These are the situations Bensonhurst homeowners, landlords, tenants and shop owners describe when they call about cameras: a recorder in someone else's apartment, a picture that dies every evening, a storefront window that blinds the camera behind it, a plate that never comes out clear. Each is answered here in full and not repeated in the FAQ further down.
Two-families, tenants and who can book the repair
I rent the upstairs of a two-family off 20th Avenue, and the landlord's camera over our shared door stopped working. Can I book the repair myself?
You can start the request, but the system belongs to the owner, so we need the owner's go-ahead before we open the recorder or change anything. In practice the quickest route is to send us the photos and the owner's contact, and we arrange the visit with them by text, including who pays. If the owner agrees to let you handle it, we take their written OK by text or email and book with you. What we will not do is reset or reconfigure a recorder on someone's say-so when they are not the owner or authorized by the owner, because that recorder may hold footage the owner needs.
The recorder for our whole house is in my tenant's basement apartment. Can it be moved somewhere I can reach it?
Usually yes. Moving a recorder means extending or re-routing the camera cables from where they come together now to the new location, often a closet or utility space on the owner's floor or a common hallway. Analog coax and network cables can both be extended, though very long analog runs need care to keep the picture clean. We look at the route on the service call and give you a written price for the move as its own item. In many two-families the move costs less than owners expect, because the cables already pass through the basement ceiling and only the last stretch has to change.
Pictures that fail after dark
Every evening around sunset, three of my cameras on the side of my semi-detached house start rebooting or go black, but they're fine all day. What's happening?
That pattern almost always points at power, not at the cameras. When it gets dark each camera switches on its infrared lights, which draws noticeably more current, and if the cameras share one central power box that is old or undersized, the voltage sags and the cameras reset or drop out. The fact that it hits a group of cameras at once, all on one side of the house, makes a shared supply the prime suspect. The fix is normally a new power supply sized for the night load, which on our Brooklyn list typically runs $150 to $400. We confirm it with a meter at dusk before replacing anything.
Can a camera inside my shop window on 86th Street still see the sidewalk after the gate comes down at night?
It can, but usually not the way it is set up now. A camera looking out through glass at night sends its infrared light straight into the window, which reflects it back into the lens and produces a white or grey wash. The gate a few inches beyond the glass makes it worse by bouncing even more light back. The usual fix is to turn off the camera's own infrared and rely on the street and storefront lighting, to press a camera designed for it right up against the glass, or to move the camera outside under the sign where it can see the doorway directly. Under the elevated tracks, where light is uneven, the outdoor position often gives the cleanest picture. We test the options on the visit before suggesting a part.
My driveway camera on 81st Street shows the car but never the license plate after dark. Can the camera I have be adjusted to read it?
Often it can. A plate is made to reflect light back at its source, so a camera with its own infrared pointed straight at the back of a car gets a glowing rectangle instead of readable characters. Turning down the infrared, shortening the exposure, changing the angle so the plate is not square to the camera, or narrowing the zoom on the plate area can all help, and on many recorders those are settings, not parts. If your camera simply does not have the zoom or the settings to do it, we tell you, and the answer may be one dedicated camera aimed at the driveway rather than a whole new system. Since police in the 62nd and 68th Precincts have said most crimes there involve items taken from vehicles, it is worth getting right.
Inherited, mixed and do-it-yourself systems
We put in a box-store camera kit ourselves a few years ago. Do you charge more to fix a system you didn't install?
No. The service call is the same $150, and the repair is priced by what failed. Self-installed kits do tend to have the same few weak points: plug-in adapters in damp places, extension cables joined with tape outdoors, and recorders tucked into closets with no airflow. We find those quickly. If a part from the kit has failed and the same model is no longer sold, we tell you what will work with the recorder you have before you spend anything.
My apartment building's cameras were added by three different companies over the years and some don't show up on the recorder. Can they all go on one system?
Often, yes, but it depends on what each camera is. Network cameras from different brands can usually be added to one recorder if they support the common ONVIF standard, though some features such as smart alerts may only work brand-to-brand. Analog cameras need a recorder that supports their specific signal type. On the first visit we identify every camera, label every cable, and tell you which can join the main recorder as they are, which need a setting change, and which would have to be replaced. That inventory alone usually explains why some cameras "disappeared" from the screen.
