There comes a time in a person's life when they must contemplate the decision to install surveillance security cameras in and outside their home, and it is not a milestone to be pondered lightly. Your family may come to resent this landmark reform, but you should pay their concerns no attention, for they will do whatever you tell them to do anyway, so there is no point listening to them whine and moan about things on which you will be unable to reach a consensus. Nobody has the time to engage in futile arguments all day (well, your family might). Tell them that you're going out, on account of the fact that you have things to do. You'll be back when you feel like it.
This is where the fun begins, for the surveillance cameras (which they will be unable to turn off) will be recording every moment of their tortured, pathetic existences, and you will be able to slip back in as soon as everyone has gone to sleep and spend the night watching what everyone else did when they were awake. The things you will learn! Ensure adequate password protection for your vault of voyeuristic video, lest your relatives gain access and begin scrubbing moments that reflect on them poorly. Unbeknown censorship is your worst enemy (with the possible exception of law enforcement, in the unlikely event that you happen to be not only filming highly illegal things but are also the subject of a search warrant for the 'protection of others').
Now, there is the question of what to do if you catch the cretins that occupy your house doing things that directly incriminate them – things that, theoretically, you should have no knowledge of whatsoever. But, dammit, when that ungrateful nose-picking, bed-shitting neanderthal with training wheels goes into your bedroom and begins messing around with your shit, dumping the stamp collection in the fucking sink, getting chocolate pudding shit all over the violin case, an inexplicable green stain on your bed accompanied with a very strange smell... well, you are really left no choice but to leave the computer monitor in a fit of rage to go and strangle the little bastard, probably waking him up in the process, but hey, he should be awake to see how he made you feel. (His protests that the dog is responsible will only vindicate your harsh violence.) Remember to pause the video before walking off for any necessary strangulation sessions.
It is worth quickly examining the impact of surveillance cameras in public, as a method of deterring crime. Countless studies, not even worth citing here, have found that surveillance cameras deter crime right up until the moment they are stolen and sold on the black market for substandard prices. (“We learned very early on that publicly owned items – cameras, statues, traffic lights – do not really sell as well as one would expect,” noted gang member and underground trafficking expert Ralph A. Lundy told me over coffee last month. He says that drugs, especially painkillers, and exotic meats are generally the staple items that allow him to pay off his mortgage.) Some other studies have suggested that rates of crime are much higher in areas where surveillance cameras are not located, especially when in close proximity to areas that are being monitored. This tactic is evidently more effective when people do not know that they are being watched, but civil libertarians generally throw a fit whenever anyone tries to suggest some sort of universal monitoring program, so we are stuck with giant signs letting criminals know to behave themselves, if only for a little while, so that they can keep walking along and go back to harvesting fetal tissue on the sidewalk once they are safely out of sight.
