Candid Camera

Some object to security bars, which in neighborhoods that lack the moderating capabilities of landscape, can seem repressively encircling.  In many higher income communities, features of potential alienation are shrunken, if not more unsettling.

Home Security Cameras are an example of such, fixed to eaves, above entrances, atop high walls. Residences, even neighborhoods, blazon their deployment.  

As the systems drop in price (a package with four dome-shaped infrared cameras and a four channel DVR with 250 gb, costs around $1,000.00), their employment mounts.

The proliferation is also connected to the rise of the home office.  Increasingly, sound and image related professionals, in flagging entertainment industries, are forsaking rental space; instead, housing expensive equipment in re-purposed 

garages, basements, and rumpus rooms.

I asked one Hollywood Hills home owner if he'd utilized his multi-camera surveillance set-up. 

 "Yes," he replied glowingly, "we identified the cat spraying our front door."