We have two bifold doors. A upvc on in the lounge and a wooden one in the kitchen.
The wooden one has exposed hinge bolts on the outside. We opened them up this morning to find the bolts have been removed x 3 and the door dropped off. It looks like someone had a go at the bolts but couldn’t gain entry.
Nothing is missing. Back gate was open.
We live on a very quiet road and a short spur off the road with about 30m x 150m of wood between the houses and road and a steep bank, so unless you know we are there you can’t see our house (certainly not visible on street view).
Neighbours cctv has picked up some shadows of people but no faces .
Police informed and crime number given but won’t be coming round. We have an alarm but no CCTV, guess I ought to get some fitted.
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Look at hinge side security devices. You can get simple hinge side bolts like this for timber doors to make them more secure whether on not they have exposed hinges on the outside. There might well be something similar for uPVC.
www.simplydoorhandles.co.uk/additional-security/ahb1000zp
We have visible cameras covering front and rear of the house. We'll never know if this has deterred anybody, only if it doesn't. Burglars (and car thieves) are wise to them now. One of my near neighbours caught two on his doorbell camera wearing black balaclavas with eyeholes recently. On looking for damage he found that they had drilled a hole in his car door to get at the lock, and broken the steering lock. They presumably couldn't start the car.
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We had an intruder in the house about three weeks ago. No break in, we were both at home, as was the dog. Both our cars were here and quite visible. He or she must have climbed over 6ft high gates or fences to get round the back of the house, it was afternoon, in bright daylight. The outer back door was open for the dog.
Must have moved like a wraith, first we knew was when I went to the back door and found an Amazon box on the floor inside ! I was sat in the lounge not 8ft from the crime scene and the dog didn't kick up her usual fuss !
Neither of us could understand why the perpetrator didn't just ring one of the two front doorbells or thump on the front door, as most couriers seem to do. The gates are bolted on the inside and the position of the bolt can't be seen from outside, being one eight feet wide gate made to look like two with no footholds outside.
I read local group reports from people who have had bicycles stolen from sheds by someone unscrewing hinges or cutting padlocks and have posted messages about fitting at least one coach bolt per hinge or staple and spending more than £1.00 for a padlock. Of course, it's not worth it for a couple of grands worth of Bromptons !
My double doored garage is secured with a Kryptonite van lock with it's own protected hasp, all coach bolted up. £40odd 15 years ago, impregnable apart from Stihl saw or angle grinder..and a lot of time and noise !
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All you. can do is make your house seem more agro than the others. I have a Chub alarm box visible on the outside wall, a couple of obviously working blink cameras and a high locked side gate. Seems to have worked.
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My brother in law is a sparky and he has installed visible high quality cameras. He was in the garden one day, concealed by the fence, when two police officers walked by on their way back to their car. “Look at that” said one “probably a drug dealer”.
He hasn’t been raided (or burgled) yet.
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So all this home automation nonsense I waste my time and money on - is now doubling up as a burglar deterrent. It's all done with cheapish devices on Home Assistant software on a Raspberry Pi.
I've set up an "alarm mode" which can be turned on when we are not here (or even overnight if we want. I'm thinking I will automatically trigger it if both phones are over a pre-determined distance away from the house for a specified period, and turned off again once either of us moves within a certain radius).
During which, if any of the internal motion detectors detects motion, it will cause lights to flash, messages to be spoken over the Google Home devices (saying something like you are on video and the police have been called), and phone alerts/emails to various people. I bought a small Zigbee noisemaker this week for about a tenner which has a loud siren mode. That is going to be added tomorrow, and I may get another of those. I am hopeful that if someone got in and that lot started up they would soon go away.
I also use a presence mode which switches specified lights on and off when we are away (again automatically started by phone location) - not randomly but based on my actual history of those lights switching over the past 4 weeks or whatever I set.
I've not got round to fitting window and door open detectors but that will come.
Most devices are multi purpose - in "normal mode" the door detectors would just be used to remind you that a door isn't properly closed after a set length of time, or maybe turn off the heating in a room with an open window (I've started installing ZigBee TRV valves on the rads).
