Dear ROSP HOA Members,
Our own HOA VP Kavish Wazirali (on the circle of Bayberry Court) had an intruder in their backyard around 5:42am this morning just before dawn and was caught on Ring Camera. Apparently Misty Urech (directly across the Bayberry Court Circle) was also a target but her dogs scared him away and no video was captured. Plano PD responded within 7 minutes and was seen on camera also patrolling the alleys. The image is grainy but this man looks very similar to the one who entered Ted & Heather’s home last fall and was subsequently arrested. Plano is a very safe city and the police department has remarkable response times to in-progress calls. Officers LOVE the chance to catch criminals in the act and a burglary or robbery in progress call (not a burglar alarm which are usually false) will bring several responders from all directions.
I spent 4 years working for Plano PD at the beginning of my career and learned that burglars are lazy opportunists. There are so many easy targets for petty thieves, all you have to do as a property owner is take precautions to not become one! I urge all ROSP residents to address the following which will encourage prowlers to keep walking to easier targets:
1) Upgrade your exterior lighting to LED around all four sides of the home including the alley/driveway. Burglars don’t like being seen and they know that cameras with sufficient ambient light catch a much clearer image. These are so cheap to operate you can illuminate the entire property all year for about $100 annual cost and they last 50,000 hours. Run them dusk-to-dawn.
2) Install a minimum of 4 exterior Ring cameras around your home, aside from the doorbell. Place key cameras at eye level no more than 5-6 feet off the ground, not roof level. Walls, fences, tree trunks and other landscaping are easy for mounting and offer a front-of-face view to identify an intruder vs top of the head. After the intruder who entered our home last fall, I have ten exterior cameras myself. Paint the camera body to blend into the landscape. The battery model with a solar panel to recharge is simple to install without wires and mine have been operating flawlessly for 4+ years already.
3) Lock your gates. If that is visible from the alley, even better. That simple action says “Move on, this house will take too long and is not worth your time”.
4) Park cars in the garage. This is the safest place for them. Unlocked on the street is begging to become a victim but even when locked, consider what’s inside. Your garage door opener! It’s so easy to steal this from a locked car, then come back when they see you have left, click open your garage and burglarize the home hit-and-run style. They will be in and out in about 90 seconds in the middle of the day. If you routinely park on the street, you might not even notice that missing remote for a few days until it’s too late.
5) Upgrade your mailbox to a locking key model. These are still being opened by random thieves every few months and identify theft will cost more than anything. An upgraded mailbox costs about $125 on Amazon. Art Almaguer (214) 675-0644 is a brick mason who upgraded about a dozen ROSP homes for roughly $300 each last year and it only takes a few hours. He will refit your current brick mailbox with this replacement for about $300, using the existing materials so it matches.
If I can recommend equipment or help with suggestions about the above, please feel free to ask me!
Ted Lindsley,
President, ROSP HOA
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