HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Imagine this: you come home from vacation, and you find a camera directly pointed at your home.
A northwest Harris County man contacted ABC13 worried about what he calls an invasion of privacy in the Olde Oaks neighborhood near FM-1960 and Steubner Airline.
“As I walk outside my house, there’s a camera right here, facing right here toward me,” Mack George explained. “It can see everybody that pulls up, everybody in my yard. It can see my garage space. It can see my kids bedroom, the patio upstairs.”
Eyewitness News found three other cameras in the Olde Oaks neighborhood.
Only one of them had a sign even notifying people it’s recording.
And ABC13 didn’t see any labels showing who put up the cameras or why.
“I don’t know where the footage goes. I don’t know who’s watching it. I didn’t get any notification,” George said.
At first, George thought it was the property of Houston police, but that’s not the case.
ABC13 called the Precinct 4 Constable, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, and the Precinct 4 County Commissioner. All of the agencies told us they didn’t put up the cameras.
Finally, ABC13 reached out to the local municipal utility district. It is an agency that George had never heard of that provides services like water and sewage in areas out of city boundaries.
Eyewitness News confirmed the cameras were put up by the neighborhood’s homeowners association and partially paid for by the MUD to increase safety in the area.
The MUD attorney said the cameras are license plate readers, and video would only be accessed after a request from law enforcement. George isn’t sure about that.
“Someone should have called or left a letter or note or anything like that,” George explained. “Whatever I do, I feel like I’m being watched.”
The HOA didn’t return our multiple calls, emails, or texts. But, according to George, the HOA president told him the camera would not be moved.
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