The motion detectors manage the lighting in many rooms - switching, dimming and brightening according to occupancy and time of day and ambient light. I don't use coloured scenes but I could.
I have automations to turn off stuff at a particular time which may have been inadvertently left on (e.g. "global turn off at 01:00"), as well as voice control of all connected devices and routines to manage them, if needed
The sirens may double up as audible warnings of something else but I've not yet chosen what, or just use them as doorbell extenders or messaging system. I have temp and humidity detectors so can switch stuff on and off according to temperature and humidity. My solar panels are linked so I can turn stuff on (or off) when solar generation reaches a set level. The car charger is accessible.
In case you don't want to talk out loud (maybe late at night) I have some NFC tags you can wave your phone at in strategic places to manage devices or automations. It monitors another Pi which provides some services and reboots it if it goes offline.
It enters the next day's electricity and gas tariffs into my calendar (I'm on a variable Tracker tariff which changes daily) and I am recently enrolled onto an R&D trial with Octopus, who have given me some equipment which tells me my instant gas and electricity consumption so again I can use that to control stuff, obv in conjunction with any of the other things.
When I was on their Agile tariff, which changes every 30 minutes, I could define a device (e.g. car charger) and how much energy I needed for what period and it would work out the cheapest half hour slots and turn the device on and off accordingly to optimise cost. For devices requiring contiguous time - e.g. dishwasher for 2 hours - it would work out the cheapest window and start it accordingly.
It's thinking up useful uses which is tricky!
Anyway, back to the topic... I have also got a Yale alarm box on the outside of the house but it isn't attached to anything... and didn't deter the burglars we had some years ago...
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Smokie, I don’t know whether to be impressed with all that or to be worried for you:)
I was sure we were going to get to alerts when daily bowel motions were different over an average 10 week period….
You do have something like that, don’t you……. :)
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Hmmm, seems like a nice way of saying "he is full of sh.."
Certainly a complicated, full function fully featured set up - Which is another way of saying "I bet half of it isn't working 100%"
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i have similar aspirations as (to?) smokie, well a mish mash of home automation solutions with some RPi monitoring, plus a fully working (at the moment) Tado ch control. More than 75% works, if you discount the flat battery temp/humidity monitors sitting her next the keyboard.
The biggest worry is if I drop dead, the wife will either freeze to death in the dark, or start receiving rather large energy bills.
I would not bother with window alarms, one of neighbours suffered an intruder recently, but could not work out why th alarm was not triggered. All doors and accessible windows alarmed. Very simple, the intruder just removed a large double glazed unit from the frame and climbed in.
Last edited by: sherlock47 on Mon 13 Nov 23 at 17:22
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"The biggest worry is if I drop dead, the wife will either freeze to death in the dark, or start receiving rather large energy bills."
Yes, we've had similar discussions. I have done a spreadsheet listing all the equipment, who it's made by, what it's called in our system, which app (if it has one, most do) how to control it and how to remove/disable it.
I've had to mostly not do stuff which is "core" - although my own reluctance was due to possible failure but so far so good.
I did order a couple of window alarms yesterday, not sure what I'll do with them. Turn off heating if window open maybe? :-) Fridge door check? Dunno. Will probably end up in the box with all the other bits I've not used (I eBay'd a load of plugs and switches recently, couldn't think of a use for them!!)
Face and number plate recognition on a Pi camera is one I'd like to do, along with appropriate warnings..
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Look, lets be honest, none of what you have done is necessary, a lot of it probably isnt even useful. But its a hobby that you like developing and tinkering with, which is fair enough.
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>> I was sure we were going to get to alerts when daily bowel motions were different over an average 10 week period….
>>
I don't often laugh out loud on here, but that certainly did the trick!
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I guess you can find a motion sensor for that kind of motion but I don't have any (yet!) :-)
However I do have a little LED light which hangs over the edge of the toilet bowl so I can see where I'm peeing without turning on the clicky light. :-)
Surprising though it may seem, all of the Home Assistant junk works nearly all of the time... different brands of motion sensor work differently, and I've not found one which does it quite to my requirement yet.
