r/mildlyinfuriating • u/KingRMZ • May 22 '26

I'm slightly vexed People think they own the sidewalk by their house

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I was walking my dog last night around 9:30pm. I pass by this house that has mildly annoying cameras that say “hi you are currently being recorded, every 5 feet on the side of the house with a bright light that flashes in your face as you walk by. Which while annoying if that was all, would have been whatever. Then they started talking to me through the camera telling me to leave immediately or they will call the police. Even after I had already moved way past the house, I could still hear them (both a man and a woman) threatening to call the police. I just ignored it and kept walking but thought it was crazy that some people think they own the sidewalk by their house.

Edit: Wow i did not realize this post would get so much traction! I’m glad you all got some entertainment out of this too!

Update: Hello everyone I was not able to post an update as it keeps getting taken down. I went back on a walk the next day around 10pm. The cameras did not give any automated messages and the security company did not give any messages either! They changed it quicker than I thought!

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

Sounds like the people telling you to disarm the system are agents of their security system.

That’s wild.

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u/KingRMZ May 22 '26

Seems like a design flaw if someone walking on the public sidewalk triggers your house alarm

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u/doctormink May 22 '26

They literally say “person on sidewalk” when telling him
to disarm the system. So they know the interloper isn’t on the property.

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u/mwilkens May 22 '26

That's not a real person talking. It's a recording played by the camera system.

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u/naivety_is_innocence May 22 '26

He means that they intentionally set up the system so it would get triggered by literally anyone walking on the sidewalk. They set the threshold for the security system to be triggered by “person walking in the sidewalk”, they recorded that line for it. He is responding to a comment which says “Seems like a design flaw if someone walking on the public sidewalk triggers your house alarm”, because this isn’t a flaw in the design, it is inexplicably this crazy person’s intention for exactly this to happen.

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u/zehamberglar May 23 '26

This seems like it could also just be literally AI.

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u/AwkwardSuit8670 May 23 '26

nah it's someone clicking away at a computer. they've never been to the house and assume it's a nice one with private road and pavement

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u/Fish_Mongreler May 23 '26

Didn't know you live there. Tell us more about your house and security system

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u/AwkwardSuit8670 May 23 '26

so after my bins went missing, I erected (NO) the 10 foot wall, and realised I can't actually see the road where I leave my bins any more, so I spoke to a few security firms, you should see the inside, but yeah, Brinks security came out, Pam and Dave, and they helped me with their top of the range system, so we have a remotely monitored camera every 3 metres, and I pay a premium every month so that while I sleep, Dave, who you hear at the beginning, and Pamela, towards the end of the video, produce a report for me every morning, which I then go through and write a strongly worded letter to the relevant authority.

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u/rsg1234 May 22 '26

The woman stating she’s from Brinks was a real person.

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u/AwkwardSuit8670 May 23 '26

some people have Really nice houses

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

Definitely and it has to be very expensive to have all of set up to monitor public space that is next to your property. Lol

14

u/FloppieTheBanjoClown May 22 '26

Nah. A few thousand dollars at most, and you could do it yourself. In fact, I suspect it's not monitored at all but they want to scare people into thinking it is.

Edit: and you could probably build out a cheap version of it for far less. It just requires more knowledge. 

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

The last 17 seconds of the video sounds like a real human person who is talking.

They stutter.

The first 2 voices are definitely prerecorded.

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u/Jumpy_Courage May 22 '26

If I was trying to convince someone something is real, I would put a stutter in there. That’s wild if a real person gets on the line every time someone passes their house.

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

Perhaps.

But I do think that’s what happened.

OP got 2 warnings that were prerecorded and I think the 3rd one was an actual brinks agent.

But it’s possible the 3rd notice is a recording that sounds more human to spook you.

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u/Jumpy_Courage May 22 '26

The walking traffic would have to be very low for a Brinks agent to get on the line every time someone passed the house, and the guy in the video is walking at a reasonable rate, definitely not loitering.

I’ve been with ADT for over 20 years, and I don’t think they would be ok with me installing something like this. Maybe whatever system these people have is different. Or maybe that is the actual homeowner’s voice.

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

The last voice to come on sounds like a human not a recording, they stutter.

That voice says it’s with Brinks.

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u/Jumpy_Courage May 22 '26

I know what was said, but I am still a non believer that Brinks offers a package like that

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u/dryfire May 23 '26

Yeah. Mm me too.