We bought a store on Bath Avenue that came with cameras and a recorder. What has to happen before that system is really ours?
Three things: confirming the equipment was sold with the business, getting control of the recorder, and putting the accounts in your name. Control is the technical part, and the method depends on the brand and model: some recorders allow a reset with a code from the manufacturer tied to the serial number, some need a physical reset, and a few need a firmware procedure. Most of these reset the old settings and accounts, which suits a new owner who wants a clean start. We confirm the equipment came with the business, set up new accounts in your name, put the app on your phone, and write down the details for you to keep somewhere safe.
Tampering, privacy and the neighbors
Someone keeps turning my porch camera toward the wall. How do you stop it happening again?
There are three parts to the fix. First, height and reach: a camera mounted where a person can touch it from the porch rail will be moved, so we raise it or relocate it out of reach. Second, the mount: a vandal-resistant dome or a bracket with a locking adjustment is much harder to push. Third, alerts: many recorders can warn you on your phone when a camera's view suddenly changes or goes dark, which is exactly what the Gravesend laundry-room burglar reported by CBS New York did when he covered the camera. We set that up if your recorder supports it.
My neighbor says my camera can see into his yard. Can you fix the view without taking the camera down?
Yes. On semi-detached and closely spaced houses, a camera on the corner almost always takes in part of the house next door. We re-aim it to cover your own door, yard and driveway, and where the recorder supports privacy masking, we black out the part of the picture that shows the neighbor's windows or yard so it is never recorded. It is a short adjustment, usually covered by the service call when no part is needed, and it tends to settle the disagreement for good.
Footage, clocks and evidence
My recorder's clock was off by a few hours when I pulled a clip for a car break-in. Is the footage still useful?
Usually it is, as long as you can explain the difference. Write down the time the recorder showed and the real time when you noticed, so anyone reviewing the clip can line it up with other evidence. Then get the clock fixed, because the gap tends to grow. A recorder loses time when its clock battery is dead or when it is not set to take the time from the internet, and both are quick to correct. We set the recorder to keep time automatically and confirm the time zone and daylight saving settings, which are a common source of a one-hour error.
Can you join my shop's cameras to the NYPD's camera-sharing program?
We can get your system ready for it, and the registration itself is your decision and your application. The pilot the Mayor's Office announced in 2024 lets retail businesses register their cameras with the NYPD and choose whether to share live feeds, at no cost to the business. For that to be useful, the recorder needs current firmware, a stable internet connection and correct time, and the cameras need to cover what matters, the door, the register and the sidewalk. We handle those parts; you decide whether and how to sign up.
Heat, cold, damp and power cuts
Our recorder sits in the garage of our rowhouse and keeps restarting on hot summer afternoons. Do we need a new one?
Not necessarily. Recorders and their hard drives are made for indoor temperatures, and a sealed garage in July can run far hotter than that. A recorder that restarts in the heat may be perfectly healthy in a cooler room. We check the drive's health and the recorder's own logs; if both are fine, the cheapest fix is often moving the recorder into the house or giving it ventilation. If the drive has already been damaged by heat, we replace it, which runs $200 to $450 on our Brooklyn list depending on capacity.
The lights blink during storms and afterwards my cameras take ages to come back. Should the recorder be on a battery backup?
For most houses and shops, yes. A small uninterruptible power supply keeps the recorder and, on network systems, the PoE switch running through brief outages and lets them shut down cleanly in a long one. That protects the hard drive, which is the part most likely to be damaged when power is cut mid-write, and it keeps the cameras recording during the very events, storms and outages, when people are most likely to try doors. We size the battery to the recorder and switch you have and can add it on a repair visit.
A ball from the playground down the block cracked the dome on our front camera. Do we need a whole new camera?
Often not. On many dome cameras the clear bubble or front cover is a separate part, and when only the cover is cracked or scratched, replacing it brings the picture back for a $30 to $80 part plus labor. The thing to check is whether water got in through the crack before it was noticed. If the picture shows spots, the infrared has stopped working, or the camera reboots in wet weather, the electronics have probably been reached and the camera itself should be replaced, which runs $250 to $600 on our Brooklyn list including the camera. Near parks and schoolyards, a vandal-rated dome is worth the small difference next time.
