I mentioned in passing in a previous post that in the last year or so, someone has been coming onto our property and adjusting the settings on the sensor light in the carport, and also leaving our outside taps on. Whoever it was came infrequently, and just when we’d think they weren’t coming back, we’d come home to find the sensor light off, and our taps left on full. We initially thought that it might be one of the neighbours’ kids adjusting the light, since her bedroom window is right next to our carport and we thought that maybe the light was turning on during the night and disturbing her. But we didn’t really think it was her, because we assumed that whoever it was who was turning off the light, was also turning on the taps, and what possible reason could she have for doing that? And besides, they don’t seem like the people to just walk onto someone else’s property and do it themselves, I assume they’d come and say something if the light were a problem.

He also thought it might be the kid next door (but on the other side), because he just seems a little weird. It’s hard to put a finger on what it is, but he’s just a bit creepy.

We were getting pretty pissed off, so M got some surveillance cameras to keep an eye on things, particularly seeing as we were going to be away on holiday for a month and wanted to protect the house somehow.

Well, they’ve paid off, because M well and truly busted the culprit yesterday. He was driving down our street, and was about to turn into the driveway when he saw someone, holding a pole of some kind, hanging around in the carport. The guy saw/heard M’s car, and ran around the side of the house. M got out of his car and chased the guy around the back of the house, and found the weird kid from next door. M asked what the problem was, and the kid said that he was chasing his dogs (he’s got 2 chihuahuas). This might have been believable, because apparently they have been on our property before (although I’ve never seen them there - they’ve always stopped at the boundary of the neighbour’s house whenever I’ve seen them), so M let it go, and the kid apologised for being on our property, and left.

M went inside and checked the surveillance videos, and what did he see but clear footage of the kid from next door walking up to our sensor light, adjusting the sensor, and turning the light off, just before M got home. Busted. I think M was fuming at that stage, and he called me at work to let me know that he caught the person turning the light off.

I asked what he was going to do, and he said he was going to call the police, and go and see the kid’s mother about it. I didn’t want him to do anything too rash, just in case the kid snapped and did something worse to our place, but M assured me he wouldn’t. So he called the police, but they said they couldn’t file a report without having to follow it up (ie send out a patrol to talk to the kid about it), and since M wanted to try to sort it out with the mother first, he didn’t end up making a report.

So he waited for the mother to get home, and went around to see her. He’d printed out photos of the kid in our carport, and took them around with him just in case the mother didn’t believe him. The kid answered the door, and M asked to see his mother. The kid asked what it was about (like he didn’t know), and M just said that he’d like to speak to her. The kid went inside, and a minute later came out again, again asking what it was about. M changed the subject, asking whether the dogs get out often, and the mother came out.

In a nutshell, M said that there had been previous cases of someone turning our light off, so we’d bought surveillance cameras, and had caught her son doing it. He offered to show the photos, but the mother said she didn’t need to see them. She sent her son inside and talked to M for a while, apologising and saying that she understood how he felt and would talk to her son to find out what the story was. M played it down, saying that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but we did feel unsafe knowing that someone had been trespassing. He also mentioned that he had called the police, but not made anything official. She said to let her know if it happened again.

So she said all the right things to M, but who knows whether she actually said anything to her son. Hopefully that will be the end of it, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I hope that he was sufficiently scared by being caught that he won’t come back, but I am a little worried that he will, and maybe do something worse. At least he knows now that we have the cameras, and even if he damages one we’ll still have evidence of him damaging it, so there’s not really much point doing anything. But if he does do anything again, we’re calling the police.

The one thing M didn’t ask was why he did it - I can’t imagine what reason he would have, unless he just doesn’t like us for some reason and was doing it out of spite.