Police officer taking pictures of my house

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m writing this for myself in a way. But what happened last night is very odd.

My Wife and I live rural Colorado mountains. There is one other house on our road. Most people wouldn’t even call it a road.

Yesterday 6:30 pm a car pulls up our driveway. This is very unusual, and almost always some lost soul. Happens about once a year. They start to turn around, but stop. Huh. I take a closer look. It’s an unmarked police SUV. Huh. They’re just siting there. I go out on our deck (I had no shoes on) and yell “Can I help you?”

A LEO gets out of the car in full gear and approaches me “I’m just here to take pictures of your house. You should have got a letter from your insurance company”

This takes me a minute to process. Yes I did get a letter from my insurance company saying someone would be by to take exterior pictures of the house. But… what? a LEO. What?

The LEO elaborates, “My Wife is a sub-contractor for your insurance company, I’m helping her by taking pictures of houses. I’ll leave if you want”

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. My Wife works as an appraiser for the county and has to take pictures of houses all the time. But, a Police Officer in full gear in an unmarked car helping his Wife do some sort of sub-contracting side job?

I know things are rough all over, and I don’t mind police presence, nothing to hide, but yeah, it really gives you a shot of adrenaline. Anybody carrying a gun puts me on high alert.

I call my Wife out to let her know what’s up, and tell the officer that it’s fine, take a couple of pictures.

He was a police officer from a small town about 15 miles away (small town, I’m rather stunned that they have a nice un-marked vehicle).

In an unrelated incident, my one neighbor at the end of the road called to tell me people where camping in the road and blocking his driveway. He told them to pick up their trash and leave. He also called the Sheriff. 911 told him no one was on duty until 9am. This was around 6am. They packed up their tents, and went to sleep in their cars. They left at about 8am. The Sheriffs Deputy showed up at 10am.

My Wife works for the county we live in. She found out in a meeting that due to budget/staffing problems, there will be no Sheriff’s deputies available between 11pm and 7am. “Due to staffing problems, please limit your criminal activities to normal working hours” :rofl:

I assume that the State Patrol might have someone patrolling within 20 miles or so. Sort of a roll of the dice.

2

I don’t follow. Are you complaining about the lack of staffing in your local police agencies, or are you complaining that police are allowed to work 2nd jobs?

3

in la county ca you can pay the sheriffs office to do all sorts of odd jobs like serve summons evictions and the like

4

Working a second job is fine. Doing the job in uniform is fine if the job is security related, but would you want a cop in uniform, armed, mowing your lawn?

5

This is what bugged me. He was helping out his wife that is sub-contracting for my insurance company and doing it in uniform and using a police vehicle. And really, way out of his jurisdiction 15 miles away from the town he works for.

This seems… inappropriate.

I could care less if they work second jobs. Well, actually I do. The stupid people in this county will NEVER vote to raise taxes for anything. It makes me sad that they need to do this.

Like I said, I wrote this for myself. When was the last time a LEO came to your house to give you good news? Yeah, it upset me.

This is the second time in 30 years that a LEO has come to our house. The first time was under totally false pretenses. It was a fishing expedition. I live in a passive solar house that would be great for growing MJ. I don’t.

I’m not going to make any phone calls or write letters to the editor. I feel kinda sorry for the guy.

6

I’m going to continue.

A LEO was being a sub-contractor to his Wife that was sub-contracting to my insurance company to take pictures of my house using a LEO vehicle. But when my neighbor called 911 for assistance, it took 4 hours to get help.

4 hours.

I’m kinda unhappy about that too.

7

In his defense he did offer to leave after informing you of why he was there. So he knew it could be perceived as inappropriate and wanted to give you an out.

Perhaps he was taking a lunch break and wanted to get this task done quickly. You did get a notice from your insurance as well. Did you just not believe him or are you holding onto the initial shock? Take a deep breath and process this please.

Tying this to another departments inability to get to a neighboring crime in a timely fashion is streching it.

8

Don’t question the men in blue and you’ll be okay. Probably.

9

He was questioned and he answered. A letter from the insurance was received. Maybe you think he was reading the mail too?

How small of a town and rural of an area is this?

10

How safe would he be if he asked him to leave or started raising these questions that he’s asking here.

Lick those boots.

11

We dint know because he didn’t ask.

12

He might not be here to report, but that won’t bother you. Justified shooting.

13

If this was a water department truck being used zero people would feel obligated to invent reasons why it’s plausibly proper.

14

Not saying its proper. But he did explain himself. Like a human would.

15

It was probably mildly inappropriate of him to be doing a 2nd job in uniform, but if he was off the clock (say, on his way home), then maybe not so bad.

16

There’s also the question of whether he was doing side work while he was supposed to be doing law enforcement work.

As a side note, I’ll say that underpaying the police is a really bad idea. You won’t get the best people that way, and it’s an invitation to corruption.

17

I didn’t want to shoo him away for a couple of reasons. He’s a LEO. “Go away, I don’t want pictures taken of my house” Is NOT a good response.

And I guessed it was legit since I did recall that I got an letter from my insurance company a few months ago. And, well, he’s trying to make a buck and help his Wife out.

It’s very weird though that the LEO in uniform using a LEO vehicle is in effect working for my insurance company to make a few bucks.

18

Maybe I’m jaded because we’ve had off duty state troopers and Boston police in uniform, carrying arms, dropping in on “neighbors” for a completely unofficial friendly chat about BLM signs in our neighborhood.

Or police departments billing our company at least 5X the number of hours actually worked during events where THEY decide that security is needed.

19

Well I agree with the OP that it is weird and justifys his questioning the officer and his venting in the post. Its making my breakfast more enjoyable. :grin:

I’ve lived in small rural towns and the cops there were either total assholes or just some local guy that needed a job. Small towns are well, small towns and strange shit happens.

A cop from a major city department doing this would set me off like Mightey_Mouse is doing. Cops don’t get a free pass from me, I don’t automatically believe them. Each situation is differnt and needs to be handeled like any other human interaction. Not an automatic, its a coo so bad things are happening.

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BTW, I assume the photos are in case your house is lost in a wildfire?