SACREMENTO — Carlyn Perry made an alarming discovery in the bedroom of her Sacramento, Calif., apartment bedroom: she recently found a hidden camera inside what she thought was a smoke detector.

“It’s just a really violating feeling, for sure,” she described to KCRA 3 News. “There’s really no way for me to know how long it was there before I found it.”

Perry says last month, her apartment complex let her know a maintenance person would be keying into her unit to service the smoke and fire alarms. A few days later, she noticed the device’s cover had fallen open. She went out of town with her boyfriend, and upon her return, she noticed the cover was back up.

“So, I asked him if he’d fixed it for me, just like, ‘Oh, thanks for fixing that.’ And he was like, ‘I didn’t fix it,’” Perry said.

Confused, the couple decided to take a closer look. That’s when they discovered the device wasn’t a smoke detector at all but a motion-activated surveillance system with a memory card inside. The camera was pointed right at Perry’s bed.

Video on the memory card shows an unknown person installing the camera in her room. It also captured the moments she and her boyfriend realized their every move was being recorded.

Perry filed a report with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office, but said she’s never going to feel the same safety she thought she could have in her own home.

“As a woman, you know, living alone in any city, there’s such a sense of when you’re out and about, you kind of have to be constantly on alert about your safety and your surroundings. But you know, you have a sense of safety in your own home, and it just kind of violates that,” she said.

Perry has been staying with family since the camera was discovered and has decided to move out. She says the apartment managers are allowing her to get out of her lease. She’s also warning other renters to check their homes and ensure their privacy.

“I know I never would have thought to look for that kind of thing,” she said.

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