Rosa's service report arrived by email on Monday afternoon. She had noted depleted chlorine, an unexpected change in the water-balance readings, and debris inconsistent with the light use I normally reported. She called to ask whether I had hosted a gathering before leaving town. I told her there appeared to have been unauthorized swimming in my absence, although I could not yet identify who had been there. Rosa paused, then asked whether I had considered installing surveillance cameras.
"I don't want to spend my summer spying on my own backyard," I told her.
"Then think of it as checking your property when you're away," she said. "You already monitor the water. You already monitor the equipment. Knowing who's in there is a safety issue, too."
That last point changed the nature of the decision for me. It was not only a matter of inconvenience or money. If a child entered the pool without my knowledge and was injured, the result could be catastrophic. Even if I never intended to claim responsibility for an unauthorized visit, the prospect of somebody being hurt in water I owned was enough to make me feel sick. I scheduled a meeting with my insurance agent and began researching cameras that could document the pool and fence without recording the interior of either neighbor's home.
My insurance agent, Helen, reviewed the policy with me and recommended that I secure the area, document any unauthorized entries, and consult a local attorney about a formal notice if the problem continued. She did not promise that a lock would solve every liability question. Insurance is not a substitute for prevention, she reminded me, and a private pool creates obligations even when people ought not to be there. I was grateful for the practical warning. It was more useful than the reassuring assurances I had been receiving from Sandra.
I ordered four weather-resistant security cameras. A licensed installer placed them at the corners of the pool and along the fence line, where they would capture the patio, the gate, and the section that had been disturbed. Their viewing angles excluded Sandra's windows and the interior of her yard as much as the layout allowed. The cameras recorded visible activity on my own property, stored dated clips securely, and sent motion alerts to my phone. I asked the installer to walk me through the settings twice so I would know exactly what was being captured.
The installation cost more than I had wanted to spend. I paid it anyway. I had already spent money repairing damage that kept reappearing, paying for water treatment after unexplained use, and making calls about a problem that should never have existed. I had reached the point where a complete record seemed less expensive than continuing uncertainty.