In new neighborhood, all homes have cameras

[Nostalgia]

WENTZVILLE, Mo. | The trampoline outside the model home sits idle, without a child in sight — and so does the patio’s kid-sized table scattered with storybooks.

From the vantage point of the home’s surveillance camera, someone might wonder: Where did the children go? Did the monitor in the kitchen just show a strange car driving down the street?

In a home with ample views of cows grazing in a nearby farm, child abduction scenarios might seem like the wrong sales pitch for a new subdivision in Wentzville — a city where the murder rate last year was zero and violent crime at the hands of a stranger is nearly nonexistent.

But inside the meticulous model home, real estate agent Joanie Graflage can’t stop talking about kidnappings, break-ins, peeping Toms and petty theft.

Graflage is selling homes for the Villages of Hampton Grove, a neighborhood that’s being marketed as Missouri’s first fully camera-secure subdivision.

Three surveillance cameras resembling tiny, black shower nozzles come standard on the exterior of every home.

When the $200,000 to $400,000 homes are built, owners will be able to glance at a computer monitor perched above their refrigerators to keep tabs not only on their kids, but also the front door, the driveway or the backyard.

Developer Rodney Estes said the cameras were proving to be the closer with fickle buyers. That’s especially true when they learn that they can view the footage from work on the Internet, allowing Mom to check whether her teen arrived home from school on time.

Joe Zanola, a marketing consultant for the housing industry, thinks such technology will one day be standard in most new homes.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/806439.html