Mum blasts neighbour's installation of home security camera: 'Makes me feel so uncomfortable'
The woman is worried her children are being overlooked while they are playing in the backyard.
A woman's disagreements with her neighbour have escalated to "horrible" heights after a home security camera was installed allegedly overlooking her backyard, looming high above an area where her three young children frequently play.
The Sydney woman told Yahoo News she was feeling uneasy about the situation after spotting the camera this week on her next-door neighbour's property situated in Cronulla, a suburb in the city's south. She contacted her real estate agent after it made her "uncomfortable" but was told nothing could be done about it.
"Our neighbour that we don't get along with at all has put up a camera directly facing our townhouse," the mum wrote online. "He has also put them up in the common area of the garage... we have three young kids and it makes me feel so uncomfortable that they're being watched when they play outside."
Other Aussies have home security cameras pointed at property
Feeling helpless the resident sought advice online and while others condemned the behaviour, some admitted she wasn't the only one to face the problem.
"We've had the same and called the police, they came out within the hours and asked to see their footage to confirm what they can see," one woman wrote, while another Queenslander said she had "been there" too.
Others suggested the resident could try and put something up to block the view like a "tall bamboo plant" or a "screening panel".
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Is the camera legal?
In NSW residents are allowed to have cameras that overlook public areas, with this term defined as anywhere any sort of public person can be seen or heard. However, cameras installed near residential boundaries cannot be pointed at people's bathrooms or windows, and the resident could push police to find out exactly what the camera is picking up.
"Contact the local police and they can come out and actually request to view that person's footage to see exactly what's been looked at," property lawyer Monica Rouvellas told Yahoo News previously. "And then the police can actually, I believe, request that the camera be taken down or repositioned."
"If it is directed at a person's house or window then that's a violation of that person's privacy," she said.
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