Velveeta22
Member
On March 30th, I germinated 30 seeds (three tomato strains, x 10 seeds each). They were placed into Jiffy Peat Pots for outdoor guerrilla transplant. My wife knows nothing about it, however, she does know what the helicopters are for. Three or fours years back (when I had nothing going on horticulturally), a chopper was circling when we were both outside getting some sun. She asked, "what are they doing?" I told her police helicopters circle with FLIR cameras to take heat scans with the purpose of finding grow operations.
Two days ago, Saturday the 16th, she came inside and said "one of those police helicopters is circling our house". It was dusk but there was still some decent sunlight. I went outside and checked out the circling chopper. I just shook it off with no worries, although in the attic was a 75 watt grow light (Walmart cheapo veg light, 17 watt equivalent) sitting on top of the Jiffy dome (covered with tin foil). Just not enough watts or light leakage to worry about.
My wife is a nurse and I run a small ink business out of my house. Today she has the day off and as she stepped out of the shower she looked out the bathroom window to see a man pacing and talking on his cell phone in the back yard. We have no direct neighbors to the South facing that window, so she does not normally worry about peepers. She hurried to cover herself and alerted me to the man.
The man paced the edge of my South property line for 30 minutes talking on the phone, holding a clipboard. When he finally hung up the phone, he starting writing on his clipboard and inspecting my electrical box (which has never been altered or inspected as far as I know). Since he was now 5-8 feet inside my property line, I stepped out back with my coffee to get the story.
I walked towards the man and said, "What is going on out here?" He then identified himself as an inspector for the local electrical utility. He wore no hard hat, orange vest, or other visible electrical company ID. I started asking more questions, and the man showed me his clipboard with electrical company paperwork. I identified one of the sheets of paper as a checklist for the electrical box (not my individual meter, which was not inspected). He informed me that his truck was parked "up the street".
I did very little talking, mostly asking questions. His job was to inspect the boxes, locks, etc. My electrical box is not level and tilts at a 20 degree angle. I moved into the house in 2003 and the box has always been caddywhompus. I always assumed the dirt settled the box at a funny angle, not that it was installed in such a poor fashion. The man in my yard told me that he thought my box was in need of leveling and that rodents or animals could have caused the severe angling of my box. I said, "do what you need to do then". He took a picture of the box with what looked like a new Android smartphone.
From there, the man went back to his truck and pulled it up the road directly in front of my house, almost as if to tell me "see, my truck is official". When he got out of the truck, he had on his hard hat and continued to check other electrical boxes in the neighborhood. He spent a minimum of 45 minutes around my box. I took out my phone at this time and took pictures of his truck, license plate, etc from one of my second floor windows.
The electrical box "check" was approximately 36 hours after the circling helicopter. NO ONE knows about my tomato plants.
Tell me, am I paranoid or should I be concerned here? Honestly, I can blow off the initial helicopter as standard procedure (or waste of tax payers dollars) however, the electrical box check 36 hours after the circling helicopter put me on a level 10 high alert. I have removed all seedlings and placed them on public land until I can get to them later.
The only thing that I can think of is that I visited two hydro shops in the last few weeks. Were they staked out? All other supplies were ordered online in "private browser" mode, not using a proxy server.
Thoughts and suggestions?
Two days ago, Saturday the 16th, she came inside and said "one of those police helicopters is circling our house". It was dusk but there was still some decent sunlight. I went outside and checked out the circling chopper. I just shook it off with no worries, although in the attic was a 75 watt grow light (Walmart cheapo veg light, 17 watt equivalent) sitting on top of the Jiffy dome (covered with tin foil). Just not enough watts or light leakage to worry about.
My wife is a nurse and I run a small ink business out of my house. Today she has the day off and as she stepped out of the shower she looked out the bathroom window to see a man pacing and talking on his cell phone in the back yard. We have no direct neighbors to the South facing that window, so she does not normally worry about peepers. She hurried to cover herself and alerted me to the man.
The man paced the edge of my South property line for 30 minutes talking on the phone, holding a clipboard. When he finally hung up the phone, he starting writing on his clipboard and inspecting my electrical box (which has never been altered or inspected as far as I know). Since he was now 5-8 feet inside my property line, I stepped out back with my coffee to get the story.
I walked towards the man and said, "What is going on out here?" He then identified himself as an inspector for the local electrical utility. He wore no hard hat, orange vest, or other visible electrical company ID. I started asking more questions, and the man showed me his clipboard with electrical company paperwork. I identified one of the sheets of paper as a checklist for the electrical box (not my individual meter, which was not inspected). He informed me that his truck was parked "up the street".
I did very little talking, mostly asking questions. His job was to inspect the boxes, locks, etc. My electrical box is not level and tilts at a 20 degree angle. I moved into the house in 2003 and the box has always been caddywhompus. I always assumed the dirt settled the box at a funny angle, not that it was installed in such a poor fashion. The man in my yard told me that he thought my box was in need of leveling and that rodents or animals could have caused the severe angling of my box. I said, "do what you need to do then". He took a picture of the box with what looked like a new Android smartphone.
From there, the man went back to his truck and pulled it up the road directly in front of my house, almost as if to tell me "see, my truck is official". When he got out of the truck, he had on his hard hat and continued to check other electrical boxes in the neighborhood. He spent a minimum of 45 minutes around my box. I took out my phone at this time and took pictures of his truck, license plate, etc from one of my second floor windows.
The electrical box "check" was approximately 36 hours after the circling helicopter. NO ONE knows about my tomato plants.
Tell me, am I paranoid or should I be concerned here? Honestly, I can blow off the initial helicopter as standard procedure (or waste of tax payers dollars) however, the electrical box check 36 hours after the circling helicopter put me on a level 10 high alert. I have removed all seedlings and placed them on public land until I can get to them later.
The only thing that I can think of is that I visited two hydro shops in the last few weeks. Were they staked out? All other supplies were ordered online in "private browser" mode, not using a proxy server.
Thoughts and suggestions?
a single 75w lamp is not going to cause any suspicion... as 75w is a rather common lamp size for light bulbs people use in there attics...
