Doorbell cameras are advertised everywhere these days. They are convenient if you wish to be able to see who is at your door.  Most of them record to the cloud if you pay a fee, so that you can review what happened if you do not receive the direct feed.  “Ring” brand doorbells have a feature which sends out notices when other “Ring” owners post about bad things which have happened to them, like mail thefts or car break-ins. Unfortunately I see many people commenting that their “Ring” did not pick up the bad guys. They seem annoyed by this failing.

The simple fact is that doorbell cameras are meant to serve one function, to give you a visual of the people who have come to your door, and (if you are a subscriber to their cloud service) give you a record of who they are.  To do this satisfactory, the doorbell must be positioned so that it is able to observe people approach the doorbell directly. Many houses have the doorbell off to the side so that its field of view is limited.

I personally have a “Ring” doorbell installed at my home.  However I also have a full CCTV security system that I have just upgraded to 4K  (8MP) cameras.  This system gives me a full 360 degree coverage of my home, with one of the sharpest pictures on the market today. Because the cameras have a 131 degree field of view my neighbors benefit from  coverage by some of my cameras.

I received the following e-mail from one of our neighbors.

This morning ( 7/12/2019 )about 6:30 am when leaving for work, my husband and I found a bundle of mail in the grass along the side of our cul de sac (we live one street down from the addresses on the mail we found). I don’t think the mail was there very long given the misty morning and the mail was only slightly damp, and not soaking wet.

There are 3 addresses affected, all on 136th Avenue East: 12402, 12403 and 12421. These items were coupon newspaper mailers, and store mailers so were addressed to the address or Resident and only 3 items had names on them.   There was one window envelope with no address that had been ripped open (contents taken) that was from Credit One Bank and the words Personal and Confidential are on the front of the envelope. Not sure if a solicitation offering credit or if a bank statement/credit card because there wasn’t any content left, only the ripped envelope, so unfortunately there’s no way to know who it belonged too. I reported the theft to the USPS this morning (call 800-275-8777, press 5, then say FRAUD, then say THEFT, which gets you to an operator). He instructed us to give it to our mail carrier to collect, to do local reporting and then deliver to the rightful owners.

Bottom line for all this is that the mail stolen seems to be either mail which was not removed from the boxes after the mail delivery or mail that was put out the night before for pick up the next day. PLEASE remove your mail after it is delivered and PLEASE do not put out mail at night for pick up the next morning. {Or if you must do either or both, then PLEASE get a good strong locking mail box and mount it on a good strong post.}