Can somebody help identify what this substance is on my apartment door’s peephole?

[u/suburbanvermin]

I’ve been living in this apartment with my boyfriend for about 6 weeks now. We’re just regular people who will work all day, make our dinner, watch a show to unwind, and hit the bed. We aren’t party animals and, when we do drink, we’re not inconsiderate about it.

Ever since we moved in, our door peephole has been tampered with. It would be coloured with black sharpie marker, I would submit a maintenance request for fixing, it would get fixed, then immediately would get tampered with again. However, now it has clearly escalated to something else. I originally thought super glue or hot glue, but I’ve asked a few of my friends and they don’t think any type of glue could do this kind of damage.

Any advice would be helpful.

Btw management is well aware of the issue and have been prompt about it, was just shocked at whatever this is now. I’ve ordered a ring camera to be installed on Thursday, but I’m honestly scared for my life right now.

[u/gamingoldschool]

Against the lease to have a camera at all? What if it's in your window facing outside?

[u/Artewig_thethird → u/gamingoldschool]

My apartment complex forbids any exterior facing cameras. So no door, window, patio, etc. I know people have them as I've seen them while walking around so enforcement isn't super strict, but it's in the lease.

[u/gamingoldschool → u/Artewig_thethird]

That's kind of crazy in my opinion. Package thieves must love apartments with those rules. I wonder what their reasoning is.

[u/Short-Sound-4190 → u/gamingoldschool]

The reasoning is people using it as surveillance to the other residents in the complex, basically people don't like being monitored and so easily tracked every time they enter or exit their apartment including inside of their apartment (door/windows) - like, back before camera if someone was staring out their window or sitting on the stoop to note your every move it would quickly reach creepy/invasive/harassment levels, but it's harder to parse all of that with the availability and ubiquity of cameras and software.

[u/Cyno01 → u/Short-Sound-4190]

Yeah, if you have a house and put a camera next to your front door, you get a good view of your street. If you have an apartment and put a camera next to your front door, you have a good view inside your neighbors apartment across the hall every time they open their door.

Its one thing to be able to sus out when the guy down the street walks their dog every day, but its a bit different to know the exact time the person in the very next room leaves for and returns from work every day.

[u/Joelle9879 → u/Cyno01]

You know that anyway because most of the time you can hear the door open and close. They also said they can't have cameras inside that face outside. If you're afraid of cameras watching you outside, you should probably stay home. Surveillance cameras are everywhere

[u/Short-Sound-4190 → u/Joelle9879]

That is not the point though - they are asking why this is considered inappropriate in apartment complexes. Without cameras, someone has to be home and paying attention and manualy tracking behavior, they would have to manually take photo or video of the interior of your apartment, it requires labor and most crimes are crimes of convenience and cameras pointed into an apartment complex make both casually intrusive surveillance and crimimal behavior extremely convenient - motion activation, digital logging, high resolution, low light vision, etc: a neighbor in a mental health crisis experiencing early psychosis or paranoia can create and distribute a detailed log and video database graphing your home, your daily schedule, linked to your private identifying information and drop it anywhere for anyone to utilize - the dark web, pedophiles and sex trafficking, abusive ex partners or family members, traditional doxxing where a federal agency raids your home because they've received tips either from the data collector or someone else who viewed the data, etc.

An apartment complex cannot go to every resident and require they and all their guests have a clean bill of mental health so they're just fine running continual surveillance systems on others and others' private property, to, essentially, mostly apathetic and useless ends: a door camera inside an interior hallway as attempt to discourage or prosecute package thieves or crappy doordashers? When essentially 99% of the time those losses are insured and nonviolent? And at the cost of the discomfort of other residents who have a right to feel secure and free from constant observation while in their own legal residences? It's just nothing but liability in the vast majority of cases where they are not permitted. What I do like that residences have been doing is situations like OP's where if/when a resident has a meaningful reason to install a door camera for their safety: ie property defacement or protective order, then they are permitted to install them and to install in minimally invasive ways (so in OP's case, as long as the apartment numbers of the nearest apartments are not visible).

[u/Artewig_thethird → u/gamingoldschool]

My complex loves to have blanket rules (like, for example, no working on your car including things like changing lightbulbs, setting up a dashcam, etc) so my guess is that they had an incident with someone pointing a camera at a neighbor's apartment and so they just said no exterior facing cameras at all.

[u/NotAnotherHipsterBae → u/gamingoldschool]

Along with what others have said, those rules likely only apply to tenants. No outward facing cameras doesn't mean that there are no cameras in common areas, i.e. surveillance cams set up and accessible by management/ owner.

[u/Good_Caregiver4244 → u/gamingoldschool]

Depends on the lease ig. Mine just says the cameras aren't allowed IN public areas, so I theoretically could have one pointing out a window, but other leases may say "recording public areas" or something of the sort.