As much as I’d love to go medieval on someone, I’m going to have to go a little more conservative with my efforts.  Lets start with the layout of the battlefield:


 

Here’s my house on the right.  Key things to notice here?  Lots of plants, proximity to the sidewalk, and the side yard is set back from the street.


Also notice the No Trespassing sign on the garage door.  The four girls I caught simultaneously peeing there last year didn’t!

This is the area that I’m trying to protect.  The shared side yard, and the driveway leading to the garage.  I put orange construction fencing up to cordon off most of this area.


The side yard was where we had the most problem last year.

Last year, I lit the place up like a Christmas tree using 500 watt Halogen worklights.  If you’ve ever seen one of these, you know that they can really turn night into day.  I’m amazed by how much light they put out.  I used three of them last year to light up my driveway and side yard area, thinking that a well lit area would deter people from using it as a toilet.  Not so much...  Meaning that passive deterrents (No Trespassing signs, construction fencing, and lights) are not enough to keep someone off your property if they’ve gotta go.  I need something a little more active, hmmm....


Cut to a few days after Mardi Gras 2009, and I had a brilliant idea!  Water!

In the world of active ways to deter someone, a quick squirt of water seems to the way to go.  You wouldn’t normally go running through a running sprinkler fully clothed would you?  But leaving a sprinkler running for 2 weeks is wasteful.  And since I don’t want to miss the party down the street, I can’t have someone manning a hose for those two weeks either.  Cue the MOTION ACTIVATED Sprinkler shown here.


Its intended to scare animals and birds with a 5 second burst of water when motion is detected.

Take a look at this video, made by my friend Amy, to see the sprinkler in action!  Birds aren’t my target, but it’ll give you a fun idea of functionality.

There’s some fun to be had using these.  I plan to use 3 of these to silently guard the problem areas around my house.  I plan to mount them to the balcony rails, and to the second story wall above a person’s reach, and in the shadows created by the halogen lights.  I think they should do the trick. 


But what fun is spraying unsuspecting, full-bladdered drunks if you’re not around to enjoy the fun? I don’t want to sit on the porch and spend 2 weeks waiting for some action!  I need something to catch all the fun!


Security cameras are my answer.  I’ve decided on 2 different types of cameras based on where they will be mounted.  I have 3 in total.  All are night vision equipped, and two of the three are Pan/Tilt/Zoom capable.  They should give us several angles to capture the action.


I’ll be using a genius piece of software called Security Spy.  It works flawlessly with my Mac, records when motion is detected, and stores each video file individually for easy upload later.  Its loaded with options that are going to take a lot of the effort out of this project.  Its going to work great.






























At that point, the plan is to post the security camera footage here, for all to see.  My hope?  A video that shows someone walking by on the sidewalk, spotting my yard, and doing a mental back and forth.  “Should I? No one’s around.  I could get away with it!”  Then walk a little closer to be caught by my water sentries!   I’d love to catch people with their pants down, literally, but I don’t expect the sprinklers will give them that much time!  The sprinklers are activated instantly upon detecting motion. 


Ok, enough yammering....when does the fun start already???