Neighbour’s security cameras overlooking bedroom, bathroom and garden: any advice?

[Julysunshineishere]

Has anyone experience of being overlooked by their neighbours security cameras?

Our neighbour has installed cameras which record visual and audio in the soffits of his detached house. One of the cameras is directly opposite my daughter's bedroom window, and an other is 16ft directly across from our bathroom window. (I have hung voiles in her bedroom for privacy, but frustrated I've had to do this! We already had a blind for nighttime, she just felt 'spied on').

I feel I'm being watched constantly daily and the neighbour refuses to show me the camera footage, and denies it records audio. It isn't possible to converse with him, we have tried.

I have spoken to a local supplier of the make and model of the camera that is installed and it is a top of the range camera for audio and image.

Having tried to speak to the neighbour and being completely dismissed I just feel like I have to accept the unwanted intrusion into my daily life.

He has also installed sensor lights on the front of his house that light up as soon as I go onto my drive and get in and out of my car or go to my gate.

The legal department of my home insurance say that other than asking him to show me footage , which he won't, I can write a letter requesting any footage of myself and family as he has a responsibility to produce it. I doubt he will do this as it relies upon the neighbour being responsible and honest about what he is recording.
I'm looking into installing a pergola to give us privacy in our garden, as the rear camera is directly over our patio. I did ask that a camera at the rear was repositioned to not look directly onto our property, I was told it focused purely upon his gate and vehicle and he walked away.

We live in an area that, thankfully hasn't a high crime rate and no history of burglaries or car break ins etc.

Any suggestions? Moving isn't an option!
I love my home, I just don't love feeling constantly watched and my comings and goings illuminated at night and captured 24/7.

I had a nieghbour who installed a camera over their garage which was beeping loudly every time people walked along the pavement. This went on for weeks before it was repositioned and the issue no longer occurs.

I suggest you contact your local authority ( council) who will enforce the rules which are that a camera has to be positioned to only display his property only.

Your local authority can and will enforce these rules as people can not and absalutely should not be recording images beyond their own property boundaries.

That’s awful. It must feel like living in a prison yard.

Not read the full thread, but my sister in law had similar issues she contacted the police who visited them. They said the camera was not recording (as if that was an excuse) and were told regardless it cannot face a neighbours property and it was to be moved. It was. Similar type of neighbours as yours.

Similar happened here - neighbour placed a recording device pointing into a bedroom window. The police didn't give a shit really ,(grey area, request data, blablablah)

I've planted a big cows' trough with bamboo, which is now 2 storeys high, with a spotlight that shines upward through the bamboo at night (the light makes spying harder)

I do hope laws are brought in at some point to prevent men (always men) from pointing their cameras wherever they fancy.

You keep saying that you 'have' to have cameras because of parcels and the puppy. Maybe he feels he 'has' to have them too, for some reason. I think it's unreasonable that you have an issue with his cameras when you have cameras yourself.

I agree with this 100%, @Julysunshineishere.

watchingthishtread
Not arguing about his right to have cameras, more that his positioned where they are have the potential for intruding and recording our property and he's taking no responsibility to discuss this. Ours are purely capturing images in our garden. There's no need for creating drama.

What is it with men, and it usually is, thinking they can do whatever they want?
I wonder if he would have cameras up whrer they are if there wasn't a teen girl and a woman living next door, just a man on his own?🤔

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and personal experiences. I think I've got a good idea of what I need to do now and hope to focus on enjoying my garden.

Good for you OP, it's a type of bullying otherwise on his part. Don't let him win.

You can submit a subject access request for any footage he may have. There is legislation governing the use of cctv on private property which he should be complying with. I'd send a letter pointing him to the legislation and asking for any footage he may have. And ask what he is doing in terms of deleting footage, how regularly etc as this is governed by GDPR.

Did he fit the cameras himself? If they were professionally fitted I think the fitter would know the rules around cctv and would ensure they were not filming outside the parameters allowed?

What is it with everyone with these cameras? If you go on Faceyak its always full of people posting a grainy video of some car incident or person letting their dog shit somewhere.

I dont have one. I dont care what people are doing and if i wake up in the morning and my car is damaged or there is a dogshit, i will deal with it. Putting up cameras for a puppy, well tbh part of me is happy you and your neighbour are keeping your camera antics between you. I really couldnt give a toss.

If you really want to fight fire with fire just buy some dummy cameras off ebay and get someone to put them pointing directly at your neighbours house. Or go full OTT and get a couple of retina burning security lights and point them directly at his camera. It might just cause everything to go nuclear

tessasanderson
"I dont have one. I dont care what people are doing and if i wake up in the morning and my car is damaged or there is a dogshit, i will deal with it. Putting up cameras for a puppy, well tbh part of me is happy you and your neighbour are keeping your camera antics between you. I really couldnt give a toss."

Confused with this viewpoint why you bothered posting on this thread thread when I asked for advice? Strange.

I definitely don't want things to go nuclear. I posted asking for helpful information to help resolve the situation I find myself in.

I think I will take the suggestions so far and do as I said.

I'm not here for an argument.

Thanks to all those who have posted with constructive posts, and helped me to clarify the situation and seeing both sides.

We can restrict the area our camera records on our app. Mine could see right across the street but I can narrow the field so I can only see to my front gate and driveway and no further so it doesn't pick up neighbours or people walking past.

Because you do not see the irony of getting upset about someone else having cameras when you have them yourself.

Musicaltheatremum
That's what I'm hoping he's actually doing. He's been so difficult dealing with a simple fencing issue over the past three years, when he upgraded his cameras and the position altered, he completely ignored our attempt to have a quick conversation.

His behaviour is completely odd and we ignore that on a daily basis, each to their own, however the issues with the cameras does need to be resolved.

There have been incidents of stones and cardboard been thrown over from his side and we've tried to approach this is a non confrontational way, but I think he's irked we've informed him our dog has been hit by stones we've seen being thrown whilst being in the garden.

Hopefully the data request for images and audio will resolve the concerns.

Tessasanderson-
Because you do not see the irony of getting upset about someone else having cameras when you have them yourself.

Not at all the case if you have read the posts.

Buy a cheap laser pen / pointer, tape down the button and position it to shine directly at his camera from your daughter’s window.

There’s absolutely nothing he can do about it and it’s not going to damage the camera but it will mean the footage will be completely ‘swamped’ by the light.

Interesting that he stares at your cameras while having cameras himself... I have actually found that people who have cameras pointing all over the place at other people are often incredibly paranoid about being filmed themselves.

My own next door neighbour, who is a whole topic in himself, recently accused us of filming him. We don't even have so much as a Ring doorbell. He, by contrast, has cameras on his house that point straight at the house opposite, and carries a GoPro with him with he immediately points at people as soon as he argues with them. He seems to think that's fine, but if he suspects anyone's filming him (which literally nobody is) he goes ballistic at them.

We had a dummy camera which incensed our neighbour. He was convinced it was real and started wearing a GoPro whilst in the garden. It was all a but mad.

That was after he sent us a subject access request for footage from the "camera" and was told it was a dummy. We only put it up to deter him from coming into our garden when we weren't there.

I bit unhinged...but when my dad has issues with overlooking neighbours from a barn conversion built beside him, he went out in the garden starkers. It was completely enclosed if you were on foot, so he was only seen from a few windows upstairs and from any cameras.

His logic was that if they mention it, that proves they can see in his garden.

Th OP doesn’t point her cameras into her neighbour’s bedroom or patio.