Many of you are starting to unravel in the presence of drones in your neighborhoods. Your fear and paranoia never cease to amaze me. As long as you choose to live in proximity with other humans who aren’t as fearful, you need to try to understand your world a little bit better.
And I’m here to help!
1) It’s difficult (even for a drone operator) to know which way most drone cameras are pointing. A hovering drone “near you” could have it’s camera pointing directly at you, or across the street or straight down, and you would never be able to tell the difference. A drone photographing your neighbors home for sale will often appear exactly the same as a drone allegedly looking through your windows or into your backyard.
2) The majority of drone cameras cannot see detail far away from them. If you don’t see a full size camera hanging from a drone, it’s zoom capability is poor to non-existent. There are new “zoom” drone models on the market but they can’t even zoom as far as your cell phone camera.
3) This one won’t be popular but it’s important to understand.. legal drone operators often cover a lot of “ground” during the course of a flight and it’s nearly impossible to know exactly who they will be flying over until they’re up in the air and seeing the drone view. This makes notifying all neighbors of a potential flyover nearly impossible ahead of time.
4) It is unacceptable for any unknown drone to hover over your property for an extended period of time. It is unacceptable for any unknown drone to hover near your windows at all, for any period of time.
5) It is ACCEPTABLE UNDER CURRENT LAWS for an unknown drone to fly over your property to survey adjacent properties. It is helpful to understand that it could reasonably take 10-20 seconds to “get the shot” before a drone moves on.
Lastly, I’d just like to remind you that your life is probably not spectator-worthy. If you are doing something in your yard or your windows that is truly fascinating to the outside world, you might want to invest in more trees and/or start closing your blinds.
xo