And I'm always buying new bits to bolt on. The Home Assistant product is actually remarkably resilient, easy to manage and configure once you get the hang of it. I do very little in no-standard ways.
It's really about knowing the scope what can be done, and thinking about what you want, as being effectively a crowd sourced development there are an absolutely mind-blowing amount of devices and information sources which can be added and made to interact as you want.
There's even an integration for National Rail github.com/jfparis/homeassistant_nationalrail where, as you can see, he has worked on getting info from his local Weybridge to London lines, along with perturbation alerts and platform info.
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 12 Nov 23 at 13:01
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ATM nicked from Booths store in Settle last night.
FB questions like ‘was anyone in the store at the time’ ? Doh.
Only a few days ago Booths announced they were doing away with self service tills in all their stores bar two…not there has ever been a self serve till in Booths Settle.
Quite the coincidence.
They served themselves. Probably didn’t fit in the trolley.
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Although portrayed as a victory for consumers and a result of customer demand, the removal of those tills is actually an attempt to reduce the huge amount of checkout fraud the company has suffered. Likely to be followed by other supermarkets especially those in more deprived areas.
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Mates in retail are telling me that shoplifting has risen massively around Wokingham, which isn't usually classed as a deprived area, and the shoplifters are becoming completely open about it as they know they won't be challenged or caught.
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>> usually classed as a deprived area,
Its a bit near Bracknell.
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Many more stores now employing visible security staff on doors. Our Marks and Spencer has restricted access/ exit to one set of doors.
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>> of those tills is actually an attempt to reduce the huge amount of checkout fraud
>> the company has suffered. Likely to be followed by other supermarkets especially those in more
>> deprived areas.
They will have a cost/benefit threshold to work to. So yes it wont be a national policy.
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Some stores near us need you to show a bar code on the receipt to exit the self service check outs. French supermarkets have done that too.
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>> Some stores near us need you to show a bar code on the receipt to
>> exit the self service check outs. French supermarkets have done that too.
>>
Costco do the same.
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Waitrose have increased the number of rescans required. All checkouts now have cameras and screen displays, presumably to remind you that you are being watched.
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There is nothing new about shoplifting, the rates by region have more or less remained the same for the last 25 years, the only time they dropped was when covid restrictions kicked in.
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>> "the rates by region have more or less remained the same for the last 25
>> years"
>>
>> Areyou sure?
Yes, and there you have a classic case of selective misleading reporting. Note I mentioned the drop during covid?
www.statista.com/statistics/303563/shoplifting-in-england-and-wales-uk-y-on-y/#:~:text=Looking%20at%20individual%20police%20force,3.3%20offences%20per%201%2C000%20population.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 12 Nov 23 at 19:57
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The official statistics do confirm your statement. However the views of Companies like John Lewis and the Coop seem to contradict this. There is of course a lag in reported statistics and the apparent lack of interest by the police in shoplifting may well have lead to a decline in reporting events.
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Never been any self checkouts at Booths in Settle. Terrible slow service, more often than not. I’m polite. Hello, thank you, cheerio. I don’t want a conversation. Appreciate old folks might, but plenty of opportunities provided by U3A and Age Concern uk.
That’s why I shop elsewhere for 90% of my provisions. And Booths prices are, overall, expensive.
Do tell. Hope do you fiddle self check outs. Put avocados through as spuds ?
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>>
>> Do tell. Hope do you fiddle self check outs. Put avocados through as spuds ?
>>
Or onions.
Apparently.
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>>showing receipts on exit
It’ll be interesting to see the first case of a person stopped for not showing a receipt and being detained.
I don’t think not having a receipt is enough to suspect shoplifting. I have reluctantly used self service checkouts and picked up the receipt issued by the machine only to realise that they have been jammed up and I’ve walked out with someone else’s receipt.
Shop security is supposed to use the SCONE acronym to identify shoplifting:
Selects, Conceals, Observed, No attempts to pay, Exits store.
Without all of those steps the security guard is on a sticky wicket re assault if they physically stop you. It would need to be a civil case because I doubt the CPS would be keen to prosecute.
