Home Security - possible DV harassment

[PDZeus]

my ex is abusive and despite me leaving him 7 years ago he still trys to find ways to harass me. as soon as one route is blocked, he finds another. he does enough to not quite hit police thresholds for arrest but it’s still exhausting and makes me feel unnerved. I live in a HA property and since i moved in i have had sash jammers on front and back doors and a ring doorbell. they have been happy with these measures. there is no longer a non mol in place but it is in the court order for contact with the children (a whole different thread!) he isn’t to cross the boundary of my home and to park outside the doorbell. police have said if he breaches that, ring 999.

he twice parked in front of my drive while i was in my car preventing me leaving. on police advice i warned him in writing and said a repeat would be formally reported as harassment. he has since twice half parked across my drive. i have warned him again. police are not keen to do much at the minute.

twice in the last 6 weeks i have woken up to my outside tap on and it has been running all night. it’s not possible an animal did it and the children weren’t home.

two weeks ago i found a huge dead bird (black bird? crow?) in the children’s garden pool. again children were not home.

2 out of the 4 blocked drive incidents weren’t captured on the ring door bell. there was absolutely nothing re the tap or bird incidents but if you approach the house from the other direction and cross the neighbours drive it doesn’t kick in.

i don’t think the ring doorbell is that good to be honest. it’s missed me coming and going before.

if i go to the police with what i have so far it will get dismissed so i need to up my home security camera set up.

i am not great with tech so i need something with an easy set up, a linked app for me to download incidents to my phone but no subscription and good quality day and night images but also not a big outlay as funds are tight (another thread but this escalation is linked to the net closing in on him re non payment of CMS).

AIBU to think that this kind of set up doesn’t exist?

AINBU and wise mumsnetters will point me to a perfect solution?

I would actually recommend adding more ring cameras. I had to do this 6 months ago due to dv issues. Add as many as you have to, to cover the back, the part of the front which the ring doorbell doesn't catch, and anywhere else there's a risk. Honestly, it's worth it's financial outlay.

Don’t get more wifi cameras. Jammers are cheap as chips on eBay.
you can buy cameras with sd cards for not a lot on Amazon, so if they are inside ones which can sit on a windowsill.
another thought is wildlife cameras could work.
he will see the red on the camera though.

thanks @glittercunt (love the name!) i’m a bit disillusioned with the ring as it hasn’t captured me walking right past it before and it should have picked up him parking across my drive but hasn’t half the time.

@FatherFrostyi did wonder about jammers and how they work. wildlife camera is not a bad idea for the back though

Get more ring camera it will work and go to the local station and report. Use some key words.
There used to be a non molestion order lifted in 2024.
twice he had physically blocked my from leaving on this date and this date
twice he has blocked my car
My Outdoor tap has been deliberately left running
a dead bird has been left

my mental and emotional is shot after 7 years of abuse that resulted in a non molestion order. I do not feel safe.

From now on I advise all drop off and pick ups happen and a neutral public 3 rd space eg Sainsbury’s customer services or he picks them up and drops them back to school. Reduce your contact.

On my house we have Tapo C310 cameras from amazon, front and back, that cover the whole garden and a view of the drive/street. They're about £30, could you get one of these and pay a handyman to install?

They have decent night vision, are motion activated and you can change the camera angle via the app. They pick up sound too and you can watch a live feed. You can set to get notified by any motion or just when they detect an actual human. You can also set off a VERY loud alarm from the app.

You can get solar powered cameras. You need an SD card to record images and a mobile sim so they dont need hard wiring or wifi. Some can pan round.
take a look on Amazon - there may be offers on Prime day

@Rudeteenagers

sadly family court won’t support neutral drop off as they say the plan in the order is acceptable. also on a sunday at 6pm there really isn’t anywhere with cctv that has plenty people milling about for my own safety as we live quite far from busy towns and any cities which is partly why the pick up drop off lab we have is in place. family law is so often in conflict with criminal law. if i reduce contact he will have my arse back in court for a year of hell and the damage those bastards Cafcass did to the children will start again.
i need to box clever with good evidence of the harassment.
last time he half blocked me in i went out to my car on the pretext of getting something out the boot and took a picture with my phone (i reverse park on my drive)

Just to say that we had a phase of finding our outside tap switched on and flowing full. Never found out who/what caused it but it happened 7 or 8 times over a month and then never again.

