Parcel theft in Sydney: setting up a video doorbell that helps

A video doorbell won't usually stop parcel theft on its own. Placed and set up properly, it tells you the moment a parcel arrives, records whoever picks it up, and gives police, the retailer or your insurer something to work with. The bigger win in Sydney is pairing it with delivery options that keep parcels off a step that's in view of the footpath.

How common is parcel theft in inner Sydney?

NSW crime statistics have no "parcel theft" category. A parcel taken from your home is generally recorded as steal from dwelling, which BOCSAR groups with steal from person, stock theft and other theft under "other stealing offences".

Across NSW, steal from dwelling went from 15,819 incidents in the 12 months to March 2025 to 16,637 in the 12 months to March 2026. Over ten years it is still down, by an average of 2.7% a year (NSW Recorded Crime Statistics, March Quarter 2026).

Here is "other stealing offences" for the inner-city council areas (LGAs) in the same report:

Read these figures with three cautions:

• They aren't parcel counts. BOCSAR says much of the recent rise in other stealing came from e-bike theft (37% of the increase) and copper theft (16%) (BOCSAR media release, June 2026).
• City of Sydney rates per resident run high. Its rate for this category is 4.4 times the NSW rate, but BOCSAR notes the LGA has a small resident population compared with the number of people who work in or visit it.
• Trends move. In BOCSAR's June 2026 update, retail theft was the only major offence category with a significant two-year rise across NSW (BOCSAR crime and policing).

One more number worth knowing: across NSW, legal proceedings started within 90 days for only 6.3% of steal from dwelling incidents recorded in 2025. Treat footage as a record for your police report, the retailer and your insurer. What happens after that is up to police.

Where should a video doorbell go on a terrace or unit?

For parcel theft, the doorbell has one job: keep the spot where couriers actually leave parcels in frame. On inner Sydney terraces, that's usually one of three places:

• Door straight onto the footpath (common in Surry Hills, Redfern and Erskineville). The parcel sits on the step, in full view of the street.
• Door behind a small front yard and gate (Newtown, Paddington, Annandale). Parcels often end up just inside the gate or behind the front fence, not at the door.
• Recessed doorway or side entrance. The parcel goes into the corner of the recess, out of a straight-ahead camera's view.

That's why a tall field of view matters. Reolink's Video Doorbell (Battery) records a square 1:1 image covering 150° horizontally and 150° vertically, so it can see the doormat as well as the visitor's face. It comes with a wedge for the mounting plate, which turns the view towards a parcel spot off to one side.

Mount it beside the door at around chest height. Much higher and you mostly record the tops of caps and hoods.

If parcels land at the gate, a doorbell at the door may be too far away to capture a usable face. A second camera covering the gate or path, on battery or solar so no cables are needed, fills that gap. On sandstone or brick terrace fronts, allow for masonry fixing: our installation prices list that separately.

Apartments: if your door opens onto a shared corridor, or parcels go to a lobby, check with your strata or building manager before you mount anything. Parcels left in foyers are a separate problem, and lockers or Click & Collect are usually the better fix.

Renters: a battery doorbell needs no wiring, but screw holes still need permission. See security cameras in a NSW rental.

Package and person detection: which settings matter?

A doorbell facing a busy footpath can bury you in alerts. In our own measurements, real cameras were triggered between 34 and 135 times a day, far more than the 10–15 people usually expect. Work through this when you set it up:

1. Turn on package detection. The Reolink Battery doorbell detects people, vehicles and packages.
2. Use person alerts rather than plain motion. Person-only alerts ignore cars, shadows and swaying plants.
3. Draw a detection zone that covers your step and gate and leaves out the footpath. On one busy business driveway we measured, person-only detection with a zone cut recordings by about 97%, from about 1,300 a day to under 40.
4. Check the date, time and time zone, including daylight saving. A wrong timestamp makes a clip harder to rely on.
5. Set up a quick reply asking couriers to leave parcels behind the fence. The Reolink Battery doorbell has pre-recorded quick replies and two-way audio.
6. Clear the lens area now and then. A single cobweb in front of one of our cameras triggered it almost constantly: over 9,000 recordings in a few days. More in security camera false alerts.

This also affects battery life. Reolink quotes up to 5 months from the 7,000 mAh battery, but says it varies with settings, usage and temperature. Fewer pointless recordings means fewer recharges.

At night, a motion-sensor light near the door helps couriers find the step and gives the camera a clearer picture. NSW Police include it in their parcel theft prevention advice.

How do I stop parcels being left on the step?

NSW Police's advice is that doorbells and cameras capture a theft but usually aren't enough to stop it. So use the doorbell alongside delivery options that cut how long a parcel sits outside:

With Australia Post, you can set Safe Drop as your delivery preference in your MyPost account or the AusPost app, for all parcels or individual ones. If you haven't, Australia Post emails MyPost account holders while the parcel is on its way to ask whether a Safe Drop suits (Australia Post: What is a Safe Drop).

The driver still decides. If there's no safe place on the property, Australia Post leaves a card and the parcel goes to a nearby Post Office (Australia Post: Authority to leave). For a terrace that fronts a busy road, that's often the best result.

What should I do if a parcel is stolen?

Work through these steps the same day:

1. Check tracking and any delivery photo, and ask the neighbours. Parcels do get left at the wrong door.
2. Save the clip straight away. Download the original recording from the app rather than screen-recording it, and note the date and time. Keep the clip of the courier dropping it off too.
3. Report it. If it's happening now, call 000. Otherwise, NSW Police take reports of stealing that has already happened through the online Community Portal or the Police Assistance Line on 131 444 (NSW Police: Reporting). Write down the event number.
4. Contact the retailer. What they'll do depends on their delivery terms and whether you asked for the parcel to be left. The courier drop-off clip shows exactly where it was left.
5. Check your contents insurance and any purchase cover on your card.

The most useful clips show a face as the person walks towards the door, not just the top of a head. They have a correct timestamp and are the original file. Our guide on giving CCTV footage to NSW Police or your insurer covers exporting and handing over files.

One weak point: a battery doorbell stores recordings on a microSD card inside the unit, so if someone pulls it off the wall, the footage can go with it. An off-site copy fixes that. WireFree Cloud keeps a copy of each recording from compatible Reolink cameras in Sydney. Not every model can upload, and some older ones need a Reolink Home Hub, so check your model first.

The short version

• Assume a parcel on a step facing the footpath will be seen. Use lockers, collect points or a hidden Safe Drop spot where you can.
• Mount the doorbell at around chest height so it sees the doormat, and cover the gate too if that's where parcels land.
• Turn on package and person detection, zone out the footpath and check the clock.
• If a parcel is taken, save the original clip, report it and keep the event number.

If you'd rather have it positioned and set up for you, WireFree Security installs video doorbells and battery or solar cameras across inner Sydney without running cables.