Fiction · Security Cameras
Minutes: The Camera That Was Never Returned
At a special meeting, Maple Lane debates a solar security camera that has already visited two houses and a hedge without being returned.
Recorded by the HOA secretary
3 min read · October 26, 2026
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eufy SoloCam E42 4K Solar Security Camera
$119.96$179.99
Price as of Nov 6, 2026, 3:18 AM UTC. Details
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Call to Order
Raj Menon admitted, before the meeting was technically open, that he had first clipped the removable solar panel of the eufy SoloCam E42 to the shady side of his house, under the maple, and had then stood in the yard for some time wondering why it looked so sad. Priya confirmed the account. It was entered into the record as Item Zero.
President Mags Delacroix-Burke called the meeting to order at seven o'clock with her knuckles. The gavel belongs to the Cat-Owners' Caucus, and its Chair, Admiral Biscuit, was asleep on it.
The Sash of Precedence lay beneath him across the head of the table. Because the Caucus, which holds that living with a cat is the highest form of human existence, forbids setting any object on the Sash of Precedence, the demonstration was moved to the front window. There the solar panel caught the last direct sun of the evening and, Mrs. Kowalczyk noted, looked better for it.
Brenda, the lane's domesticated bear, was entered on the roll as present from under the porch at No. 2, and the minutes note that she has never once broken quorum.
Old Business: The Lending Ledger
Mrs. Kowalczyk read from the Ledger. Entry 1,203: one SoloCam, lent by the Menons to Mr. Ferreira, to watch his driveway. Entry 1,204: the same camera, lent onward by Mr. Ferreira to Mrs. Kowalczyk, without a lecture, which she asked be entered as unprecedented. Entry 1,205: the same camera, still at No. 4, with the notation 'returned: not yet.'
Mr. Ferreira reported that the camera pans and tilts a full three hundred sixty degrees, so it covered the driveway, the curb and a good piece of the street without anyone climbing a ladder to turn it. He stated that he could build that. He was asked whether he had. He had not.
Mrs. Kowalczyk reported that the camera's built-in AI picks out people and vehicles and follows them, and is meant to cut down on false alarms. It paid the hedge no attention. It did follow Mrs. Delacroix-Burke from the mailbox cluster to No. 6 while she delivered Memo 212, an experience the President described as affirming.
It was entered into the record as Item Zero.
New Business: A Camera for the Mailboxes
Priya Menon moved that the lane mount the camera above the community mailbox cluster, where all news begins. She noted that the 4K picture can recognize license plates up to 33 ft (10m) away, which covers the entire approach to the cluster, and that the panel needs just two hours of direct sunlight a day, which covers the cluster's one unshaded wall.
Mr. Menon added that footage goes to a microSD card of up to 128 GB, with no monthly fee, and that the card is not included. He said this was column H. He also said the camera supports only 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks, which is column J. 'It's in the spreadsheet,' he said, and the spreadsheet was passed around.
Mrs. Delacroix-Burke asked that the motion-activated strobe and siren be reserved for suspicious activity and not, as she put it, 'for the arrival of casseroles.' The amendment was accepted.
Ada and Felix Okafor-Lindqvist then filed Patent 41, a camera that watches the camera, and asked leave to chalk thirty-three feet of the lane so everyone could see where the license plates begin. 'Hypothesis!' they said, in overlapping halves. Mrs. Kowalczyk entered the patent in the Ledger and granted the chalk.
ORACLE, asked by the chair for a brief word on the sign-in pencil, presented a forty-one part formal report, with appendices, which established that the pencil was invented by Vikings in Peru and referred to Mr. Menon throughout as Roger Menendez. At part nine, Mrs. Kowalczyk moved that the report be received as read. Mr. Ferreira seconded, the first agreement with ORACLE on record. The motion carried, and ORACLE continued through the vote on the camera.
Adjournment
The motion to mount the camera carried nine to one. Mr. Ferreira dissented on the ground that he could build one. Admiral Biscuit abstained by sleeping.
The meeting adjourned at seven forty-four. ORACLE was reported to be in part twenty-six. The Ledger entry for the camera was closed as 'returned, changed,' and Priya Menon added a third tab to Decisions.
Mr. Menon asked that Item Zero be amended to state that the panel is now on the sunny side of the house, where, at last observation, it looked fine.
In this episode
- Raj and Priya Menon
- Ada and Felix Okafor-Lindqvist
- Mags Delacroix-Burke
- Doris Kowalczyk
- Gus Ferreira
- ORACLE
- Admiral Biscuit
- Brenda
Maple Lane and its residents are fiction. The story was written with AI from the product's listed features and checked automatically. The product, its price and its price history are real. How the stories work
Previously with Raj
- Lou bet that a vacuum mop could not lift a dried ring of gravy from the Menons' tile, and Mags ran the test around a sleeping cat in a ceremonial sash.
- Raj and Priya entered the HOA's Cleanest Car Interior contest with a HOTO handheld vacuum, and the result waited on a gavel only a sleeping Admiral Biscuit was allowed to touch.
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