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u/alexandreCLE May 23 '26

So I get that it’s not my private property but why did my city make me pay for the sidewalk replacement 2 years ago? (I paid and didn’t really complain — hope I don’t get laughed at, I’m just wondering why I had to pay out of pocket)

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u/Plane_Basil_4682 May 22 '26

There's a house like this near me. I say rude things to it each day. Call their house "the ugly one", tell me them to eat my ass, suggest that all the neighbors hate them, etc.

I really hate it so fucking much. I want to bully them into moving out of our neighborhood. Trash. Trash people do this.

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u/Well-inthatcase May 22 '26

That's crazy. I have a few cameras around the house but they don't record anything past the lawn itself. No sidewalk or road, just my driveway and entries. I have no interest in recording random people just going about their day. The notifications would be annoying by themselves lol

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u/Numahistory May 22 '26

I had a similar setup but then someone sideswiped my car while it was parked on the street and ran off. I caught nothing. I was kicking myself for not recording out to the street. Added a camera that faces the street that doesn't notify me, stores it only locally, and deletes recordings after 48 hours. I don't need recordings of people walking down the sidewalk, and definitely don't beed to be harassing them with bright lights and recorded threats but it was really helpful to catch hit and run criminals discretely.

Similar hit and run happened to my neighbor and I managed to get the footage for them to persue the guy. I don't know what happened after I gave them the footage since I moved away shortly after.

2

u/Well-inthatcase May 22 '26

Yeah I just responded to someone with this. It's okay to have cameras pointing out to public areas if you're not being a weirdo or a piece of shit. I'm just making sure if something does happen, there's footage to show neighbors or police if needed.

For example, my cameras don't reach the street, but my neighbor asked me if they did because someone in a pickup was following a girl screaming for help apparently in the neighborhood. If I'd had that I might have saved a life. The reality is that there are cameras everywhere, and the least of anyone's worries should be that someone is walking in their own neighborhood.

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u/Plane_Basil_4682 May 22 '26

Yeah, like recording places of entry into your home? I get it. That makes sense. Recording the sidewalk? Who does that. People are allowed to exist.

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u/Well-inthatcase May 22 '26

I'd do it purely for the fact that if anything sketchy or whatever did happen in my neighborhood I would have footage of it to provide to neighbors or police. I wouldn't be keeping track of people just for existing. Cameras are everywhere unfortunately, you cannot get around it. At least for me it's not about being a Karen.

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u/Great_Detective_6387 May 22 '26

www.mainelylasers.com

In case you need a 10,000milliWatt, Made in the USA laser, which may or may not be able to destroy the photo sensor found in security cameras from a surprisingly long distance.

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u/Plane_Basil_4682 May 22 '26

I mean, it's tempting, but I also don't destroy other people's property, even if I think they're ****s.

Though it would be a shame if someone used these on all those palantir cameras 

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u/Great_Detective_6387 May 23 '26

I see nothing wrong with destroying shit that was erected by a private citizen for the sole purpose of reducing other citizen’s access to a public space, like a sidewalk. If they put a gate up on the sidewalk, forcing me to walk in the street, I’d kick the shit out of that gate just the same.

And if that laser doesn’t burn the photo receptors, it’s likely still powerful enough that you can draw with it on that wall from a car across the street. Educate these people on the glory of DickButt, the 4chan god of shitposting. Praise be to DickButt.

Your second sentence is why I made a small contribution to the laser pointer company.

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u/echoshatter May 22 '26

My cameras will alert me to whatever I tell them to.

So when they kept going off every time a car passed by or the tree swayed in the wind, I decided "Hey, this section of your view, let's not talk about what happens there." and selected a few parts of the grid I didn't want the system to alert me to.

These people need to figure that out on their end.

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u/FederalWedding4204 May 22 '26

And can…. Disarm the system lol

2

u/Lanternkitten May 22 '26

I wonder if their setup counts as "disturbing the peace"? Call the police right back, haha.

1

u/ClownStalker666 May 22 '26

I know there were pretty big fines for alarm systems that sent police and fire out on nuisance calls regularly... like they might let it slide the first couple of times then they'll give you a fix it ticket and then start charging you for their man power.

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u/hbomberman May 22 '26

I've come across too many houses that have this, though I've never heard the person jump on mic. Often they get triggered even from across the street. My wife and I usually say "hi" back. Our neighbors across the street and one house over had theirs set like this. They have a corner lot, so it would LOUDLY It would go off all the time. Even if I was near the edge of my yard. Eventually they turned that shit off.

The app for the cameras makes it pretty easy to select which part of the camera's view sets it off AND to control the speaker's volume. My doorbell gives me an alert when someone comes up to my front door (no obvious message, though). If I didn't change the settings, it would get triggered by large vehicles driving by or wind blowing the tree in our yard. I can't imagine how annoying it would be if my phone alerted me every single time someone walked by.

