Friend upset I stopped her from watching me

[WhatWouldHillaryDo]

My first post, though been here years. I can be a bit of a push over with some friends. I let a lot of stuff slide rather than be confrontational so I think maybe in this situation my friend wasn’t expecting my reaction and has overreacted. Interested to hear replies.

Anyway, I sometimes pop in to friend’s house to feed her pets when she’s away for a night or two. She has two lovely cats and I enjoy going round and fussing them. All good, no issues with helping out. But the other week she mentioned something in passing that seemed odd - she said she sometimes speaks to her cats when she’s away. Well, after some gentle questioning, it seems she has a camera in her home by the cat bowls so she can see and talk to her pets. But she didn’t tell me this and I don’t think was going to either. She seemed a bit sheepish when I asked, like I’d caught her out.

Now, before she mentioned the webcam, i’d agreed to go round last weekend and feed the girls. Evening and morning, I was happy to. But I didn’t feel comfortable knowing I was being watched, so I spotted the camera and blocked the view while I was there, and unblocked it when I left. Now friend is upset with me and said she can’t understand what the big deal is and I should have said if I didn’t want to be watched so she could find someone else to feed the cats.

I feel like I’m going mad. Surely it’s my choice to be watched or not. I didn’t think I needed to let her know upfront. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I’m getting and I just need a sanity check.

If my friend had one I'd probably give her a little wave! BUT she 100% should have told you beforehand rather than you finding out after you'd already helped out multiple times.

I have a pet camera too. I wouldn’t object to being seen feeding someone’s pet, if you’re not doing anything wrong why would you mind. I actually happened to see my pet sitter playing on her phone all the time rather than fuss my pet so it gave me an insight into her lack of care so chose someone else to look after my pet. After all I was paying a lot of money for each visit.

NRTFT but the fact that she knows you covered the camera means she was clearly watching you…otherwise she wouldn’t have known. For that reason alone YANBU. She was using it to spy on you.

My MIL is a nightmare with cameras…my husband was doing her bathroom for her once and I was in the living room and she gave away that she was watching us because the little head on the camera swivelled as she was “looking” around the room. DH swiftly unplugged it and told his mother not to spy on him.

I have cameras for when I leave my cat, if the person caring for my cat is there when I check them I either say hello to let them know or turn it straight off. I have them to check my cats okay between visits, not watch the person feeding them. I wouldn’t be annoyed if that were covered as long as they uncovered them when they left! That’s the unreasonable but.

I would hate this, OP, and I'd have done the same. Your friend is being very unreasonable.

Though I also stand well away from the cameras on self-service tills in Boots and Sainsbury's. I do not consent to be filmed while buying paracetamol or a banana.

I would never have a Ring doorbell, either.

I have these camera’s but the only time they are on is when our dog is home alone. If I’d asked someone to sort my pets I would warn them about the cameras and if they weren’t comfortable, I would disable them while they were there. I would have no interest in watching a friend attending to my pets, in fact I would feel uncomfortable doing that. I would be really peeed off of a friend did that to me without telling me. You have every right to react the way you did.

So you do not think privacy matters?
Do you post photos of friends on facebook without permission as well?

No, because then a load of people can see those photos... Nobody else is seeing my cat-cam except for me.

Also, I do think it's a good idea to have secret cameras in your home. You could have a cleaner who steals something or breaks something and tries to deny it, for example. Or you may want cameras for when you get a babysitter, just in case.

She either doesn't trust the OP to feed her cats properly and not eg. steal something, or she gets a kick out of watching people who don't know they're being watched. I'd be very unhappy about this. The OP is doing her a favour, and is videoed without her consent!!

She speaks to her cats
via a camera? Whilst on holiday?

bloody weirdo

Any one who thinks they can avoid camera's in public places these days are wrong. And I would not mind camera's at work if it stopped people being blamed for some thing by mistake.

I think you feel hurt, and think that your friend do's not trust you. For all we know maybe she got the pet camera as a gift, so decided to use it. Maybe she just wanted to be able to see what her cats were doing during the day. In a perfect world we all say and do the right thing. But people are people and maybe she forgot with been away from home. Maybe you both need to chill then talk again.

