The guy who owns a 3 acre field of grass and scrub behind our garden has decided to attempt to mow all of it with a domestic 18" rotary mower and it's driving us insane. We've put up with endless mowing for 8 hours a day for over a week, he refuses to stop so I decided to use BI to gather evidence of his activities to use later in court or whatever. I set up a new HD camera on our garage with a good view of most of the field, some near, some far, and set it running. It records if I go and walk past at close range, but when the guy turns up with the mower, if he's more than about 20ft away it doesn't record anything. However, if I turn on 'highlighting' it surrounds him with blue and yellow rectangles as he walks across the field even in the far distance, so it seems that motion is being detected but recording is not being triggered. I set min. object size to 100, min. contrast to 12, min. duration to 0.3, and object detection 'travels pixels' to 16. I can't think of anything else I can do to make the recording trigger any more sensitive, any ideas please?
Motion detected but recording not triggered
- Thread starter bricklayer1807
- Start date
Unless he's breaking some law (noise ordinance, trespassing, public indecency, yada yada) good luck.....our country's forefathers saw to it that even stupid people can do stupid stuff all they want to as long as it did not impinge on the rights of others. But it's your right to pursue that as well, so good luck....I can imagine your aggravation.
You could use 'zones and hot spot' alone and NOT use 'object detection' but be prepared for some false calls. I'm reasonably sure it (zones and hot spot by itself) can be configured to detect someone mowing but it may also trigger with shadows of passing clouds, etc. Yes, I've set one up to be that sensitive for a reason before and it picks up birds, armadillos, etc. and more, including flying insects at night....but it detects and records.
I'm in England and there are various laws concerning 'noise nuisance', zoning (ie agricultural use vs residential etc) and the right to peacefully enjoy your own property so I have all that to look into. Meanwhile, I just ordered from Amazon the biggest, loudest most powerful megaphone you can get, so once that arrives I can hurl abuse at him and play sound effects like a car alarm siren so loud that it will drown out his mower. Back to the BI problem, I reviewed my original post and in fact the distance beyond which it doesn't usually record is more like 20 yards, not feet. What's confusing me is that the moving object gets highlighted but doesn't trigger a recording. As for zones and hotspot, I've read the BI user manual and it hardly tells you anything about hotspot at all, except that it will 'generate a huge number of false triggers' so you'll hardly ever need to use it.
I use it and it picks up cars coming down the road during daylight over 300 feet away!
Well, you're not getting any triggers now doing what you were doing so why not try it, you can always set things back they way they were and not get ANY recordings, right?
I didn't say it was perfect..better some recording than none, IMHO.
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Whats the lens size of the camera?
Theres always record continuously. It can be set to stop and start at sunrise and set.
Theres always record continuously. It can be set to stop and start at sunrise and set.
CCTVCam
Known around here
- Sep 25, 2017
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For abusing him with a megaphone, be aware that may result in you getting sued for nuisance or arrested for provoking a breach of the peace should he report it to the local police!
Best advice, contact your local council. They will have a noise abatement officer who will be both knowedgeable in the law and able to ivestigate, warn, prosecute if there are grounds for doing so. For you, the likely action for nuisance is civil and lawsuits can get very expensive. Litigation should always be a last resort and you need to be 100% sure the law is on your side before launching any action otherwise you could find yourself tens of thousands out of pocket very quickly.
StratRider
Getting comfortable
Return the megaphone and purchase a high quality decibel meter.
Laws will be based on decibel levels and nothing more - annoying or not, that is in the ear of the beholder.
I'd know the actual law, record the noise levels, call him over while you have a cooler of your favorite adult beverage and show him what's happening.
Does he even know that this is bothering you? Surely there is a win / win situation to be had somehow.
Laws will be based on decibel levels and nothing more - annoying or not, that is in the ear of the beholder.
I'd know the actual law, record the noise levels, call him over while you have a cooler of your favorite adult beverage and show him what's happening.
Does he even know that this is bothering you? Surely there is a win / win situation to be had somehow.
Make sure you are using "Simple", uncheck "Object detection" and check "High Definition".
