I would have grabbed the drone and return to the neighbor in person! It is urgent that our government really need to come up with acceptable rules. Drones are getting more popular. Many chinese companies are making a lot of money with drones while ordinary citizens suffer. They could fobid any recording device on drones until they come up with rules.
I am hoping he was just playing and didn’t realize it was so close to the window, but that won’t be the case since he can see the side of the window from where he was standing! It just surprised me to see the drone at the window as we were just outside with him earlier in the day talking. It was pretty ballsy of him to fly it at eye level so close to the window.
The funny thing is, this is the neighbor that threatened to bash another neighbor’s dog head in if he every caught it off leash again near his family. While I am not fond of said dog either as I was almost attacked by it, I don’t think I would bash the dog’s head in. So Mr. Hothead might get a taste of his own medicine if he doesn’t behave!!
Tell your neighbor that your family gave you this as a birthday present:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdkd9BX_iBk
It is a beautiful thing… and can be used against the nasty dog, too!
Drones are technically considered aircraft and you can get in trouble if you try to shoot them down. Ridiculous really! I don’t think “shooting them down” includes using your hose on them. I hope not.
The people who got in trouble for shooting down drones were not primarily in trouble for destroying the drones… There were other laws violated, like discharging a firearm endangering others or shooting the thing over another’s property. Drone owners are trying to push and test the boundaries of property laws, some of the oldest set of laws on the books… It will take time, but I doubt they will get all the freedoms they want. The courts may side with someone living off aerial photography, but punk kids annoying the neighbors might not get as much sympathy from judges.
A month or 2 ago, a woman near here was arrested for throwing a rock at a neighbor’s drone. She was released when she agreed to pay for the damages. There had been issues between these neighbors before. I don’t like the done proliferation and would not want one flying near me either.
http://www.wtae.com/news/woman-ordered-to-pay-for-throwing-rock-at-drone/36654742
If the drone does indeed have a camera, then to me that is no different from someone peering into your window. Just unacceptable. What if you were scantily dressed or having a romantic moment with your wife? Many people walk around their homes in the buff - what then?
I would approach him in a friendly manner and just tell him it is entirely unacceptable to you to have a drone with a camera hovering around the windows of your home. Tell him it is an invasion of your privacy. If he is a reasonable person he will apologize and it won’t be repeated. I sometimes think these people get so excited about this new technology that they think everyone shares that excitement. I am betting he thought you would think it was funny or be amused by his drone.
I agree with @HarvesMoon1. Since you talked about it earlier the same day, I am also betting that he thought it was as if the cute little thing just dropped by to say Hi, and you would find it amusing. I think a friendly talk in which you say you understand he is having fun with the new toy, but you do not feel comfortable having it flying around your house for privacy reasons may solve the matter. I don’t see the need to come on strong and make an enemy of him. Yet. 
There was an article about this recently, and basically, thanks to the law not keeping up with technology, drones are classified as aircraft and shooting at one or otherwise interfering with its flight path is a crime,and you also can be responsible for damage to it if you do hit it and bring it down, as stupid as that is. What makes it even more aggravating is that your property rights only exist at ground level, a drone flying at your window is basically the same thing as a helicopter or airplane flying over your house. If the drone is flying over the street in front of your house, hovers and they observe you, it is considered the same thing as someone walking on the street in front of your house and video taping your house, it is perfectly legal since they are on ‘public property’.
What really disturbs me is when I hear people defending the widespread use of drones, saying “well, model airplanes and helicopters have had cameras on them for a long time, and they aren’t registered”. For one thing, RC airplanes have rules around them, you cannot just fly them anywhere you want, and there are laws restricting where they can fly, like around airport flight paths, and RC helicopters have rules, and generally they are flown by hobbyists in specific areas like flying fields, school fields, and so forth. Drones are in structure similar to an RC helicopter, but the intent is quite different. The only thing I can think is people defending drones being unregistered like that, who think it is no big deal, are a bunch of creeps who likely will be out stalking people or peeping into their lives, or they have no concept of privacy.
The really hard part is that the FAA rules interfere with local attempts at regulating drones, the federal regs supercede many of them, which makes it even more messy. I was hoping that maybe congress would wake up and write regulations, like for example formally defining that the airspace over a house to the height of let’s say 1000 feet above the roof is considered restricted airspace, which would help protect privacy (even with the camera lenses on the drones, 1000 feet would help protect privacy). Not holding my breath, though, there is too much money being made selling drones for me to believe Congress will actually do something useful in this regards.
“A month or 2 ago, a woman near here was arrested for throwing a rock at a neighbor’s drone.”
