I have a stalkerFollow

...who apparently enjoys pouring urine on my comptuer equipment in my office. This has escelated over the months from really trivial harasment such as stealing books and notes to actually pouring water on equipment to (maybe) peeing in the corner to actually pouring urine all over my desk.

The previously glacially slow process of getting my office door rekeyed (even after filing police reports) sped up to literally less then one day after this latest incident. From the dozens of people who had access to my office, there are now two other keys.

In retrospect, it seems a perfect point for discussion here.

Okay:

1. The reason I never installed a camera in my office is that the person had physical access and thus could destroy it. I never looked seriously into it. It would have to take images and relay them to another computer either at work here or at my home. E.g. take the image and (say) email or ftp it. How hard/cheap is this?

2. Now I am pretty certain the person doesn't have access. I can post a camera above my door (wire trails back into office) and I bet I catch the goatsucker. However, I may end up with literally days of video to sift through - which seems a total waste of time. If there is a trivial way to do this (motion sensor?) I'll look into it. Anyone know anything? If it relies on a motion sensor, would this be inhibited by glass? (I could shoot through the glass or not - the hallway outside is basically perminantly lit).

3. Anyone have any kind of similar experiences? The police and I think it is personal. No one else "here" (broadly speaking, my place of employment, hundreds employed here) has had anything like this. Thus I'm pretty much ruling out janitors.

4. Would the person actually be stupid enough to time attacks just after a committee I served on gives them bad news (once when I served, once now that I'm off)? Wouldn't you want to be more subtle then that? Or is this sending me a "message"?

5. Lastly, I'm just not terribly worked up about this. However, should I be? I live in America, thus getting a gun is pretty trivial. So I'm curious if anyone has any kind of similar experiences.

Similar, but the ******* appears to have changed his locks.

Check out these cams. A google search for others might save you a few bucks too. These cameras are wireless, and these days you can even port the video direct to the internet with a motion sensor alarm to allow you to see the culprit in the act from any computer in the world.


Good luck.

The camera you need is this one. I looked into it when I wanted a security camera for my house but they do not make an outdoor version that is cheap. The best thing is it connects directly to a wireless network and stores videos over the internet, which you can view from anywhere with password protection. So no wiring to do, or recording eqipment to buy, just stores all on internet. It does not require hookup to a computer which the other type linked above would to do the same thing. It has built in all it needs to send the video files to the internet.

So even if the perp destroys it, the entering the room and destroying of it would be caught and digitally sent up to the internet for you and cops to view from anywhere.




Edited, Dec 14th 2006 2:57pm by fhrugby

Like you need a reason, you hick.

Quit, sue, retire.

Cameras are cheap, many have motion detection capabilities. The problem is generally concealing them.If there is an AC grate near your office door, you are in luck. If not, see if you can get one installed. Otherwise placement is going to be difficult, and you may very well tip off the person you are trying to catch.

The camera elderon linked is the way to go. Unless you are dealing with a professional, or at least a tech savvy amature, most people are not going to think to look for a RF wireless network with sensors. That camera does have a "record on motion" sensor in it, and will record to a computer or a VCR. One tape should be adequate.

If you don't have a ceiling air duct return near your door, look around the ceiling for other objects that would be large enough to house the camera body, or failing that, have enough screws and protrusions that you could drill a hole in one and not have it noticed. You'll then want to get an identical unit, modify it to fit the camera and install it on the roof. i'm assuming a drop ceiling here, but that will also work with drywall, just more difficult to set up.

Also, keep in mind that urine is a source of DNA. if you have any suspects, maybe get a court order for testing assuming they didn't already destroy the stain with cleaning agents.

In my experiance, in an office environment, such attacks are always personal. you just may not consider anything you did worth it. keep in mind that this person is most likely either unstable, or damned sure you are not going to catch them. Watch reflections when you are around the office to see if someone in particular is scowling at you behind your back, etc

And on a side note... yeeeeeech.

Oh, hush. I don't pee on peoples' computers.

I have minions for that.

I lol'ed.

Dude. Mr Winky would **** all over your computer right in front of you.

Do winkies have DNA?

So I only mentioned how easy it is to get a gun in the US because if I lived somewhere where it was really hard to get one, I wouldn't be too worried. I have a pretty good idea who it is. I can take 'em. They are not healthy and it may not be too long before they leave for that reason. This is also why my accusing them is like kicking a cripple. And there is a chance I'm just wrong.

I'm thinking of asking my employer to get the camera and catch the person - I think it's trivial (particularly if the motion sensor passes through glass).

Obviously, I could just buy the camera but I'm not sure about the legality. Particularly since the simplist way to catch them is to mount the camera right at the ceiling just inside my office pointing down. There is a tall pane of glass above my door. It would look almost directly down on people - which makes me really uncomfortable doing it. It's dark in my office, light in the hall (at night) and thus easy to see the person, hard to see the camera.

My employer could mount the thing in the hall, pointing near eye level (thus reducing the perv factor). I think all they are going to see is the person try to open my door and fail, at this point. This isn't really convincing - except that maybe the person would try this in the dead of night - which would be much more suspicious. And let's say they see this. Okay - it's 2am and the person tries my door. Would we conclude this is the same person? Would we fire the goatsucker? I think that would very easily generate a lawsuit. I do live in California, after all.

In some sense, it's better to change my lock back and mount the camera in the office. I think seeing them enter and do naughty deeds would likely actually be enough to get rid of them.