Mr Rowley contacted the Mercury after security cameras at his Buttenshaw Drive home picked up the same man peeking over his fence several nights in a row, scoping out the area.

After reports of burglaries in Wollongong and Austinmer, Mr Rowley wanted to warn his neighbours. "The cameras show him having a good look around, walking around the yard and checking out our assets," Mr Rowley said.

Camera footage shows a middle-aged man wandering around the property, peering over fences and through garden foliage. Mr Rowley said the same man was seen poking around his yard in the early hours of May 23, 24 and 25.

On May 24, Mr Rowley managed to confront the man and chase him off - but the next morning, the lurker was back again, this time allegedly accessing a neighbour's property and using a torch to look over the fence into Mr Rowley's shed.

"My alarm system has an automated alert, so I ran outside and chased him off into the bushes. The police came, but they couldn't find him," he said.

The prowler appeared around 5.45am on May 25, just after Mr Rowley had left for work, and while his partner was sleeping inside.

"He doesn't seem to have qualms about breaking in while someone is sleeping. Someone trying to get into our place, invading our personal space - that's a high risk, that's when people start getting hurt," Mr Rowley said.

Other home owners in the street have reported similar incidents in the past week. Mr Rowley said he had shown the camera footage to neighbours, and would circulate letters to other neighbours to warn them of the prowler in their midst, but he was concerned that crime was seeping into their suburb.

"We moved down from Sydney a few years ago, for a better lifestyle.

"The northern suburbs have this reputation as a sleepy hamlet, but the whole area seems to be under siege," he said.

joshua.butler@fairfaxmedia.com.au