I checked the camera system's time settings with the installer and saved confirmation that each device was synchronized correctly. I kept original video files and separate viewing copies so that cropping or converting a clip for easier playback would not overwrite the original. That was how I handled financial data at work, and it felt sensible here. If someone later questioned whether a file had been changed, I wanted to preserve the best available source and make clear what I had done with it.
The eleven July entries filled a spreadsheet with a depressing regularity. On the second, Sandra and her children spent forty-eight minutes in the pool. On the fifth, she arrived with Melanie and another adult. On the seventh, she came after I had gone upstairs and remained nearly an hour. On the ninth, she returned in the afternoon, apparently confident that I was at work. Later entries showed additional children, floats carried through the gap, and the repeated use of my patio furniture and equipment.
I watched the recordings without sound when the microphones offered little useful information. The faces and movements told me enough. Sandra would step through the opening, pause, look toward the kitchen, and then move toward the water. Sometimes the children followed immediately. Sometimes she helped one of them through because the fence gap was too narrow for a comfortable passage. Occasionally she seemed to hesitate before taking a chair, but never long enough to leave.
One clip bothered me more than the others. Olivia, who had begun swimming confidently, climbed onto the coping near the deep end while Sandra was talking to Melanie. Henry followed her, making the kind of impulsive movement small children make when they want to imitate an older sibling. Sandra turned just in time to call them back. Nobody fell. Nobody was injured. But I watched that brief sequence several times and imagined what might have happened if she had turned a moment later. I had not authorized any of those people to be there, and I had not known they were in the water. Their safety had become a risk attached to my property without my consent.
I made another call to Helen at the insurance office. I explained that the recorded intrusions continued and asked what additional precautions might be appropriate while I pursued a formal solution. She suggested documenting the damaged fence, maintaining functional barriers, and ensuring that access points remained secured. She also advised me to follow Diana's guidance about communicating revocation. I wrote down the call, not because Helen had provided some magical protection against liability, but because it showed I had asked practical questions and attempted reasonable safeguards.
Marion listened to the story when she visited for lunch near the end of July. She was sitting at my table eating tomato soup while I showed her a short clip from the previous week. She watched Sandra guide three children across the patio and said nothing for almost a minute. Then she put down her spoon.