OK, security question
 

I know we started on this before, but I want a whole thread on this. My Bush-Cheney lawn signs keep getting stolen, including in broad daylight yesterday. I'm looking for creative solutions to this problem.

Understand the problem:

• There are more Kucinich signs in my neighborhood than Bush signs
• I live on a traffic street
• I don't have time to stake out the sign
• I do have some surveillance equipment I can use
• I'm willing to build some non-lethal devices

OK, help me out here! :munchin

BTW, I just ordered 25 more signs so I can keep replacing them. :cool:

Put a camera inside your house, pointed at the sign, zoomed in close enough to get an adult standing by the sign. A second camera should be placed to get the license number, if they came by vehicle.

Place the sign where it will be illuminated well enough to get a good pic.

As your Samoan attorney, I have to remind you that any boobytrap which injures someone is going to get you a trip to the court as a defendant rather than an attorney, so keep it safe.

I would want to find out who is doing it (likely a neighbor), rather than trying to scare them right then, and would recommend creative repayment options once you discover who it is. As an attorney, I am sure that you have lots of form letters and ideas on how to make their life more interesting.

Maybe wait till they are out of town for a little while, and put several B-C signs on their lawn, so they do not have to steal them.

HTH.

TR

Not only do I doubt it is a neighbor, but I doubt that we are looking at a single perpetrator.

In Los Angeles, neighbors rarely know one another, speak to one another or walk around the neighborhood. Let alone steal each other's lawn signs.

Although very residential, my street is used heavily as a shortcut into a major commercial area. I'm sure there have been a number of people stopping and taking the signs.

You don't need to remind me about injuring people. I am looking for creative ways to deter them, like Team Sergeant's fake IED concept. Surveillance on video is one thing I'm considering.

Invite the neighborhood cats over and have them spray the sign. That should keep people with a normal or good sense of smell away or . . .

move to the U.S.

Electrify the sign and put a warning next to it. :cool:

When did I say it was a fake IED? I am insulted.

When did it become illegal to place a box with wires in your yard?

If I were in your shoes I'd have the police there everytime one turned up missing filling out a theft report.

Someone already memtioned "Move back to America".

(You've already lost S Calif.)

TS

I stand corrected on all counts, and will leave you and the TS to your own devices.

TR

Here is the Team Sergeant's post from the other thread:

I like the concept. Looking for similar ideas. :D

I look forward to hearing about your encounter with the Bomb Squad, and your wife learns what a "clearing charge" is.

Do you have represenatation on retainer, or does your firm provide that pro bono?

TR

You have any friends that large game hunt?
Well, maybe I should first ask if you have ANY friends at all, right ? ;) LOL Just kidding

Back to the original topic, see if any of your friends have one of the motion sensing game trail cameras. I have several buddies that have these. You can get them from cabelas, etc.

You set them up aimed at the target area. They have a 35mm camera inside a waterproof enclosure which is attached to a motion detector. When an "animal" comes into the area, it takes a picture with the date and time stamped on the pic. Useful for tracking game patterns as well as your present predicament.

Saca, That works well for animals that cannot take the camera....

Hide the cameras. Use TR's idea. Set up two cameras, the other to get the auto lic.. Take evidence to the police.
If they don't act on it, get a lawyer.

What the hell, here's the AO (LOL):

The house is built on the side of a hill, so the driveway slopes up from the street. The planter boxes at the front of the house are cement, and about three to three and a half feet tall. The cement is about two feet deep on top (there is room to put stuff there), and there are bushes and things to hide things in in the planters.

OK, here we go. 1974-1978 time frame. I had an office in the Hangar and occasionally Mechanics would jimmy the door and raid my supplies that I would be collecting for some project, thus putting me back to square one re-ordering whatever they took. Well, none of my fellow employees or friends for that matter knew anything about my background i.e. the SOG stuff because I couldn't talk about it. I got a 12"X12"X14" Box from one of my suppliers, picked up 5 12" Square Mirror tiles, some wire, a soldering gun, a 90 volt capacitance discharge batterypack from an old Polaroid Camera Wink-Light, and 24 Clear Large Press Flashbulbs !!! I set one tile in the bottom and then angled the ones on the sides to focus the light upward then I soldered all of the bulbs together, placed said battery behind one of the tiles and rigged my double loop switch taping one loop to the inside bottom of the box and the other to the insides of the last two lids that would be opened.

Went home for the night and the next morning the Director of Maintenance asked me what the hell I rigged that thing for and that the Mechanic that had triggered it had quit as soon as his sight recovered enough to see and leave. Others were laughing their asses off and one said that he had been out around the side of the hanger on the wash rack when it went off. He said that it lit up the treeline on the far side of the field !!

They never again would enter that office if I was not in it !! :munchin

Later
Martin

Oh please, like that's going to help! LOL

These signs cost $5. Not enough to involve the police or a lawyer. Not enough to hurt someone either. But I do want to find a creative, non-lethal, legal way to dissuade people from stealing my signs.