On 10 May 2007 11:10:00 -0700, TrailRat
wrote:

Many thanks for the replies.

Firstly to the subject of the civilised state of the "mother nation".
Very civilised around here too and my general little slice of England
is safe. It's generally hidden from view from everyday foot traffic.
The box is there now to keep the weather off, the lock which I aim to
add is to keep a very vindictive ex-partner from destroying or
stealing my packages which I know she has been doing because I caught
her at it one morning.

Now as to the ideas for securing the parcels.

The magic box is a nice idea but the box would need to be rebuilt and
I wouldn't be able to make the box big enough to accommodate the
mechanism.

Had a couple of DOH!!! moments at some of the ideas. The simplicity of
them.

Padlock lock and hasp. Simple, efficient and cheap to fix.

Drop box, hasp and unlocked padlock - simple and effective.

That, and a small video camera hidden up out of reach or inside a
window that covers the box area, set as a webcam to your computer
inside the house.

Set the software to capture and timestamp an image whenever anything
moves, and to send an IM or E-Mail alert to your cellphone when
tripped with an image capture. You'll get a false alarm when the
postman delivers that will tell you when the package arrived, but the
next alert will be the real one.

(Audio might be a nice thing to grab too, if that won't cause legal
problems. If said person talks to themselves while committing the
acts of burglary and trespass you might get insight into motives.)

Hopefully you have serviceable laws over there about tampering with
the mail, criminal trespass, petty theft or grand theft depending on
the value of the items, etc...

-- Bruce --