Neighborhood Security ?

[jdubwaldo]

My neighborhood used to have a security patrol service, but it was discontinued a few years ago.  I'm spearheading a project for our HOA to get enough support (and $ of course) to resume this service.  People have expressed a great deal of if interest, but we still have a little ways to go. 

Does anyone have experiences with security patrols in their own neighborhoods, positive or negative?  Any familiarity with any of the companies around town who provide this service?

I'm looking for positives to garner support and hopefully find reasons for people to open their wallets for this, as well as potential negatives to be prepared for reasons people might resist, other than $. 

Thoughts?

[aknowledgeableperson]

My old HOA had one for a few years but it discontinued it because of cost vs effectiveness.  And that was just for two or so drive-throughs a night.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Our old loft building in the xroads used to use one of the patrols.  I was never confident of its effectiveness - the guy was never going to be there all night and there were still always going to be plenty of hours for someone to get up to no good.

[DaveKCMO]

need a reason for people who live there to be out on the streets. do you have sidewalks?

[jdubwaldo]

need a reason for people who live there to be out on the streets. do you have sidewalks?

We're in north Waldo, so yes to sidewalks.  Reason for people who live there to be on the street, I guess just the 75th and Wornall bars/restaurants...

[DaveKCMO]

We're in north Waldo, so yes to sidewalks.  Reason for people who live there to be on the street, I guess just the 75th and Wornall bars/restaurants...

so yeah, it's far more effective for the people that live there to be visible (free!) than to spend money on private security. maybe organize a dog-walking group so people can walk in teams? how big an area are we talking?

[jdubwaldo]

Good call, I like this thought, although we're talking mostly later at night... During the day and early evening hours there are quite a few people out and about running, walking their dogs, etc.   

State Line to Wornall, Gregory to 75th.......

[LenexatoKCMO]

There's always the armed neighborhood militia with roadblock checkpoints at the major intersections. 

[DaveKCMO]

Good call, I like this thought, although we're talking mostly later at night... During the day and early evening hours there are quite a few people out and about running, walking their dogs, etc.   

State Line to Wornall, Gregory to 75th.......

sounds like you need to focus on lighting as well. are all the city street lights working? are there any motion-activated lights on homes? i'm with the others that private security is a waste in a residential area unless they can be present 24/7 (and on foot or bike, preferably).

[jdubwaldo]

Absolutely Agreed, but I think so many have this attitude like nothing will happen to them.  Until it does many will chose to ignore common sense....

Street lights are working, but it's pretty dark in some areas.  This is good to check into, might have to go for a walk down our street this weekend to confirm.  :)  

[LenexatoKCMO]

In the world of CFL bulbs it doesn't cost much to leave the porch light burning bright 24/7.

[mlind]

Leaving porch lights on all night is a really good idea.  Flood lights that light up the areas between houses are good, too.  And the neighbors need to be really alert.  My old neighborhood has a Yahoo group and whenever something happened, an email went out to the whole group with all the details.  Also, we had one person as a liaison to the police department so that the beat cop or whoever would contact her when anything happened.

Alert neighbors are the best. 

[PumpkinStalker]

Definitely go for the lighting.  I ran new electrical from our porch ceiling fan to the eave above our side porch (our main, front door is inside the porch) and put a new motion light above the porch entryway.  It is set so that if a person steps off the sidewalk into our yard it goes off.  It's the new fade on/off type which increases the life of bulbs as well.  Then I replaced a faulty one at the back corner of our house with a three head unit, one bulb shines behind the house, one on the side, and the middle bulb shines down at the corner of the house.  That model has a feature that will flash the bulbs twice in a row before going steady on.  This is intended to attract attention more than just having it turn on and stay on.  I have that feature off right now.  Then we have a halogen floodlight above our back door. 

I'm going to be putting a fourth unit on the other side of the house in the coming days/weeks as weather allows.  That one will require me to drill through just above the stone foundation into the basement and run new conduit.  A bit more labor intensive.

I have SO many neighbors that have ZERO lights on the outside of their house.  I leave our front porch light on and the light on in the ceiling fan in the porch.  And our backyard lights (not the motions) are always on providing soft light.  It's enough to be a deterrent.  And like others said about CFLs, the cost is neglible compared to the safety they offer.

[jdubwaldo]

Good stuff, I agree.  Apparently there was a safety meeting at the church at 74th and Wornall last week following up on the waldo psycho.  The only thing I heard that I sort of didn't think about is that always on lights are better than motion because bad guys realize they are on a motion sensor. 

Totally agree, we have a ton of lighs on and our porch light never goes off.  We have two flood lights (4 bulbs) in our teeny backyard.  I'm sure our neighbors just love it.    Walking the dogs down our street though at night, many houses are pitch black, especially in backyards.

[staubio]

Adding my voice to the lack of effective patrols. Our problem with patrols and live monitoring of cameras has been accountability. There is no way to ensure they are doing their job and you are throwing a lot of money at them. We had several incidents and our security investments did us no good.

[jdubwaldo]

Good point.  I think this would be 12-15K per year for I believe 12 or 16 hours per week.  That's a lot of scratch.  A few neighborhoods who use this have great feedback - Southemoreland, Countryside, etc. 

Yet if I live there and fork out the dough I'm not going to say otherwise. 

On the other hand, I'm certainly all for doing this for a year in our hood if we can get together the support from residents and local businesses.  Now is a good time to try it out with everything going on.... 

[chrizow]

southmoreland has security? 

[jdubwaldo]

http://www.southmoreland.org/pages/security_patrol.html

According to this choriz...  This might be old though?

[chrizow]

wow.  didn't know that!

[jdubwaldo]

So that might not be a good sign that you don't know about it?