She apparently threw “driveway gravel” at the drone as it was finishing its flight… that is different than a drone hovering by your private, backyard-facing bedroom window where the drone operator cannot see the drone but can peek into the windows using the drone’s camera. (That would be flying a drone out of line of direct sight and would be a violation of the FAA rules, so calling the cops would be appropriate.) Anyway, she got what she wanted - the drone owner said he would not fly it near her house. LOL. Good for her.
When I was looking at the stuff on the internet, it really made me LOL when I saw the drone owners getting their panties in a wad about their privacy because the FAA drone registration database could be open to the public to search… LOL.
HarvestMoon is spot on; knowing my neighbor, he would have thought it was funny to “drop by” with his drone. I am sure he has no desire to peep in on this 58 year old, as he has a cute young wife in his house!! That said, the drone was a bit too close for comfort at 10:00 at night. Actually he can see my kitchen table from his deck, but where he had the drone on this window, he had a clear view of my entire kitchen and part of my den. It is not unusual for me to make a quick run to the laundry room in only a bra and panties to grab a shirt or something as our windows are on the second story up a hill; no one from the street can see in unless I stand against the window, which I am not in the habit of doing! I will think twice about my stage of dress in the future until I know he will keep his drone on his side of the fence.
If this drone peeping does not stop, I’d casually mention the drone visits to the wife… She might take care of it. 
( I would! )
…
https://www.faa.gov/uas/regulations_policies/media/FAA_UAS-PO_LEA_Guidance.pdf
BB, the document doesn’t say anything about invading private properties.
BunsenBurner, I will remember that if it happens again 
Oh, the dog I mentioned earlier, well he attacked one of my dogs tonight when we were walking. My dogs is ok with only a cut above his eye and a bit of bruising. The dog came charging at us while I was out with the younger dog. It was pouring rain, so I had a huge golf umbrella in one hand, and holding the leash with the other. My dog gave a bark as he heard something and the next thing I know, the pit bull comes charging at us, with the owner running behind him. Somehow, I ended up on one side of a large wooden for sale sign, and my dog was on the other with the neighbor’s dog. Neighbor grabbed his dog and was able to pull his off of mine, while I took off grabbing the leash. Because my dog is black and it was nighttime, I wasn’t able to tell if he was ok until we got back home. Grabbed a white towel and dried him off, while checking for blood. I only came across a little; it took me a bit of time to figure out where it was coming from.
I had forgotten this dog had also charged at my husband once when he was out walking the dogs, so this makes the third time with our family and once with our drone neighbor. As my daughter said, don’t blame the dog, it is the owners fault. She is right because if the dog were kept in the fenced yard, or on a leash when out, this wouldn’t happen. The owner stammered when my husband when to talk to him, saying he didn’t know why his dog did this. This is the house for sale, so I am hoping they move sooner, rather than later.
Now the peeping drone seems minor as we will do anything to protect our pups! The dog really doesn’t need to go to the vet, but I feel like taking him just so I can hand the neighbor the bill as we told him we expect him to pay if we take him!
I think you should take your dog in, just as a precaution AND present the bill.
Take the dog into the vet and file a police report. It’s pit “owners” like that that give us all a bad name, but that’s no reason not to make sure this “owner” understands that he needs to keep his dog under control.
We finally called the cops on our neighbor after their loose running dog went after my pittie baby for the 3rd or 4th time. The dog couldn’t actually hurt my dog (and truth be told, mine could snap its neck in half if she wasn’t scared of it) but that didn’t change the fact that it repeatedly ran up to us (and others) biting and snarling. They apparently got the message because their dogs haven’t been outside, off-leash since.
ETA: And, for what it’s worth, one of the reasons that we did end up calling was for the safety of the dogs. I kept imaging coming home and finding one of them (there are two) on the road as road kill. I was also worried about them going after the wrong person- ie a person with a gun who wouldn’t think twice about shooting the dogs.
snowball, it’s a bit alarming that you give up your right to privacy so readily. Why not demand both, physical safety and reasonably assurance to privacy?
“BB, the document doesn’t say anything about invading private properties.”
Of course it does not. Why should it? Not the right jurisdiction. Note that it acknowledges that states and local governments can have UAS-specific tort, property, criminal, etc. laws. As far as I know, there are no constitutional (federal) right to general privacy. It is up to the states whether they want to define and protect it.
Are your local legislators doing anything about drones v property/privacy rights? Chicago did:
The rules prohibit drones from flying within five miles of the city’s airports, or over schools, hospitals, churches, police stations, outdoor stadiums, and “property the operator does not own.” >>>>>>>.
So basically one can only send it up over their own property or carefully down streets, in parks. Defined it, for sure.
I just saw a drone flying over my house and my neighbors’ houses tonight – first time I’ve ever seen one. It was about 20’ high and had red and green lights on the bottom. It creeped me out a little when it hovered over our houses, I must say.