Yet another one for Adam

[Steve Firth]

Spurred on by Adam's use of CCTV I have installed my own cameras. Less hi tech, I have put several trail cams with PIR sensors and infra-red flash around the garden and garage. Mostly I was interested in watching the activity of the barn owl that lives in the garage and to keep an eye out for people mistaking our drive for a public ROW (this happens a lot).

I was paging through 800 odd photos from this month and found that a man visits my garden when I am not in or when I am asleep. He has been clicked several times either on days when both my wife and I are out or between midnight and 1AM.

There's only one odd thing, he's stark naked except for a baseball cap.

I recognise his face (the rest of it was an unknown) he lives in the area. Polite word or posters nailed to telephone poles?

[Huge]

[Andrew Gabriel]

How about "24 hour CCTV recording" notices?

[eastender]

What, no red or white sox?

[Mentalguy2k8]

Sounds funny at first but then you wonder how he knows when you're both not home which adds a rather sinister angle. Obviously he could assume you're at work during normal hours but I doubt he'd be wandering naked around your garden without knowing for sure that neither of you are there. Is he watching you/your cars?

Would it be fair to assume that he's also visiting the gardens of other people who might not be as relaxed or secure about it as you are, if they knew? I'd consider reporting it, it may not be the first time he's come to their attention and it sounds like he's either up to something else, or soon will be.

[The Natural Philosopher]

,

stick it on You tube.

Or get a nice print, and pop it through his letterbox, NOT in an envelope.

removal of background detail that might identify the location with photoshop is advised, too.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Wandering around bollock naked in the dark is nice, but it is bound to be misinterpreted if you do it in someone else's garden or in the middle of suburbia.

Ergo this man is probably 'sick in da head, mon'.

I hate being a tell tale, but you might care to ask an expert in pyschology, whether in fact this is merely the sign of a harmless fruit, or whether in fact he is a possible danger to anyone.

After all cats dogs bats owls and foxes wander around at night naked, so its not exactly unkown. It's just unusual to find humans doing it.

[Mr Pounder]

[Steve Firth]

Huge wrote: [snip]

I don't think so. He seems wide awake and in one of the nighttime IR photos he's carrying a torch. There are also a few photos of him fully clothed heading up the garden path from the garage to the back of the house. It can't be burglary because nothing has gone and he's ignoring all the DIY toys in the garage. Until I saw the photos I didn't bother locking them up. Now they are all moved to a lockable tool shed.

Braver man than I am. That part of the garden borders a small stream and it's alive with mosquitos and gnats. If I work on the cars down there my head and neck itch like blazes from the bites.

[Steve Firth]

He's in a position to see cars coming and going so, probably.

soon will be.

I don't think so, not many houses in the area. We live way out in the sticks and the only access to other houses would be along an "A" road. Our drive is a country lane that he can access without going on the road, no other property has access to it. If he tried to get to other properties he would have to scale a barbed wire fence and cross a waist-high field of stinging nettles and ford the stream. He'd then have access to three or four other properties over a distance of about a mile. However one of those properties is owned by an Ag contractor who keeps large fierce dogs and others keep horses, goats, sheep and geese.

Someone, I think it wasTNP, suggested consulting a psychologist. That's easy for me, I could ask my wife who specialised in abnormal (forensic) psychology. However she's in housewife mode at the moment and just shouted "oh the dirty bastard" when she saw the pics.

She also told me that he has been flashing, sort of. His home has a large patio window and deck and he likes to stand in front of the window naked. Oh and Errm there are good reasons to think he's no threat to my wife or me. In my case I'm a foot taller than he is.

It may be that he's escalating from flashing to something else but he's due to leave the village soon, so will become someone else's problem if he is one. I don't care about the nudity, other than on the basis of aesthetics. It's the prowling around after midnight I find odd.

[Adrian]

Maybe that's part of the attraction for him...

[Geo]

Sorry - I missed your link to the youtube video...

[Bill Wright]

Did I mention that I caught (on CCTV) a delivery man creeping behind my shed and having a shit?

Bill

[Artic]

Should he do something nasty in a couple of months/years - how will you feel? Every time someone is done for rape or murder, you can be sure a neighbour will say "I thought he was a bit odd".

There are plenty of examples of men starting out as Peeping Toms, moving onto flashing and then rape/murder. Let the police know - he may be an offender who 'works away' from home.

[jgh]

Or: "he was a quiet chap who kept himself to himself"

JGH

[Scott M]

Yes, Steve would want to avoid annoying anyone and would never drive nutters to the point of stalking him.

Scott

[The Natural Philosopher]

Generally the latter.

I worked with a nutter once.

a quiet chap who kept himself to himself

at the christmas booze up he was discovered jumping up and down on the rooves of all the cars in the car park. He went away in a welter of blue flashing lights and was never seen again.

[SteveW]

I was at a party once where one of the guests (who lived in a caravan at the back of the house) worked his way round everyone trying to cause an argument and get into a fight. No-one took him up on it, so he smashed up the caravan, threw his microwave out of the window and tried to strangle his dog. He was also in possession of a knife. Last I saw of him was him being put into the back of an ambulance, strapped to a stretcher.

SteveW

[ARW]

It depends on what you want to do.

I assume that you want to avoid getting into vindictive nasty behaviour that might have consequences.

[Fredxx]

Perhaps rather than an infrared flash, a genuine near daylight one might unsettle him sufficiently so as not to come back?