Ask Slashdot: Video Monitors For Areas That Are Off the Grid?

An anonymous reader writes "I have a cottage at the end of a long dirt road, no electricity nor internet, and recently some (insert expletive here) wads are using the area as a trash dump: countertops, sofas, metal scraps, tvs — all the stuff they don't want to pay to dump at the landfill. I can't block the road because it's a fire access. But I would really like to have a way to catch who is doing this. Are there any a) waterproof, b) self-contained, c) self-powered, and (ideally) d) inexpensive video-recording units out there? Are there any other creative ways to get the guys? I was thinking of something like a device that will cycle, so that the last week of video is recorded. It could take photos or video, and as long as it's small enough that I could camouflage it well, I suspect I'd be able to figure this out soon. And any idea of what my legal rights are to videotape or record?" Hunters have been doing this for years (with film, and now digital) to figure out prey patterns with cameras that are built for concealment; what else would you recommend?

Comments

Use a Drone

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you could ask the Govt if their drones are for rent...they have night vision, missiles and everything.

Deer cams

[Lumpy]

Put up the IR deer cams. Hide them because they will steal them.

Re:Deer cams

[Nethead]

What I was going to say. trailmasters.com Did webpage work for them back in '97.

Re:Deer cams

[Lumpy]

nope, well it depends on what you call "affordable" $5500.00 is affordable to some people.

But there is a self contained security camera called "silent witness" that lets you place them high up in a tree or on the roof of the cottage. just add a 12AH gel cell battery and a 20 watt solar panel and it will record to the internal SD card for over a month.

http://christy-ind.com/silent_witness/swc40r.php

Re:Deer cams

[Scutter]

Put up the IR deer cams. Hide them because they will steal them.

I've had tremendous success by putting them inside bird houses. No one steals birdhouses, or even thinks twice when they see one 15 feet up a tree.

Re:Deer cams

[samkass]

Or go the opposite route... buy a bunch of empty "surveillance camera" big white cases and install them prominently near a big "No Dumping" sign. Probably a lot cheaper.

Re:Deer cams

[Copperhamster]

In the US, a general piece of advice given to people who are arming themselves for self defense; When using lethal force (a gun), use it with intent to kill, not wound or disable. Not only is 'only wounding' hard, but it you are less likely to lose or even be hit with a wrongful death civil suite than a personal injury suite. One of my online buddies shotgunned three armed bad guys invading his home, killing two, the only criminal charges were misdemeanor possession of a loaded firearm (illegal, even in his own house, in his jurisdiction) which he got 3 months probation for after pleading no contest. One of the guy's families sued him for wrongful death, and it was dismissed with predjudice the first day. The surviving bad guy successfully sued him for various things (had two fingers amputated because the blast hit him in his gun hand as he was firing at my friend.), however it was overturned on appeal. But his defense has cost him roughly $100k. (and they are appealing the appeal). This is a person who is currently service a life sentence for 2 felony murders (he gets saddled with the guild of his two buddies deaths) and on trial for 6 more home invasions that had happened in the prior month.

Re:Deer cams

[Dishevel]

More to the point. Why not just post the signs all over and skip the cameras.
If it works then you save money. If not then you can put in the cameras.

Bushnell?

[frostfreek]

Bushnell Trail Sentry 5MP Digital Camera

Seems like it's packed with features.
http://www.opticsplanet.com/bushnell-trail-sentry-5mp-trail-night-vision-camera-119305.html

Hunters have the right gear

[Gunnut1124]

Don't reinvent the wheel, hunters have already done the hard part. Check around for concealed hunter camera gear. Already camouflaged, and able to take stills or video...

Re:Hunters have the right gear

[wonkey_monkey]

Check around for concealed hunter camera gear.

How's he supposed to find that?!

Do you have a sign?

[rollingcalf]

It's possible that the more recent dumpers don't even know they're not supposed to dump there; after seeing junk already piled up some may assume that it's a legitimate dumping ground.

A sign or two saying something like "PRIVATE PROPERTY NO DUMPING" might help, if you don't already have a sign like that which is being ignored.

Re:Do you have a sign?

[i.r.id10t]

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."

Fuckin' boot lickers

[0xdeadbeef]

And any idea of what my legal rights are to videotape or record?

On your own property? To catch trespassers dumping garbage?

Jeebus, is our country so in the shit we need to ask that now? Why should corporations and the government have a right to surveil and that right be denied to us? Why is every sentence in this post a question?

Re:Where Do You Live That That Is Considered Okay?

[CanHasDIY]

Even if it is a dirt road, it's not your property and if you don't have permission to be leaving shit all over the place then you don't do it. Where do you live that you can just legally drive around and say "this looks good, I don't see any signs" and dump shit to rust and rot and look terrible? Am I the only person that is appalled by that?

Nope; I grew up on such a dirt road, and cheap-ass idiots dumping shit because they don't want to pay $10 at the landfill were always the bane of my existence.

Related anecdote: For about 8 months when I was a kid, my dad and I used to see the same damn people dumping bags of trash on our road every week (I assume city folk who refused to pay for trash service). One time, after they drove off, father proceeded to open one of the trash bags and rifle through it (eww, I know) until he found - drum roll please - a piece of mail with the name and address intact. Several mornings later, the people who dumped the trash awakened to find every last fucking piece of it we had collected over the months spread across their own front lawn. Needless to say, that particular group stopped dumping.

Re:Shotgun.

[ColdWetDog]

Nah, you're not thinking. This is Slashdot - the home of the BSD toaster.

So, you get the aforementioned hunter cam, then you open the case, find the signal to that fires the camera, rig a opsoisolated switch to another relay circuit that fires off a couple of M80's and a small amount of thermite. Take the pics, wait a few seconds, fire off the M80's and the thermite. For extra fun, take a few more pics.

Bonus points for rigging explosions down the road on a tripwire or such so that you continue to 'fire' on the miscreants as the run screaming for their lives.

Use some imagination here, folks.

An uncle of mine had the same problem

[doginthewoods]

The camera system worked great, but getting the trash picked up was left to him, and the cops wouldn't go after the dumpers. So he took an old pistol, loaded it with blanks, got a relay and hooked to the trigger, used the motion detector system to trigger the relay and put the whole thing where it was protected and hidden. And then put up a "trespassers will be shot" sign. That ended the dumping.

Re:Where Do You Live That That Is Considered Okay?

[ClayDowling]

Did you provide them with color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one?