Drone potentially ‘casing Sheds’

Our neighbours reported a drone flying over our back gardens last night about 1AM on Woolstone road. Apparently there has recently been a spate of drones then shed break ins so please be extra vigilant.

That’s quite a novel approach. Now I’m thinking about drone defences… in this case a spotlight shining upwards would wash out the video whilst also signalling ‘definitely nothing to see here!’

That is a really good idea.

I’m not sure this drone-burglary linking.

I’ve read a load of stuff on nextdoor (the same site on which I see quite a lot of covid-5G warnings) and all I could really track down was a single incident where some poor people had things stolen from sheds at night and one of them said “warning: this, in our mind, seems to be connected to a drone spotted flying at roof height over our gardens in the last week or so. Once in daytime and several times at night.” That post has since been removed. However, many people seem to have started repeating it with conviction.

I have real doubts over whether anyone would attempt to use them for this purpose around normal London properties due to:

• How conspicuous they are
• How expensive a burglary/casing-useful one would be combined with the potential loss of it

I should qualify these doubts with disclosing that I am not a successful burglar.

Unfortunately near my parents (out of London) there have been cases of drones used to ‘case’ places successfully so I’m a bit more weary. It’s just strange that there was a drone in our garden in the dead of night with a flashing read light flying low. What other reason does it have? I hope your optimism is right but I shall be on guard (insert bow and arrow emoji)!

Not sure how much you can see from a drone at 1am.

I know, right. So why fly into gardens? I just don’t get it. What other reason could there be…

Peeping Tom?

Seems to me that the investment would outweigh the return. What’s the most valuable item you could steal from a tangled up shed? It’s probably more a case of ‘I can spy on you/anyone with impunity’ which is what I’m guessing attracts many to the idea of owning and learning how to fly a drone.

A nice £2,000 road bike.

Or tools to break into a house.

It is a bit odd to be flying round at 1am - it is illegal in Lewisham (apparently, I can’t anything on their website or bylaw or anything) so maybe going out for a late night spin

I’m still not convinced. For such a scheme to make any profit they’d need a drone that can sustain the necessary flight time (hopping between gardens) and would have to spend upwards of £500 and there’s always the risk that it could be lost with no means of recovery. It’d be far cheaper and attract a lot less attention if you simply crept over the fence in the dead of night and shone a touch into the shed.

If they are looking to rob garden sheds I suspect they haven’t actually paid for the drone they are using, if that’s the reason.

As Clausy mentioned some stuff. But from the vantage point of our top floor, I can see at least garden rooms which can be used as offices, fitness rooms and even party central man caves.

Maybe the drone is stolen.

We have exterior cameras with excellent night vision. I would think some fairly inexpensive drones might have the same… just enough to narrow down the hunt.

DJI Mavic with Flir is iro £2,800. I think that is the cheapest Flir drone out there. The rest run into tens of thousands. Plus, if it was stolen it can’t be flown. DJI have a very secure system.

It could be a teen flying a toy drone.

Or it could be a police drone.

I too saw a drone flying over Woolstone Road last night Drone

You might be into something with thermal imaging - 1am onwards is the start of the coolest part of the night and so may offer the greatest differential between the environment and any ‘hot things’ being sought.

Maybe police were trying to home in on that cannabis farm?

A Mavic Mini is £299 and will go for 30 mins with auto return to home (unless you crash it into a tree) but probably no good at night.

I’m hoping @pea is on drone patrol again tonight with a big searchlight - we need more info/evidence.

My Spark is great at twilight but useless in the dark.

I’ll have to defer to your experience. Admittedly, I only did a quick Google check. However, until I’m proven wrong I’m still sceptical that local toe rags would be so inventive as to use a drone to case a garden shed. Along the course of the thread, however, it has been made apparent that some local gardens host timber outbuildings that may contain expensive TVs and gaming equipment so that would sound more plausible but the OP stated that this drone was casing sheds which to me would seem a less fruitful target so I’m still erring on the ‘pilot’ being out for the fun of it.

I guess it was just an initial assumption my neighbour made but they could be casing lots of things. Let’s hope you’re all right and nothing happens