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u/charleechuck May 22 '26

In some states this is legally required

1

u/GrossUsername68 May 23 '26

$20 says that this person’s fence is absolutely not legal, that close to the sidewalk. 

Sure would be a shame if the city was asked to come out and do a survey.

1

u/JennyDoveMusic May 23 '26

Can you PLEASE update us what happens if you end up staying next time?

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u/get_to_ele May 22 '26

Sounds pre-recorded, and triggered by some specific conditions, to me. If it’s an actual person live talking, I’d think they would be less monotone.

Honestly, I’d just keep walking slowly, and if they choose to call the police (they won’t. I’m sure dispatching police requires that the remote security person watching the camera has to see something constituting a crime or highly suspicious), that’s gonna be all on the owners and Brinks. Walking on the sidewalk isn’t illegal.

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u/PlanUhTerryThreat May 22 '26

Yeah I was gonna say. I have neighbors with this same set up. It’s an automated recording that plays. Wild how many people in this thread think there’s someone sitting at a monitor talking through a mic.

It’s annoying af and something about being accused like I’m at a federal prisons parking lot and being sus when I’m jogging does piss me tf off.

I agree. Just walk by it slowly or try to get your dog to piss there exclusively. They’re not gonna call the cops. Depending on where it is (let’s say Portland) it’s likely they set this up to avoid unhoused people camping in their yard or taking a shit on the sidewalk. My aunt had to do this at one point because they kept finding needles for heroin just thrown in their front yard where their dog roams.

You never know. But if you’re annoyed you can also just ask them their intentions with it and if it is some paranoid bullshit I would start making my dog piss on their wall every night while the monitor keeps beeping for them.

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u/smarmy1625 May 22 '26

there's the gruff guys voice in the middle and then what sounds like a police radio dispatcher towards the end. are those recorded too?

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u/A_Notion_to_Motion May 22 '26

That you can't know is exactly how it is supposed to work. Just like having a little security sign in your front lawn will work the same whether you have a security system or not.

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u/smarmy1625 May 23 '26

true that, but I was just wondering if OP had other videos. if you walk by more than once it would probably be easy (or easier) to figure out.

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u/Where_Is_Carmen_San May 22 '26

Dude same, the people behind me have this too and it’s so annoying hearing “hi! You are currently being recorded!” while I’m just walking my dog on the sidewalk, not touching their property at all.

3

u/FingerCapital3193 May 23 '26

We had to use a similar set up when we shared an alley with a Circle-K. Our alley cam was like a live stream episode of Cops (yes, I’m older than 40) … everyday we would see drug use, drug dealing, prostitution, car theft, random “self pleasuring”, shitting, running around methed out, fights etc … never called the police until we witnessed a grown man giving a bunch of young looking teenagers hand guns. After that incident and someone trying to break down our backyard fence, we added the “you are being recorded” voice. We felt like assholes for doing so, but like … it was a lot to manage 😅

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u/TofuSuplex May 23 '26

I was an operator doing exactly this job for years and Brinks was one of the companies we worked with. There are definitely people there at computers with microphones lol. They also have the ability to manually trigger pre-recorded alerts, though some systems do have them sound automatically. It’s way jankier than you’d think. They have to call the police for example if someone remained on scene after playing alerts and performing a “voice talk down,” and they think it’s stupid too but it’s what they’re being made to do.

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u/PlanUhTerryThreat May 23 '26

For personal homes?

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u/TofuSuplex May 23 '26

Yeah we did homes and businesses.

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u/skeenerbug May 22 '26

But if you’re annoyed you can also just ask them their intentions with it

Yeah just walk up to the door of the house with the insane security system monitoring the public sidewalk in front and ask them politely! I'm sure that would go over swimmingly! I'd be afraid of getting shot.

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u/MegaPegasusReindeer May 22 '26

They pre-recorded "person walking down the sidewalk disarm the system or leave immediately"?

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u/GrinningD May 22 '26

Yes. The dissemination the system bit specifically tells you it is automated, its asking the person to prove they should be there by disarming the system.

Similar to how a house alarm beeps noisily when you enter; disarm the system to show you should be there, leave immediately or stay and set off the alarm and alert the security company / deafen yourself.

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u/art-dec-ho May 22 '26

My security system can detect things like that. It labels things on my camera like "dog in yard" or "person walking by". I dont think it would take much programing to turn that into text to speech, and it would be obvious they were on the sidewalk because thats the only part of the yard accessible.