Last edited by: zippy on Mon 13 Nov 23 at 00:00
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The police regard shoplifting as barely worth pursuing, shops are concerned about wrongful arrest and assaults on staff, security staff only create an illusion of some sort of control.
This is all unacceptable - if shoplifters can simply walk out with goods the traditional retail model will be broken. Options:
- employ bouncers as security staff - they have the training and presence to intimidate
- police to target stores on a random rotational basis - a little like speed camera vans
- retailers to deny access to previous offenders
- facial recognition cameras installed
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They already employ uniformed security staff in many places. The police for the most part will claim they have insufficient resources. Denying access to previous offenders will no doubt lead to legal objection “ I need to buy food form my children and it’s the only supermarket for miles”. Facial recognition cameras would, I think be illegal.
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Sainsbury's build in RFID tags into many of their high cost items (meat, clothes) - usually these would be swiped and neutralised if you went through a normal check-out but not when you use their self-service machines.
This means as you leave the self-service area the alarms go off and then again when you leave the store - used to really put me off at first but now my wife just says it's normal and keep on walking.
The security guard doesn't seem bothered by it - I guess could be a chance for a big item to be taken in plain site.
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The door alarms for RFID devices are like car alarms; the false alarm rate is so high that they're ignored.
For quite a while I set them off going in as well as out. Turned out my wallet had a tag concealed in an internal pocket that was not removed on sale. Not a high value posh brand/tooled leather job, just what they had in Cotswold Outdoor after I lost the previous example.
I was never jumped on....
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>> Denying access to previous offenders will no doubt lead
>> to legal objection “ I need to buy food form my children and it’s the
>> only supermarket for miles”.
Already happens,
>>Facial recognition cameras would, I think be illegal.
Already happens, the police admit that FR is used at all major events, and even scanned the crowd for known paedophiles at a pop concert. The issue is around GDPR and retention of images of "normal" people. blog.privacyperfect.com/the-privacyperfect-blog/facialrecognition_gdpr/discussion
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Denying access to previous offenders will no doubt lead
>> to legal objection “ I need to buy food form my children and it’s the
>> only supermarket for miles”.
Normally given a court order that only allows them in one local shop. Usually lasts 2/3 months.
>>
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>> - employ bouncers as security staff - they have the training and presence to intimidate
>> - police to target stores on a random rotational basis - a little like speed
>> camera vans
>> - retailers to deny access to previous offenders
>> - facial recognition cameras installed
All the above currently happening and has been for a few years
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>> >>showing receipts on exit
>>
>> It’ll be interesting to see the first case of a person stopped for not showing
>> a receipt and being detained.
This bloke didn't think he had to stop. Long thread.
tinyurl.com/48s8vsuz
TLDR? I didn't go awfully well for him.
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>> TLDR? I didn't go awfully well for him.
>>
Cops were in the wrong.
Not showing a receipt is not an offence and resisting a false citizens arrest is not an offence.
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>> >> TLDR? I didn't go awfully well for him.
>> >>
>> Cops were in the wrong.
>>
>> Not showing a receipt is not an offence and resisting a false citizens arrest is
>> not an offence.
Just the punchline on the thread that I linked
"Had trial today. Lost. £620 costs. £20 victim surcharge. £100 compensation. 12 months conditional discharge."
Any road zippy, you are happy to have confrontations with authority, I suggest you go for it.
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I remember that thread on PH, I think people gave him money to appeal it at CC but didn't in the end.
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He didn't exactly help himself.
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Bloke gets wrongly accused of theft, defends himself and is found in the wrong.
Great sense of justice!
I’ve been on the wrong end of this type of carp myself when a huge multi national bank I never worked for or contracted with in any way, stole / pirated some software I wrote in the 90s and cost me a fortune in server fees. I was naive at the time and thought only legitimate users with passwords and accounts could use the system which was bypassed by the bank- then somehow the police thought that stopping the theft was criminal (when my service provider switched off the service for exceeding credit limits) I was supposed to keep paying and make myself bankrupt.
A physical equivalent would be stealing petrol and suing the petrol station when the pumps ran dry!
