Welp, long story short, unfortunately I’m suddenly having a lot of trouble with my alcoholic neighbor. Just today he tried to poison my dog, and when I confronted him then he assaulted me and I had to defend myself and then had him arrested. However, now I’m worried about retaliation – but I don’t know much about security cameras, or how to set them up.

As far as I can tell, wired cameras would be the best way to go – the only problem being that I live in an apartment and drilling holes to wire them inside may be a problem. However, I think I can put one on a flat section of my roof that overlooks our shared parking lot, and then run the wire in through the window that our air conditioner is in. I would like one on my back door as well, but I just don’t think that would work (and isn’t as important, as there really isn’t much on that patio that he could destroy – I’m mostly worried about our cars).

So, If I go with a wired camera, what kind of system should I go with? I only have a single work laptop so I don’t want to have it record onto that as I bring it with me to many places and it isn’t always at home to record. So as far as I’m aware then I would need a DVR, correct? And then what? How do I get/watch footage off of the DVR? Also, would it be possible to connect it to a separate screen to view what the camera is seeing?

On the other hand, if I end up needing to go with a wireless system, can anyone give recommendations for that? And how does that work? As far as I’ve read, you connect it to your wireless network, then record to your computer. But as I stated that I can’t record to my laptop, then do I have any other options? I would prefer not to pay for a cloud service, but I’m not entirely against it if I have limited options.

Sorry for so many questions – I’ve actually done a fair bit of research but there’s just so many options, and I can’t really figure out what to do here, or how to make it work for my specific situation. I’m really torn on wired vs wiresless – I need to make sure that I can run cable through the window with the air conditioner, and if not, I’ll need to get permission from my landlord to drill. Plus, I would prefer to get recommendations for products from actual people rather than sites like “Top 10 Webcams of 2023!”

Thanks a lot for any info or recommendations! I’m a little overwhelmed here, and just worried that he’s going to do something stupid when he gets out of jail (I’m guessing on Monday), so I’m hoping to have this set up by early/mid next week.