A simple deterrent I’ve found is the “Driveway Motion Sensor” sold by Harbor Freight.
I keep one inside of my train barn and another in front of my garage. They sell them in several different channel numbers, so I can tell if someone is inside the barn or in the driveway. They only sell for about $12. If you have a fenced back yard so no stray animals can get in, you can position one to cover that area also.
Regards,
Mark
About 10 years ago somebody broke into a friend’s garage and tried to steal his 350# anvil. They got it about halfway across the floor before being interrupted.
The local cops were telling my friend that they had “nothing to go on” to investigate further.
I suggested they call around the local hospitals and inquire if a couple guys had come in with their nuts dragging on the ground…
they weren’t amused.
My friend said next time he was going to add a 30 cup coffee urn and a case of donuts to the theft report list. That way they might at least LOOK.
Get a Doberman
Mik said:
About 10 years ago somebody broke into a friend's garage and tried to steal his 350# anvil. They got it about halfway across the floor before being interrupted.The local cops were telling my friend that they had “nothing to go on” to investigate further.
I suggested they call around the local hospitals and inquire if a couple guys had come in with their nuts dragging on the ground…
they weren’t amused.
My friend said next time he was going to add a 30 cup coffee urn and a case of donuts to the theft report list. That way they might at least LOOK.
Get a Doberman
A very nice policeman (from another jurisdiction) once told me that they can’t spend much time investigating stuff that they don’t think the DA will prosecute… even when there IS a solid chain of evidence. It’s too much like paperwork, costs too much, and just frustrates the investigating officer.
Some local departments (and county prosecutors) are better than others.
Unfortunately, our locals (actually State Police) just tell us to “take pictures”… whether it’s vandalism, animal abuse (we have a local cretin who’s hobby is torturing and strangling cats), theft, or even assault. I hate to think what it would take to actually get them to send a car sometime before the next day.
Ray, solar powered, motion-activated lights are easy to install, and can be installed anywhere outdoors where the solar panel will get plenty of sunlight during the day. The only wire is from the solar panel to the light fixture. Mine has been more reliable than an electric-powered unit I have elsewhere. I would have a big smart dog like Terry Burr’s if I thought it wouldn’t excrete all over the layout or dig up the track.
Reading this, several things come to mind:
Ray … there are a bunch of alarm options that use wireless components (battery powered…) and solar cells would make those run for quite a long time. CCTV of one kind or another, as long as the quality is high enough to recognize suspects, can be helpful in identifying the people who cause problems. If you find the siren isn’t deterring would be crooks, perhaps a loudspeaker recording of gunfire … 
I’ve made a career out of emergency communications … and I can understand a lot of the frustrations. There are limited resources to begin with, and a single visit from an unknown criminal who’s gone when you discover he’s been is extremely hard to solve, even if you have a photo, or a good description, and most neighbors, far from looking out for each other, “don’t want to get involved.” Also, if what you’re calling about is not in progress (meaning there’s no suspect to catch in the act,) most departments these days aren’t coming lights and sirens, and will deal with the stack of “in progress” reports before moving on to the “report only” calls. Small consolation if it’s your stuff, I know. Unfortunately, there’s enough misuse of the system that a lot of folks with legitimate reasons to call for law enforcement end up with unreasonable wait times because so many other people find it necessary to call law enforcement for everything from wrong drive through orders to children who won’t do homework (or maybe just don’t understand the difference between “emergency” and “inconvenience”) and the folks with the legitmate concerns feel like nobody cares.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but in my personal and professional experience, in a lot of cases it’s not that we don’t care, it’s a matter of system overload.
Matthew (OV) said:Many times I'd really settle for AT ALL...... "In progress", with pictures, a known perp (even with a single track in the fresh snow with part of the stuff sitting right outside the thief's front door) doesn't seem to rate response here. Not beyond a cruiser simply driving through - many times a few days later. Trust me, I'm not the only one who feels this way. A couple township commissioners voiced the same concerns (after one of them suffered a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff liberated and more destroyed). If it ain't felony level, there's not much point even calling, they ain't coming.
if what you're calling about is not in progress (meaning there's no suspect to catch in the act,) most departments these days aren't coming lights and sirens.
After somebody (everybody knows who, but nobody saw him actually light the match) set a kitten on fire in the middle of the road we saw a few more patrols… for about 3 weeks. And then ONLY because we got the animal cruelty folks involved. So I can’t help but laugh (rather bitterly) every time some local municipality decides they’re going to close their local police department and turn enforcement over to the state guys… Then tell the residents that they’re going to get “equal protection”.
I understand being short handed. I understand tight budgets. I agree that life or death is a huge priority. I even understand that, being a rural area, the guy(s) on duty might be 20 or so minutes away. But when stuff happens (again) I just can’t help but be reminded of this story, even if it’s bogus: http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/response.asp
But that would probably just land ME in jail
If it wasn’t for a couple neighbors (BIG guys) telling the midget mafia that if they damaged my layout again that they weren’t going to bother calling the police, I probably wouldn’t have track left (gas, tools, and anything else not bolted down that’s light enough for somebody to carry seems to still be fair game… even with a lock on the shed they just shoved the doors off the tracks)
If it’s valuable, and you like it, don’t leave it outside.
I did not read all of these.
But this winter we have been remodeling a “flip” house for my son. The garage got broke into. but nothing was taking becuase “we think” no lights was wired in yet and they could not see.
So we used Ben’s two deer cameras about $80 each chained to a tree and high on the house. Infer-red flash with motion. we gave the computer chip to the police and they tried to make it better to ID the theives. Since then we installed better lighting and woow , we are very happy with the clear photos, mainly of us coming and going.
But we feel we are ready for them next time.
I am planning to do this in the train shop and work shop.
First, let me say I truly feel for anyone who gets violated.
Second, I am reminded of whoever it is comes to the ECLSTS with the diesel horns on top of his truck. Now, if you had a set of these and some floodlights set to a motion detector — whoooo, boy!!!
@Lou That reminds me of a car alarm system that installed inside the car an alarm horn that was so loud that some one could not stay inside the car as the Dbs were so high as to cause physical pain. It was ruled as illegal to install as if it went off while you were driving, you had to immediately bail out of the car or go painfully deaf.
Costco has a LED flood light with a camera and motion detector. It will follow motion from side to side and take a video while it is monitoring the motion and put the video on an internal SD card. Of course, the LEDs, which are bright, only come on when it’s dark. The 1 meg SD card can hold 500, 40 second incidences of detected motion. I gotta have one (or more) and they’re only…$159. Not solar however.
BTW, ever since I did a google search for security systems, now I’m suddenly getting telemarketers calling me about security systems.
Ray Dunakin said:
BTW, ever since I did a google search for security systems, now I’m suddenly getting telemarketers calling me about security systems.
yes, google is very efficient in these things.
i once missclicked on an add for cartwheels. ever since google shows me how much of these things exist in the world.
Ray You could run wires for lights in the attic . and mount them on the eaves of the roof.
As Jeff Foxworthy says, “A Chevy short block hanging on a chain from a tree is a sure sign that a large ‘Personal Defense Weapon’ attached to a bad tempered person lives at this address.”