I believe it is the law that you have a sign saying you have a camera if it’s outside. Even a Ring doorbell or similar has stickers you should put in your window to let people know. Same with Dash Cams. You have to have stickers on the car windows informing people they are being recorded. Don’t think same applies inside a private home though.

A private home is NOT a public place

YANBU.

I have cameras in and out, I have one which views my living room. (There is good reason for it) but when friends come in, I turn the camera off while they are there and turn back on when they leave.

They fully understand the reasons behind it and know that if they have to come into my house in my absence that it's running,

One friend has come in to borrow milk while I was still asleep and started talking to it, I was sound asleep and only saw it on alerts on my phone later. She had left me a note stuck to my bedroom door saying she borrowed milk and let herself back out.

She knew about the cameras as coming up to and in the front door and going through to the fridge, she triggered 7 different cameras and waved and spoke to them all.

You have the right to be notified of being filmed (e.g. by signage) if the filming would be beyond the boundaries of the camera owners home.

I have cameras in and out, I have one which views my living room. (There is good reason for it) but when friends come in, I turn the camera off while they are there and turn back on when they leave.

They fully understand the reasons behind it and know that if they have to come into my house in my absence that it's running,

And, where there's an absolute need for an in home camera, that's exactly how it should be handled. If I was your friend, I would be very happy to visit, after seeing you switch off the camera on my arrival. I'd also remind you to put it back on when I left!

But if I found out that my friend had a camera streaming during my visits and hadn't told me, I'd never go back.

I would believe the camera was there as she wanted to talk to and see the cats, and she figures they will be visiting the bowls so a good area to put the cam. Lots of people have them nowadays. Maybe if you knew all along you would not feel spied on. The friend could have forgot to mention it, or assumed if she thought that you would see it.

YANBU. Who does this? She wasn’t going to tell you was she?

id be backing away and investing more into other - healthier - relationships.

solidarity OP!

YANBU at all.

We have one of these pet cameras and use it if we’re going to be away for an extended period. It provides reassurance that our cats are okay and eating well. We made a point of telling the cat sitter we engaged for a long trip that the camera was in the room it was in, and how it worked. I felt a little bad about having one at all TBH as I felt like it invaded his privacy. I can’t imagine not getting his permission.

I wish there was a poll with this OP. I want to be reassured that the majority of people I know are NOT thinking it's perfectly okay to video me secretly in such a way that they and anyone else with the app can see and hear everything I do and say.

Or maybe I should just avoid anyone with a pet that they might want to hover over constantly with me as collateral damage.

She didnt put it there for you….she put it there for her pets. So i wouldnt take it personally. Alot of people have cams in their houses. Their house, their rules. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Feed the cats and leave….Just saying….

We have wireless security cameras which can be moved about, and there’s a sign on our front gate.

I don’t think to tell people we have them but I do speak frankly about being robbed one night at home (rural setting so outside barn near house).

I keep the cameras active while away and skim through the alerts. If your friend was me, I just would have deleted the footage and not said anything. Seems to me it’s been made to be a bigger issue than it need be…

I dont get why either of you are so wound up by this to be honest.

Lots of people have cameras in their homes to keep an eye on their pets when they're out.

I have a friend with 4 cats. She’s a great friend and I love her to bits. However, her home stinks. I avoid going into the house as much as possible. It was bad before the cats, it’s so much worse now.

if I cannot avoid going to her home, I can psych myself up to going so that I don’t react, I breathe through my mouth and eventually go ‘nose blind’ and can cope. I do NOT want to upset my friend.

She asked me to look after her cats one weekend. I agreed. Unbeknownst to me she has a cat cam. When I walked in the smell was so bad I retched. I went into the living room and said something like “FFS Tiddles* that’s disgusting” and a voice said “oh what has he done?” - scared the crap out of me! Thankfully thought on my feet and said “they’ve spilled the litter box” so friend didn’t realise I was reacting to the stink.

imagine if she hadn’t spoken? I probably would have said more (to the cats!) and that would have been the end of the friendship I expect. Cameras may be a good idea to watch the pets - I don’t think it’s weird. But it is wrong to keep them on, or to watch when someone else is in your home.