At the start of the week, I noticed a car parked outside my house. A one time thing I wasn’t all that worried about.

I got worried when I saw it a second time. It arrived outside my house sometime after 8, saw it at 9:30, and it left sometime before 10:45.

It showed up a 3rd night and I called the non-emergency police number. Someone got out of the car and started walking to my neighbor’s front yard. They didn’t appear to be home. The patrol car came by, spoke to the driver, then left. No more then 15 minutes later, the car did too.

It showed up again the next night, but only stayed for about 15-20 minutes. I tried calling the police again to see if they could tell me about the last encounter, but they weren’t able to. By the time I hung up, the car was gone. This time, my neighbor’s lights were on.

It’s now outside again. It’s headlights are on. Can’t tell if anyone is inside. Just know it appeared about 30 minutes ago. I think my neighbor left.

I don’t want to keep calling the police and spook out my neighbors with a police car every night. I really don’t want to form a bad reputation with the police and end up making a bunch of “crying wolf” calls.

So my question is, does this sound like casing behavior or not? If so, I feel inclined to call the police again and have then send another patrol, but I don’t want to unless I’m just that much more confident.

Update: The car left at ~9:48. It arrived at ~9:20. The neighbor’s lights are on and there’s a car parked in front of their house. I ended up calling and asking for a patrol but they had left very shortly after I hung up. Advice still appreciated.