CCTVCam
Known around here
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In the UK the Noise Abatement Officer will do that for him. They will assess the situation, decide if any laws have been broken, if there are, they will come out and take measurements using their equipment and probably film video as well, then speak to the neighbour and probably advise them of the issue giving them an opportunity to stop. If that fails, then they may follow up with action. The question here is whether there is a nuisance within the legal definition of the law. I believe UK law is somewhat vague.
If you want to stay in with your neighbour for the future, then it may be worth trying to speak to him reasonably first as StratRider posted. If you speak calmly and reasonably, then there's a good chance he may respond in kind and you may find out that he has eg the intention of buying a bigger mower at some point. Alternatively, he might not be approachable in which case noise abatement might the next step. You'll never know unless you speak to him. Alternatively you could go straight to noise abatement but if he finds out whcih neighbour has complained, it could sour relationships and bearing in mind you're going to be neighbours a long time, that could lead to other problems. ALternatively if he doesn't find out, it could cause less friction that if you approached him and the result was negative. Difficult call. However, my advise whatever way you go would be if do speak to him at any point, don't be angry, be calm and polite. That often goes a long way to resolving issues.
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Thanks anijet for the idea, I switched to 'high definition' and although it now records a very distant human object moving at the back of the field, it's also generating hundreds of false alerts every day - I think I'll have to settle for turning on recording manually when he starts the mower.
On that subject (the guy wanting to mow a 3 acre field with an 18" mower has generated far more interest on here than the technical issue with BI) I state in my first post that he refused to stop, I did indeed flag him down after he'd been mowing non-stop for a week and explained that he was driving us to distraction and we were desperate for some peace and quiet, I did also ask why he doesn't obtain a grass cutter for the tractor he keeps in a small barn at the back and get it mown all in a couple of hours. He replied "I've got time on my hands, and you can't complain about a mower" and just carried on mowing. During this brief exchange he kept the mower running on full throttle so this is one of the reasons I've equipped myself with the megaphone to aid future conversations. A few days before I posted on here, I also wrote him a two page letter explaining the impact his activities are having on us and delivered it by hand to his house which is in another village a couple of miles away. I explained that living in our home surrounded by open arable farmland for thirty years we naturally expected to hear a tractor at work from time to time, but not the constant cacophony that would come from a garden machinery testing depot - I should explain here that when he's not mowing he's fiddling about in the hedge with chainsaws, hedge trimmers and brush cutters. I tried to keep the tone polite and constructive, and again suggested that he fit up his tractor to cut the grass and abandon his hopeless task of trying to cut it with a mower.
Great news! Since the day he got the letter, he's not been back, almost a week of peaceful bliss! The grass immediately grew up taller than it was when he started, but who cares about that. He could of course turn up again any time and start mowing again, but I've been enjoying things in our garden while I can.
On that subject (the guy wanting to mow a 3 acre field with an 18" mower has generated far more interest on here than the technical issue with BI) I state in my first post that he refused to stop, I did indeed flag him down after he'd been mowing non-stop for a week and explained that he was driving us to distraction and we were desperate for some peace and quiet, I did also ask why he doesn't obtain a grass cutter for the tractor he keeps in a small barn at the back and get it mown all in a couple of hours. He replied "I've got time on my hands, and you can't complain about a mower" and just carried on mowing. During this brief exchange he kept the mower running on full throttle so this is one of the reasons I've equipped myself with the megaphone to aid future conversations. A few days before I posted on here, I also wrote him a two page letter explaining the impact his activities are having on us and delivered it by hand to his house which is in another village a couple of miles away. I explained that living in our home surrounded by open arable farmland for thirty years we naturally expected to hear a tractor at work from time to time, but not the constant cacophony that would come from a garden machinery testing depot - I should explain here that when he's not mowing he's fiddling about in the hedge with chainsaws, hedge trimmers and brush cutters. I tried to keep the tone polite and constructive, and again suggested that he fit up his tractor to cut the grass and abandon his hopeless task of trying to cut it with a mower.
Great news! Since the day he got the letter, he's not been back, almost a week of peaceful bliss! The grass immediately grew up taller than it was when he started, but who cares about that. He could of course turn up again any time and start mowing again, but I've been enjoying things in our garden while I can.