They employed ex senior police who “spoke to their mates” still working and got the first shot in. House was raided on trumped up charges. I had to give up when my house and liberty was on the line. Remember I was the one wronged and has thousands stolen off me. This was before solicitors would do anything on a no win no fee basis.
I did have a huge sense of satisfaction when they collapsed in the banking crisis.
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>> Bloke gets wrongly accused of theft, defends himself and is found in the wrong.
All he was asked to do was show a receipt.
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>> >> Bloke gets wrongly accused of theft, defends himself and is found in the wrong.
>>
>> All he was asked to do was show a receipt.
>>
And he didn’t think he had one.
So what then - arrest everyone with out a receipt. The security industry suggests with their SCONE guidelines that more is required.
This isn’t a show your papers country, though some, including I suspect our ex-home secretary, would like it to be?
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Having compulsory identity cards probably isnt a bad thing. It would solve a lot of policing and social issues, and no hardship to those of us not constantly at odds with society
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>> Having compulsory identity cards probably isnt a bad thing.
And then you have to deal with the petty officials demanding it, just because they can to have “one over on you”.
And the huge cost of implementing it, to be paid by the citizens.
And the chance for the Govt to have tiered ID cards. A bronze one will allow you to go to the pub, but you’ll need a silver one to go a posher bar, and a gold one to sit in first class on the train. They do similar stuff in China.
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> They do similar stuff in China.
>>
Which means it would have to happen here. Clearly.
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Only last week I was asked by the lady at the bureau de change to show some ID. Same thing happened at the car hire place. They’re all obviously just trying to get “one over on me”.
These petty tyrants should just accept whatever I say.
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>> Only last week I was asked by the lady at the bureau de change to
>> show some ID. Same thing happened at the car hire place. They’re all obviously just
>> trying to get “one over on me”.
>>
>> These petty tyrants should just accept whatever I say.
>>
And what good does it do? There is still financial crime, money laundering and fraud.
There is a huge difference between getting currency for a jolly and being refused emergency treatment at a hospital because you left your docs at home or they were destroyed in the accident that necessitated you being in hospital.
Or the local gym stops you from entering or the supermarket stops you from buying stuff because you don’t have the required papers.
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Those things could in theory happen at the moment. There is nothing to stop a gym from refusing you entry if you don’t for example have a membership card.
You are confusing the right to demand identification with the method of doing it. An ID card simply provides an easy and reliable means of identification. If you can accept the need for a driving licence or a passport an ID card does surely is little different.
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>> an ID card does surely is
>> little different.
>>
Having experienced so much petty bureaucracy in my work, such as refusing to give a homeless female victim of domestic violence a bank account because she fled home without the correct paperwork, (and bank policy / the law allows the account to be set up), I imagine it getting worse with official ID cards.
Just look who has access to the Police National Computer system to see mission creep and it will happen with ID cards.
unlock.org.uk/advice/organisations-access-police-national-computer-pnc/
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Are we meant to have a problem with that? Seems reasonable and well regulated to me.
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Missed the edit…
And if you think that users of the PNC are honest look at the prosecutions for misuse.
There is also a case of a person who requested his PNC data through a subject access request. The police reported that they had no information on the person. The person knew this to be wrong and asked for the audit file to be searched. The audit file (I may have the nomenclature wrong) is on a separate system that logs all requests for information to the PNC. There was no record of a search for his SAR ever having taken place. Corruption, probably not, petty vindictiveness, my guess is bucket loads.
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“And if you think that users of the PNC are honest look at the prosecutions for misuse.“
Of course any human institution or creation is open to abuse. That there are prosecutions for abuse of the PNC surely shows that it is regulated. The question that needs to be considered is whether access to the PNC in a regulated way by certain institutions is an overall benefit to society.
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>> >> an ID card does surely is
>> >> little different.
>> >>
>>
>> Having experienced so much petty bureaucracy in my work, such as refusing to give a
>> homeless female victim of domestic violence a bank account because she fled home without the
>> correct paperwork,
I would imagine her having her id card would have made that much easier. Its, weel Errr "the correct paperwork"
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I agree on official national identity cards. The supposed infringement of liberty is one that many countries cope with. It's almost impossible to be off-grid now anyway.
