you’ve fallen out. The less fuss you make about it the sooner they’ll get fed up. All in all to be honest I think it’s all a bit pathetic.

If your doors are close together even though the camera is on your side it may pick up when someone comes in and out of next door. It happens to us all of the time so the blue light is probably not them watching you. It can be annoying I always think it's someone coming to our door. I don't think it bothers my neighbour hopefully we put ours up after noticing footprints in the garden. Bought the camera and it saved us from being broken in to in 2022 during the night. Our ring camera will sometime will alert if someone passes the fence or drives down the road which is a good distance away.

So there were 100-200 motions in your garden yesterday? Or have you not set up the boundaries so it only records your property?

Get up really early a few times and trigger it ..or late ...it may cause them to set it differently..xx

So it has been angled at/towards the bit of garden that's yours? Weird.
I thought they just filmed what was directly ahead of them. I'd put my bins in that square bit in that case. Might as well be hung for a sheep than a lamb.

I'd wave at her really enthusiastically every time the curtain twitches.

It has a range with a radius. Ours was triggering none stop when people walked past the drive and before they’d entered the path. It also triggered whenever anyone entered next doors path. We needed to change it, so we reduced the radius and it’s fine. We were in no way spying on the neighbors. In fact the number of notifications were annoying! I honestly couldn’t care less when Tracey next door put her bins out.

This seems like a storm in a teacup.