My Neighbors Secretly Used My Hot Tub For A Year So I Taught Them A Lesson

Dates.

Photographs.

Camera footage.

Now that I knew what I was looking for, I realized some of the people captured on camera weren’t Jim’s friends or relatives.

They were rental guests.

I called Tom.

“Come home when you can. We need to make some calls.”

We contacted our homeowner’s insurance company first because we needed to understand what liability we might have faced if someone had been injured.

Then we contacted the rental platform and reported the unauthorized use of our property.

Finally, we called the non-emergency police line.

We were eventually connected with Detective Hartley, who handled property-related fraud cases.

She asked us to come in.

We brought everything.

Hartley carefully reviewed the timeline, the recordings, the rental listing, and our documentation.

The unauthorized entry onto our property was relatively straightforward.

The financial side was more complicated.

To establish fraud, investigators needed to determine whether guests had specifically paid for access to a hot tub that Jim falsely represented as belonging to his rental.

The listing itself helped.

So did guest communications.

“Leave that part to us,” Hartley said.

She also asked us not to contact Jim directly.

We agreed.

The investigation lasted about three weeks.
Life continued strangely normally during that time.

Tom worked.

I traveled.

We even used our own hot tub twice.

There was something satisfying about reclaiming it.

Meanwhile, Jim still waved whenever he saw us.

We waved back.

Within several days of our report, the rental platform removed his listing.

Four days later, Jim knocked on our door.

He had no idea about Detective Hartley.

As far as he knew, our disagreement had ended after the backyard confrontation.

The disappearance of his rental listing clearly worried him.