Legality of surveillance cameras on my property - Germany

For the past week or so, there has been a increasing amount of Graffitti appearing in our Village.

Today, the door to my office fell victim!

So, I am quite capable of fitting a discrete camera and feeding it into the whole house system...

What are the legallities of this an what happen to me if I catch the twats that are scribling on our property?

Thanks

SP

just call the police EVERYTIME it happens and repaint everyday if needed. Its the only way...

Spot on...

Anyone got any Mahogany coloured plastic paint to paint the door with?

If it's your private property, you can fit a camera aimed at the door and the walkway, provided you put up a big "Achtung! Videoüberwachung!" sign (or something similar). Be sure you don't have even a square inch of your neighbor's property in the viewfinder, though, or you'll have trouble with the Datenschutzpolizei.

Thanks for that..

I thing I will get more trouble from the Baseballbatschutzpolizei...

Or just put-up the sign.. Most of the time that's enough to deter.. You can also get fake camera domes to stick outside your door.
Some even have little blinking LEDs

You can get fake cameras at Praktiker.

But a fake camera will not catch them and bring the little fuckers to Justice!

Squirt some of that bottled skunk scent around your door everyday. That'll keep 'em away. Or get all fancy and rig up an automatic squirter that shoots the skunk scent whenever someone comes near the door and trips an infrared beam. Maybe turn it off for customers during the day.

I doubt they will get more than a several hundred Eur fine.. No Jail time and no Court case..

That'll stop their beer and fag money for a month or so..

Not if they are on the dole here.

Seeing how the 'criminals' are probably 14 year old kids I would say a few hundred euro fine is more than enough to deter the little fuckers.

Yes, you can install a camera for surveillance. You can provide the pictures to the police and press criminal charges as well as start a civil process to recover damages.

You cannot publish or publicise the pictures, especially if the perps are underage.

woof.

Isn't there a distinction also between accidental/incidental coverage of public areas like the street and private areas like your neighbours' property?

spiderpig, I mean this in the most respectful way possible: why do you care? It doesn't say on your profile where you live, but I take it that "village" means a small town. When I first moved to Berlin I was shocked by how many businesses didn't even bother to remove the graffiti but maybe they have a point. You could look at it like this: once they've already tagged your building, they have no reason to hang around there any more, but as soon as you give them a clean slate to work with, they will be back.

maybe this sort of thing is more of a big deal in a small town? Does it mean that prostitution and child-slavery are soon to follow?

Don't use Kreuzberg as an example for Germany (or even the rest of Berlin).

One tag is an invitation to do more. That's why we remove any tags on our buildings within 24 hours - don't give the little feckers the satisfaction of admiring their handiwork. Zero tolerance works best.

I am not using Kreuzberg, but I am using all of Berlin as an example.

I also come from an almost anally clean city which does not tolerate much graffiti at all. So I understand the shock of seeing your building covered in the stuff.

My question still remains: so what if the whole fucking building is covered? Why is it something to lose sleep over?

Well, it's his property. You tend to feel more attached to places you own, rather than just renting.

Maybe he cares because the kids are damaging the house he owns. There is a big difference when you live in a shitty apartment in the ghetto.

damaging the house? how?

look, no one is claiming that having a graffiti-covered building is the awesomest thing ever. I just wonder what, besides an intangible hatred of the stuff, is driving the OP to put up cameras and post about it on TT and junk.

I don't live in a ghetto, Krieg. Do you?

interesting, that. What do you think about people who rent, but still care about their neighborhood? What would you think if I told you that I routinely drive away loiterers and follow attempted bicycle thieves? Would you say it's because I must own my home?

No, I rent, and I care a lot about my building and my neighborhood. There have been three arsons in our complex and two attempted B&Es in my own home. Bicycles stolen. But no graffiti. I have thought about what a bummer it would be if someone tagged our building, but not lost any sleep over it (unlike with the B & E, the bike theft and the arsons). So what I'm saying is that of course one must take care of what he calls his own, but when there is actual loss of life or property I fail to see what the huge emergency is about. Yes having your place graffed sucks but it is not the end of the world.

Train a couple of attack ferrets and have them loiter on your balcony and drop onto the throats of any malcontents performing mischief.

By painting unwanted crap in the walls???

I guess you do not have any problem if something spray your car or your clothes either.

They covered it in fucking graffiti, how can that not be damage FFS . He lives near Munich and down here we have standards, and don't willingly tolerate some teenage idiot who can't handle his new found testosterone. It is not acceptable and should not be acceptable that a small group of shits can do what they want.

And yes, in comparison, you live in a fucking ghetto.

Wrong. New York City tried that. Failure to immediately remove graffiti only invites more. And by "immediately" I mean within 24 hours.


Exactly.

When you catch a kid you can do what I did once: make a deal with the parents. With a photo and a fiver you can usually get an ID of a photo from other kids about that age. Worst case you go to the school and tell them you'd rather not press charges so you need the parents to contact you. Talk to the parents, show them the evidence, and explain that in lieu of going to the police you wish to teach Junior a lesson. Junior's bedroom will be tagged by you, as will some of his more personally valuable items (books/CDs/DVDs). A fat Sharpie, a can of spraypaint to spray some symbol on the wall, permission from the parents and a guarantee from them that Junior isn't allowed to paint or cover over your tag for at least a month. Plus the costs of cleaning up the shit Junior did to your building.

