Agreed!!! Pics please
This is an incredibly common event, and generates a lot of “suspicious person/incident” calls to LE. Buyers, sellers, appraisers, agents, builders, and everyone in between roll through neighborhoods and snap pics to consider, compare, or plan. Especially true in new neighborhoods, ones with lots of homes on the market, or areas of planned redevelopment.
You shouldn’t ignore it or blow it off, but I also wouldn’t get too excited about it either depending on the circumstances.
I also wouldn’t expect LE to be too terribly excited about it either, nor to assign it a high call priority, depending on their manpower and call volume.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
I can only guess that he knows without a doubt that you took his picture when you blocked him in. In that case he knows you’re onto him and will probably move on somewhere else if he had criminal intentions. However, if something were to happen now you have pictures and descriptions that could be very beneficial.
I used to be an appraiser. The property owner always knew we were coming. We took measurements for square footage, looked the entire house up and down, the whole nine yards. Took atleast an hour. Although it could have been, they could’ve been taking pictures of houses that were sold in the last year, but the mls system we used has a list of houses that sold within the last couple years, specs, how much it sold for, etc so we never needed to do drive around and take pictures. On top of the information we had about your house we needed atleast three similiar “cookie cutter” houses to compare and justify the real value of it.
county appraisers will do this, they also use google earth to look up the properties to see if a pool has been installed.
i’ve driven through neighborhoods snapping pictures… especially the ones i built. i’ve also taken pictures of other people’s work… taken pictures of older neighborhoods for design reference, etc. and my work truck is definitely not “new” nor “nice.” if somebody started following me and then tried to block me in, i think i’d be out of the truck with my carbine in hand and 911 on speakerphone in a heartbeat.
I read all the posts, and I’m really surprised that no one mentioned this. Why didn’t you just kindly wave him down and ask him what he was up too? You can really gather someone’s intentions in how they react when you ask what they are up to.
This could have saved you time, energy, and the resultant paranoia.
I decided several years ago to gently and diplomatically confront people that seem suspicious. This guy could have been just like BKB0000, and a simple, “Hey, what’s up man? Why you here, what are you doing?” works wonders.
I won’t address the concerns regarding the potential for inciting a confrontation, others with more experience than myself have already made posts to that effect. My opinion regarding your thoughts on paranoia are, “better safe than sorry”. If you think that somebody is acting suspiciously then pay attention.
It involves some time, effort, and cooperation from your neighbors, but you might consider organizing a Neighborhood Watch Program.
my thoughts are the bold part ? that I would not have done
you might have marked your car for them ? not saying they did ? but I would rather fly under the radar
yes I would have gotten info and called it in as a suspicious vehicle and if its in the area again I would also call it in again !
but I would try to do things in a way they do not notice you or you do not stand out etc…
I might follow someone in my neighborhood ? but I would never follow them out !
you kinda go from protecting to predator in a loose sense and since criminals (if they are) lie and dont care they would lie under oath !
and if someone saw your car in their area and even if they made you react (not saying they have that big of a brain) you following them out of your area into their area is not going to look good ?
officer we were out looking at homes and landscapes we liked and this freak rushed out of his house with a gun and followed us to our house blocked us in our drive and threatened to kill us !!!
YES it would be a lie but if someone saw your car in the area ? if they got a pic of you blocking them in sadly it does not show well on you ?
that is something my brother (a Prosecutor) would tell me !!!
now if you jumped in your car got a shot of the lic plate and ended it their its going to be hard to say much ?
so they have a pic of you in YOUR area following them to get a pic ? well thats not so bad cause you calling in confirms you were suspicious got the tag and called it in
in the other (you go to their neighborhood) worst case even though you called it in ? sounds like you decided to take the law into your own hands !!! (that coming from their lawyer)
again just dumping thoughts and having a brother for a prosecutor makes you look at things in a dif light ? of what they are capable of !!!
OH he puts bad guys away does not defend them 
but also YES that stuff would make me real real paranoid !!!
very good point
wife and I are looking at redoing our front yard and have been going around looking at others ? a few times if we see people out we say Hello we live down at so and so address and are going to redo our yard ! we really like yours hope you dont mine us looking at yours so closely every time it has been met with great and a little talk story etc…
sounds like these people did not wave etc… that action ( I was not their of course) would make me worry often times just the look of the people (meaning not physical but they way they are acting smiling or not etc…) shows me a lot
others with no foul intent tend to be friendly and wave etc…
I wave at all the cars I recognize in my area funny some must think I am nuts !!! people on the mainland tend to not want to know their neighbors to much ? its strange nothing like the islands where it seemed I knew EVERYONE and everyone would help even with carrying in groceries etc…
totally dif mentality here ???
that is freaking weird. id hop onto my bike and follow them when they circle the end of my street.
I keep a camera handy and take photos of shady stuff here in the neighborhood all the time. Generally just what I can get from the window. My PD ignores the local dealer getting his re-supply (even when I called it in) but I still try and get photos when I can. Non-confrontational is good.
Same here coming from Wyoming. I wave at every car I pass on a quiet back country NY farm road. Don’t always get waves back, and it is sad, but it is the reality right now. But the thing is, the large majority of people have good innocent intentions, and just communicating with the people around us saves a lot of trouble and lost sleep.
I say this as someone who’s general attitude is: Paranoia is A Heightened Sense of Reality! I’m a paranoid dude, have been for most of my life, but one day I woke up and realized that paranoia leads to fear of unknown, and I decided to stop playing into that fear. Yes I am still aware, but I’ve found that most people will ultimately respond verbally when addressed in a polite way. I can tell a lot more from someone that wont say hello to me when I ask them how they are doing, then I can from someone that “looks shaddy” because their car is ten years old, or their hair is messed up.
If I was in the situation that the OP found himself in, I would have walked up to the car casually to start a conversation. Their reaction would have gauged my secondary response.
Paranoia is an urealistic fear, as you have apparently begun to realize. I jokingly have asked for years, “paranoid or paranoid enough?”, however, true paranoia is a very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation.
As to the OP, I think you certainly have a basis for concern and that’s not necessarily paranoid ideation at all. I personally can’t see myself ever going in pursuit for surveillance in this case and think that blocking this individual in, even momentarily is a little too aggressive of a move as a private citizen but maybe that’s just me. Taking a photo, getting a license plate number and calling the police all make sense. Heightening your awareness and letting your neighbors know all make sense too. Hope it all turns out to be nothing.
i dont think it was too paranoid. gathering counter-intel on this guy was a good idea i think. just remember that in a situation like this, try to think like a local police officer in regards to how he will perceive your actions. anyway, keep the information handy. personal information aggregator websites like spokeo.com may use this type method to get the pictures of people’s houses. on that website i found pictures of my own house that looked like they were taken with a still camera. in any case nothing bad came out of just gathering info on the guy. how did he respond to taking pictures of him? keep in mind he may be a scum bag picking out targets for residential burglaries. call your local police department and request an “extra patrol.” dont ask for just one day, make sure and tell them that u want the extra patrol to go for a few weeks. if they follow suit with other departments, then they should have an element go by your house swing by your house at least once a day. it may help with preventing any possible criminal activity.
good luck, richie
Sounds like a great attitude.
Good for you, hope you continue to be a bright spot to those around you.
No, you’re not being paranoid. My guess is you saw some lackey photographing homes for tax assessment purposes.
Am I being paranoid?
My motion lights weren’t working in the back of the house. I check them and replace all the lights, one was unscrewed, replaced them all anyways to know if somebody messed with it. None of the neighbors have been working as well, the immediate two houses on each side anyways. I mention it to them and they shrug it off…