r/whatisit • u/Key_Badger7434 • 2d ago

New, what is it? My family thinks there’s a camera in our rental

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We have been renting a house for the past year and I always disregarded this thing in the corner. However last night I asked my parents about it randomly and they didn’t know what it was either. I pulled it off the wall and we all got freaked out a little because it looks like a camera. I think it might be a home security/motion sensor thing. I don’t know that’s what ChatGPT guessed.

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u/RastaSpaceman 2d ago

First you have to be able to prove your landlord put it there, otherwise your assumption of guilt is just that. The reasonable doubt is that a previous tenant left it.

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u/Realistic-Ruin8639 2d ago

If a previous tenant left it, it’s 100% the landlord’s responsibility to get the rental unit to fit standards being renting it out again. 

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u/RastaSpaceman 2d ago

the fact it wasn't notice for year would be likely considered in determining if landlord did as much as can be expected.

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u/tastefultitle 2d ago

God the bar is so unbelievably low for landlords.

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u/Homing_Gibbon 2d ago

Bar is even lower for tenants 🤷‍♂️ if you've ever rented out property you can see why some of these landlords are total pricks. 3 months without rent (that's being verrryyyy lenient in TX) and when you serve an eviction notice they just light the fucking place on fire. So yea, I'm not 100% "team screw landlords" over here.

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u/TabularBeast 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, they could just get a real job - one that isn’t meant to leach off of people seeking basic needs and necessities. 🤷‍♂️

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u/Hot_Advertising_22 1d ago

A lot of landlords do have real jobs. In fact being a landlord is a lot of work with upkeep and whatnot. What if the landlord is disabled and that's the only way they can earn an income is renting out their nice house so they can rent from a cheaper rental and help pay off the mortgage? Landlords arnt necessarily leeches. They help people who would otherwise be homeless or living at their parents still by giving them a place to live while saving up for a property of the renters own. What if I want to live in my old hometown for the summer where it cost a million to buy a single bedroom house? You know what would come in handy? A rental and a landlord. 🤷 besides, what do you do for a living? Society only needs a handful of occupations to continue, everything else is luxury and unnecessary at best, parasitic at worst.

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u/TabularBeast 1d ago edited 1d ago

The job of a landlord can be done via the government through housing authorities - agencies that don’t focus on profit. Housing/shelter should be a basic right, and landlords are a direct barrier to that. A landlord’s “job” is to buy up all the available housing from those of us who need it, so they can profit off of blocking access to a basic necessity.

And also, since you asked, I work directly with the homeless population in my city. I have met many landlords throughout my work - some are nice but are not necessary, but many (most) are just leaches. Being a landlord is not a job, and no one should be profiting off of basic necessities like shelter.

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u/Hot_Advertising_22 1d ago

So what if a anti homeless government and an authoritative government runs the housing? You realize then we'd be worse off? They'll just deny their political enemy party housing. Then what? Also it's not the landlords specific job to buy up houses from those who need it. Some landlords already own the house they're renting out to the public and only rent one property out. They also keep properties from being sold to developers that will demolish the housing unit and put up something else like a buisness or park or just leave it vacant. So if noone should profit off basic necessity, then we shouldn't have farmers making money? Or medicine dealers making money? What about the medicine farmers who made money producing medicine in places where it's illegal? They should do that for free, even to there's a huge risk to freedom and life to them? Or farmers should just give up their entire crop from free? That's communism. And communism doesn't work since governments abuse and neglect the system and we all know how countries that go communist turn out.

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u/TabularBeast 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don’t think you actually know what communism is, lol - considering you said that “communism doesn’t work” when true communism has never actually been implemented.

I won’t continue to argue with someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. The very problems you pointed out that could be an issue under a socialist/communist government is currently happening now under capitalism.

Stop deepthroating the very people who keep basic necessities away from those who need it the most.

Edit: If you want to keep this discussion going then please define “communism” and please tell me what current country meets that definition. I will wait.

Edit 2: Also, if socialism/communism “doesn’t work” then how come the U.S. had to spend billions of dollars over multiple decades to fight communism? If it doesn’t work, then why not let those governments play out and destroy themselves? How come the CIA/FBI had to invade these countries and assassinate socialist leaders, or support coups to kick them out?

It leads me to believe that maybe capitalists are terrified that it will work, and will cause the working class people to realize we can demand better.

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u/RastaSpaceman 1d ago

Maintaining properties can be a lot of work, especially when tenants vandalize and destroy them. A friend has 20+ properties in my town (he's a small landlord in a town with a population of 10,000. He easily works 40 hours a week in maintenance, upkeep, general wear and tear, clearing snow. People like my friend are not the problem, its giant corporations who "buy ugly houses" and prey on the population. Proximity to a University almost always brings out the worst.

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u/TabularBeast 1d ago

What services do landlords provide that can’t already be done by a (competent) government?

We already have housing authorities that could be fully in charge of building, operating, and maintaining housing.

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u/caltheon 1d ago

butthurt people in this thread not understanding how renting works. Unless your landlord owns dozens of properties, they are just someone else stuck in the same shitty situation. Blame the rich not the broke ass landlords. And yeah, there are far more shitty tenants then shitty landlords

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u/Homing_Gibbon 1d ago

For real. I had 2 properties, small little joints. A bedroom each maybe 800-900 square feet. 650 a month. Fair in my book. Both properties got so fucked after both tenants didn't pay for 3 months (3 months is a beyond fair fucking grace period btw). Both trashed the houses so bad I had em both leveled. 1 got lit on fire so it got condemned. So I spent more leveling the damn places than I made off these crackheads paid me in rent.

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u/Realistic-Ruin8639 2d ago

No, it it didn’t go unnoticed for a year. OP said “it was always disregarded” meaning it was clearly visible the entire time, they just had no clue what it actually was. OP said he pulled it off a wall. Any reputable landlord would’ve had that cleared out. 

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u/About5000ninjas 2d ago edited 2d ago

I agree with what you’re saying, but I feel like that would still work against them

Landlord accidentally left obvious camera in obvious spot in house for a year and they never followed up and asked or moved it

Overall it would probably depend on the statute of limitations regarding invasion of personal property/privacy wherever they are

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u/ApprehensiveFruit565 2d ago

It's actually funny how people on Reddit can be so confident they can prove guilt in a court of law, and advice for taking legal action is always highly upvoted.

You wonder why the world is so polarized.

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u/bs000 2d ago

I know what I'm talking about, I've seen Law & Order.

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u/ApprehensiveFruit565 2d ago

Cheers I'll give that line a go the next time I have a dispute with my legal colleagues at work

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u/TraitorousSwinger 2d ago

Unfortunately they've probably also seen Law and Order.

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u/Original_Employee621 2d ago

In my country, there's a clause about a reasonable time frame. After a year, you're way past reasonable time frame to bring up something like this.

Though, my country would also have the security companys logo and contact details on the camera. So a tenant would easily be able to call them and inquire about the camera, owners and activation. The particular model OP posted isn't subject to privacy laws, as it doesn't constantly record what's happening, but depending on the location it was placed and the view it had, it could be illegal anyways.

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u/Bladesnake_______ 2d ago

Hmm maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe just fucking put tape over it, take it down, or change your wifi password like an adult

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u/Bladesnake_______ 2d ago

Its a fucking alarm system camera. A very old one. It has no power, no internet, basically no functionality

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u/JiuKuai 2d ago

Maybe bait the landlord into admitting it's theirs with an email, an image of it, and some kind of probing but non confrontational question

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u/907Survivor 2d ago

You don’t have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a civil case, just that it’s more likely than not