Few parents approve of their kids' vandalism and most are willing to accept this. It's very effective.

woof.

I think the TT Arbitration committee (that's all of us) needs to see the "damage". Let's see a photo SP.

It's a crime known as Sachbeschädigung in German. Damage to objects. Damage - check, house = object, check.

Everyone should do this - great post.

wow everyone seems to feel very strongly about this.

And, true to TT form, petty posters take only one point of a comment and thrash it, completely disregarding anything else said in the comment.

listen carefully:

GRAFFITI IS NOT COOL

BUT IT IS NOT THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD EITHER

to whomever said I live in a ghetto, seriously... you do a disservice to the memory of the people who actually did live in ghettoes. It is really not okay to call a neighborhood with lots of parks and fresh air and resources, clean water and paved streets, which is free of vermin and disease, a ghetto. Maybe in a country where no one is expected to know what an actual ghetto is, but shame on you, seriously, shame on you for throwing around that word given the history of this country.

NOBODY SAID IT WAS! The OP asked for advice and is getting some from most posters, along with some jackass asking "why do you care anyway?".


DON'T MENTION THE WAR! (in other words, bullshit)

Fuck me, you're a real live one, aren't you? I suppose we could thrash the rest of your comments but it's hardly worth it, and as to the historical connotations of any particular word, they are just that.

Now what did you contribute? The idea that we shouldn't really mind if people bugger up our property because it could be worse? I think we covered the responses to that already now if you're done we've got more important things to do.

you don't look like someone with anything better to do.

i asked a question. it seems it has still not even been answered with anything other than "uh cos i don't like it".

Yet when someone says they don't like something about German culture, there are 3793749203 posters ready to tell them to "just move" and that maybe this is not the right place for them to live, yadda yadda yadda.

So the OP has a minor problem and I want to know why he finds it such a big deal.

Notice that I said I was asking the question respectfully. It was not my intent to tell him that his feelings about his own building don't matter. It was a genuine question, for the OP, and not for anyone else.
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No graffitti. It must be the only building in Berlin with nothing on it. I've never seen such a high volume of tagging anywhere. Don't get me wrong there was some really nice stuff, the giant astronaut was impressive, as were some of the other proper peices. But everything seemed to be tagged

So long as the camers does not affect anyones privacy thats no problem.New owner of our factory had to realign 2 cameras at our factory as he neighbours said it was overviewing their gardens and could not topless sunbathe comforatbly.Now she has a bunch of pervs peeping over the garden hedge when its nice weather.

And rightly so...

Owning or renting the property is not relevant. His door is damaged no matter which way you look at it and will have to be repaired, or the property is devalued. Either was there is a financial loss. If he owns the property/door then it's his, if he rents it then it's still his as the landlord will require it to be re-instated to the original state before he leaves or deduct it from his caution. As a criminal act it should be reported to the police, and if it is to be the subject of an insurance claim (it's probably a valid one) then it will need to be. It all depends, of course on how easy the paint is to remove and the door re-instated to it's original state as to how much this will all cost.

Thanks for the Feed back..

I can not post pictures of the Graffitti as I have cleaned it al off.

Well, As much as possible without totally destroying the door..

@The silly Bint in Berlin, desous whatever, Get your head from up our arse! This is pure Vandalism.. END!

In certail places "street art" is acceptable, but its not acceptable in our village and certainly not on my office door where My customers visit!

I can only assume that you think its acceptable as you may have commited such offence in the past!

you see now we have an answer. Because your customers visit there. Maybe I missed that bit the first time around but I think you failed to mention that this office is also the face of your business. I would also not like my clients to associate my building with vandalism (no matter how superficial).

I have never graffiti'd anything but I hope they graff your building over and over again; calling people bints for asking questions and making baseless presumptions, you fucking deserve it and I'm sure you're well-known about town... probably not a random crime.

My brother confronts teenage vandals with his antique rifle + bayonet with a halogen bike lamp strapped on to it (since these things usually happen at night). Works every time... and he hasn't had problems for years. Word must have gotten around.

There was a story recently in the news about a lady who installed cameras, and watched her home being robbed while she was at work! She called the police, and in the video you see the cops come in and get the perps.

He also failed to mention that water is wet, the sky is blue and fire will burn you if you stick your hands in it. Stating the fucking obvious is not usually necessary. It's an office. Where he does business. With customers.

LOL

Cleaning the Augi off of my keyboard.

fraufruit - I had the same reaction...she knows she is making baseless presumptions. Too funny. But you know, at least she is honest.

uh... there are plenty of offices that do not see a single customer in the course of normal business, I have worked in a few of them. Many industries conduct customer service online, over the telephone, in fancy restaurants, and in regional offices. So no, it's not obvious.

I know that it's easy to want to jump down my throat as yall have nothing better to do, but seriously guys but seriously grow up.

a pox upon my double 'but seriously'. fuck eh.