Is this a common house-casing technique ?

[steve2470]

Link to tweet

Someone planted a camera across the street from my house to case it. Apparently someone wanted to rob me for Christmas. #happyholidays

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Why is that person assuming someone wanted to rob him?

Has he been robbed before? Does he know to whom the camera belongs? Has he considered at least covering it so it can't record his home?

I'm being reminded of women I know who refuse to record a message on their home answering machine saying, "It only alerts potential robbers that a woman lives there." Well, aside from the interesting paranoia that would-be robbers call around to find out what places have women living there, if they are that concerned they can have some helpful guy record the message. Meanwhile, I'm never certain if I've really reached the phone I want if there's only the canned message from the factory.

[MrsCoffee]

2. According to a later tweet there are photos of the people who planted it on the device.

Link to tweet

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Even so, I am frequently astonished

at the leaps people will make.

But yeah, turning it over to the police is an excellent thing to do.

[customerserviceguy]

4. I accidentally came across a potential such scheme

while talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago. She mentioned that a woman came to the door, and said she had lived there as a child. I related the story of the seventy-something woman who came to our garage sale in the 1990's who said the same thing. In my case, the visitor related all kinds of stories about every room, but could I possibly verify them? Of course not.

Maybe men could not get away with this way of casing a place, but most of us seem to be more trusting of women.