We have a boathouse down at the lake. There is a small kitchen, a loft and a shower. Electricity is from the grid, but the water is from a deep well. We keep our two boats and our personal watercraft there. There are no bedrooms, and we camp out in sleeping bags when we stay. We had to install CCTV kits along with an alarm system due to some vandals that were hitting the area. There were no thefts of boats or other watercraft, but some neighbors experienced heavy losses due to damages done by the vandals. The area is a tourist attraction, but we suspected year-round occupants being responsible for the damage as it happened in the winter too. Though we did not make any accusations, we expected a group of teenagers known for causing trouble.
The CCTV kits we installed caught the group in the act of damaging one of our two boats. The cameras caught them going into the boathouse. At first they just sat around. Then they looked through the cabinets and refrigerator. They were orderly like they were just visiting. They even closed the cabinet doors they opened. Then one of the group picked up a metal end table and began to beat it against the fiberglass hull of the boat. At that time, one of the group noticed one of the cameras and we watched the recorded panic.
They found the DVR system and destroyed it, but they were unaware that the camera feed was also stored in the cloud. We turned the footage over to the police who were finally able to stop the acts of vandalism that were plaguing our area. Yes, we had damage to our boat, but the rampage was stopped by the video captured on the CCTV cameras. The cloud storage over Wi-Fi allowed the video evidence to be preserved where it could not be destroyed by the actors involved.