You need to start a diary over his behaviour and build a case. He sounds obsessed which is a big red flag but it doesn't surprise me that the police aren't interested.

You need better cameras and I'd contact Rights of Women for legal advice. I'd also contact your local domestic abuse organisation and get safety advice.

You might want to look at this OP

OP can you consult a security company for advice? They should be able to recommend cameras and those motion activated lights that will light up your garden/front drive if there's any movement there. Sorry that you're having to deal with this, it must be scary and exhausting 😕

@MiloMinderbinder925
i have 7 years of diary’s.
police have tried but he’s so slippery it all ends up NFA on evidential basis with CPS.
ive been trying to speak to someone at rights of women for 2 years - never managed to get anyone to pick up.
have had loads of support from local DV services. as i’m not getting my windows put in, i’m in a professional role so don’t need benefits or housing advice and social services aren’t involved, i’m doing ‘amazing’ and don’t need them 🙄
honestly, i’ve been through it all, and contacted them all.
i just don’t have funds for a solicitor and endless litigation so i’m fire fighting/in a perpetual whack-a-mole.
if i could get tangible evidence i would push the police but i’m in a no man’s land for a bit longer

We have a Eufy door bell camera, with an extra security camera covering the side entrance. The images are clear day and night, link with our mobile phones and no monthly subscription costs. Good (rechargeable) battery life but can get it wired in.

@PDZeus

Try FLOWS, they can also give you legal advice.

You can also contact Child Law Advice regarding contact: https://childlawadvice.org.uk/

Did anyone tell you about the Sanctuary Scheme? They assess your house for safety and make it safe for you. You can contact the council regarding it.

You can always contact the National Domestic Abuse helpline who are available 24/7 or Refuge via webchat for advice.

Also you could look up Paladin which is a charity that gives advice on dealing with stalking. With the dead bird, this is getting into that territory

@Carnation25thats good to know. we have a eufy robot hoover and we love him 🙂

@MiloMinderbinder925 you probably think i’m being negative but i have tried with all those organisations and it’s just not as easy to get the help as people think. they are so stretched it’s difficult to get more than basic advice.
I’m familiar with the sanctuary scheme and have upgraded in line with that when i left him.

@parietali will
look at them. they are new to me.
the bird did freak me out but i hadn’t put the pool
cover on that night so put it down to my own absent mindedness. but birds like that just don’t routinely fall from the sky into a 10ft pool like that. no sign of injury to the bird. i had to scoop it up with a shoe box, tie a bin liner round the box and then the wheelie bin smelt like rotting corpse over the heatwave 🤢 i’ve had it steam cleaned now. this is and always has been his MO, not the dramatic, windows out and dramatic stuff but the lower
level insidious stuff that’s difficult to pin down. classic gaslighting behaviour.

OP is there not a way to turn off your outside tap from inside your home? Most people turn them off during the winter to prevent freezing. I'd just turn it off and turn it on again when I want to use it, at least this way if it is him, he'll get a surprise when he turns it on only to find that there is no water!

@Givenupshopping i’ve never done this before so will investigate the depths under my sink. i forgot to mention that the second time it was turned on it was done with enough force to damage it so i had to get a plumber to fix it.

OP, just to check you're looking in the right place to turn the tap off, is the outdoor tap actually located close to your kitchen sink? That may sound a strange question, but if for example it's on a wall outside of a cloakroom or downstairs bathroom, it might be there instead. Just bear in mind that you don't want to turn your whole water supply off, just the one to the exterior tap.

@Givenupshopping yes it’s plumbed from my kitchen tap. it’s my task when i finish work today to investigate.