Having a passport has become very useful for a number of things. I think I would have found life more difficult without it over the last few years.
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>> And the chance for the Govt to have tiered ID cards. A bronze one will
>> allow you to go to the pub, but you’ll need a silver one to go
>> a posher bar, and a gold one to sit in first class on the train.
>> They do similar stuff in China.
>>
Sorry, zippy.
You are down in my book as "bloke with a chip on his shoulder". The more you go on, the more you convince me.
Problem is - are you bringing your children up to think the same way?
Life can be much more relaxed if you just, er, relax.
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>> Sorry, zippy.
>>
>> You are down in my book as "bloke with a chip on his shoulder". The
>> more you go on, the more you convince me.
Nooo unfir. Zippy is our resident Sovereign Citizen, (freeman on the land I think is the UK version)
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No chip.
Huge awareness of how the forces of law and wealth can be used to crush the innocent.
I don’t fight every corner and am very laid back.
I’ve seen other govts do it when my mum translated for the Govt in the 70s and 80s and we had degree qualified (often UK / European universities) refugees from the Middle East and Persia at home and visits from officials usually down from London, when mum who learnt Arabic and Farsi at Uni translated. Unnecessary roadblocks were put in the way of the refugees in this country, just because the officials could.
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>> And the chance for the Govt to have tiered ID cards. A bronze one will
>> allow you to go to the pub,
Like some form of 18 card now?
>>but you’ll need a silver one to go
>> a posher bar,
Like a door policy now you mean?
>> and a gold one to sit in first class on the train.
Like you need a first class ticket now you mean?
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>> Like you need a first class ticket now you mean?
>>
I thought you sat wherever you wanted? ;-)
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>> I thought you sat wherever you wanted? ;-)
In cattle class, I know my place. Tho if I do a similar journey again, I will book first class.
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Even on the protagonists own account I think he was on a sticky wicket. more so refusing an out of court resolution.
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>> Even on the protagonists own account I think he was on a sticky wicket. more
>> so refusing an out of court resolution.
The problem at that point was that it was conditioned on admitting guilt.
Of course the root cause was standing on his rights rather than going with the flow.
The result was predictable.
There's a phenomenon in which, at many points in life, whereby u
npleasant and unfair things can happen which are not one's fault, but which could have been avoided. This, presuming he hadn't actually nicked anything or deliberately assaulted the guard, was one of them.
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 13 Nov 23 at 14:04
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Anyway, I was going to say that local supermarkets here (Tesco & Sainsbury at least) have technology that stops trollies dead in their tracks if they've not been "unlocked". There is something in the ns front wheel which brakes as you pass over some loop of some sort.
Keeps catching me out as when I collect for the food bank I don't go through a check out, which is one way they get unlocked. Security come and point a device at it to free the wheel.
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Wonder if it’s the same magnet based technology that has been around for years.
In fact my Safeway store was one of the first to trial it which must have been late 90s or early 00s.
It was accessed either through the car park or by 6 different paths. So each got a device put into ground so that when a trolley went over it, the wheels locked.
Safeway were actually pioneers or close to industry leaders for technology stuff. Their loyalty Card ABC was one of the first. They were the first for scan as you go and they had that linked into customers accounts so gave them recommendations as they shopped and built up all the customer data that we are now used to.
And their Stock Management system was state of the art but Ken Morrison in his wisdom thought it far better to go back to stock sheets and manual counts and order forms.
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>> TLDR? I didn't go awfully well for him.
>>
Cops were in the wrong.
Not showing a receipt is not an offence and resisting a false citizens arrest is not an offence.
But you are only basing that on his written account.
In the first instance, and highlighted further down from his initial account, it didn't make sense.
He didn't have his receipt. Then his partner had it but it was ripped. Was his partner in the car or out of it in the car park.
Many years of experience have shown me that people will only tell you what they want to tell you to enhance their version. It is not until such time as other witnesses/parties involved have given their accounts can you build a picture of what really happened. In his case there seemed to be sufficient grounds and evidence to get to court (no mean feat with the CPS) and get him convicted.
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Attempted Burglary - Manatee
