When planning for a vacation, one of the most crucial things is finding a hotel that not only works with your budget, but also feels like a home away from home where you can relax. And yet now, with the prevalence of hidden cameras, checking into a hotel or homestay may be in itself, a pretty stressful endeavor, raising privacy concerns among many.
A secret camera hidden in an air freshener
In a video recently uploaded to TikTok by user @nickreay0304, also known as Raileslie Ashley Rainnold, he shares how he had experienced this very same intrusion of privacy, after discovering that a homestay that he and a few friends had been staying in was bugged with a hidden camera placed in a bathroom.
Sharing his discovery with netizens, he demonstrates how an ordinary-looking air freshener that had been placed on a tiled countertop was in actuality, a hidden camera disguised to deceive onlookers. A pinhole had been drilled from one side of the air-fresher’s tin to let the lens peep through. Upon cracking the lid open, the innards of the camera itself are revealed, which appears to still be actively recording footage!
In speaking with mStar, Raileslie said that he had occupied the restroom in the homestay earlier and had intended to use the provided air-freshener to help dispel any odours that may have lingered behind. But instead of finding an unopened tin, he found a camera instead.
A discovery made by chance
“The incident happened on 28th October, and I was just visiting at the time as one of my friends had checked-in for three days and two nights.”
“It was around 11:00pm at night after I showered and did my business, before flushing and cleaning up the toilet to help ward off any lingering odours. I noticed the air freshener placed in the bathroom, and had assumed that it was a brand-new tin.”
But instead of finding a new, unopened air-freshener, the tin revealed to be a secret camera in disguise. Apparently, the hidden camera had initially been positioned to face the toilet bowl before Raileslie has moved it to face the wall.
His friend, who had been occupying the homestay, said that he had destroyed the hidden camera upon finding it and had tossed it into the trash. He hopes that his video, which has since garnered over 365,000 reactions on TikTok, would raise awareness over the issue of hidden cameras.
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