My husband received a small drone for Christmas. A relative thought he’d enjoy using it to take pictures of his new landscaping project and that it might be useful to check out our steep roof. He’s been careful to keep it over our (2+ acres) property, even when that meant crashing it while he was still getting the hang of the controls. It would never occur to us to fly it over neighbors’ homes.
Yesterday, dh went out to grill and heard a buzzing sound; at first he thought it was wasps or bees. It was a drone, flying pretty low, over a sheltered area of our backyard. After he spotted it, the drone hovered a moment then flew back to our neighbor’s yard on the opposite side of our house. That flight path was not accidental, given the narrow passage between our house and some large trees that leads to the fenced area where the grill and patio are located. That drone must have a video screen, or link to an ipad/smart phone, in order for the operator to navigate around an extension on the back of our house and then thread between the trees.
I’ve decided to wait to see if there’s a repeat invasion of privacy before making a polite request to cease. I’m not hopeful it will do much good. The husband is a pro ball player in his 30s who acts like an immature and entitled teenager. His dogs run loose, come on our property to bark at us and our guests, and are generally a nuisance. (We’ll be fencing our backyard this spring.) He holds loud parties that run very late and on holidays he shoots off enough fireworks (usually from 9 p.m. - 1 a.m., plus leftovers the next night) to compete with WDW. We keep hoping he will move, but none of the teams he’s played for are based nearby so getting traded apparently won’t help us out.
If talking to the neighbor doesn’t work, and local law enforcement can’t help, then I may be tempted to try one of my kids’ Super Soakers that can shoot a water blast 25 - 35 ft.