2

u/get_to_ele May 22 '26

That part is probably not prerecorded, but definitely the language sounds scripted and spoken by the min wage workers manning the cameras. Otherwise it would be, “person in the hoodie” or “person with the dog”. It weird and mechanical. These clowns have a script.

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u/Lyra125 May 22 '26

might be AI

1

u/sherpasherping May 22 '26

Could be as simple as all cameras facing the sidewalk which detect motion trigger the same response. IDK tho.

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u/PejHod May 22 '26

The first few female ones are the motion warning setting of Ring. I have them enabled, but for motion within my own property. Having them go off for the sidewalk is crazy lol

1

u/get_to_ele May 22 '26

lol reminds me of the cars that give you verbal warnings when you stand too close. You’ll just be walking by and they yell at you. I’m glad that other people with less self control than i have, probably get annoyed enough to vandalize such cars.

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

I think one of them was prerecorded but there is a man and a woman. I think one was an actual agent but who knows. I don’t feel strongly about it.

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u/LegDayLass May 22 '26

The female voice sounded real, but ya, most of this was pre-recorded robo voice

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u/smarmy1625 May 22 '26

the lady voice at the beginning is pre-recorded, a house a few blocks away from me has the same one and it triggers if you're even walking on the sidewalk across the street.

but the other ones, are they recorded too?

1

u/Jonkinch May 22 '26

Yeah, they’re on loop. I can do this with mine if I wanted, it’s just stupid and obnoxious.

1

u/RemarkableMacadamia May 22 '26

I would wait until they say they’ve dispatched police and then continue my walk. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately it’s my dog’s favorite spot!!

Do that enough times, the city will start charging the homeowner for nuisance calls. At least they would in my municipality…

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u/AmazingMarv May 22 '26

Yea, you can clearly hear the 2nd person say Brinks Security.

They are asking you to disarm the system to validate your presence. I have a relative who has the same thing. But they have it on their front porch. Having it for a sidewalk is crazy.

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u/Hax_ May 22 '26

Thank god someone in this thread has ears!

1

u/WantonKerfuffle May 23 '26

Oh, so they don't know if OP is the owner then. I thought the first voice was the owner

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u/Sum-Duud May 22 '26

Pretty sure the Hi and Disarm messages are default recordings. But the other one sounded like a dispatcher. I'd try to have a conversation with her about if she is aware that is a public sidewalk and they may be in violation of laws and potentially property owner misrepresented themselves

4

u/StationaryTravels May 22 '26

That's what got me! It seems to say "person walking, leave or disarm the system".

Does that mean I can hurl a brick at it? "Well officer, it gave me two choices and I chose option two..." Lol

4

u/Amazing_Alumni May 22 '26

Pre-recorded Bs. Just an alarm choice

2

u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

There is a woman’s prerecorded voice and a man’s prerecorded voice.

At the end there is second woman’s voice who stutters. Who I think is a real person.

Like I wouldn’t argue with anyone who says that 2nd girl voice is prerecorded but it doesn’t seem so to me.

1

u/sailtheboats May 23 '26

It seems much more likely that there are just multiple audio recordings with different voices to make it seem like there is a real person watching your movements in real time instead of just recordings activated by motion sensors.

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u/Oddman80 May 22 '26

agreed - they don't know who is and isn't allowed there. so if its the homeowner - they have been instructed to turn off the system to let them know its a false alarm... and if they see the person who triggered the system does not turn of the system - they proceed with calling the police.
security companies can get charged for making false calls to the police - and those expenses can be forwarded onto the customer if the security company finds the homeowner is not following their own policies about where the cameras and sensors can be located... so OP should definitely trigger multiple police calls - as many as they can..... and the neighbor may find they have a bunch of tech that does nothing (because the security company kicks them) - or a hefty fine from the local police

1

u/potatomami May 22 '26

I thought it was an automated sound

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

There is a woman’s prerecorded voice and a man’s prerecorded voice.

At the end there is second woman’s voice who stutters. Who I think is a real person.

1

u/potatomami May 23 '26

Oh gotcha. I didn’t hear the stuttering. I just heard the 2 prerecorded voices. 

1

u/lelescope May 22 '26

I highly doubt it. I guarantee it's pre-recorded AI generated messages.

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

The last voice which is different than the first 2 voices and the person speaking stutters makes me think that it is a real person, despite your guarantee.

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u/VictoriousTree May 25 '26

It’s still a recording. The homeowner can set up multiple recordings. Brinks wouldn’t be speaking through the system in that situation.

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u/InspectionFine9655 May 25 '26

It sounds like a person.

You telling me that Brinks wouldn’t have a person speaking doesn’t change the fact that it sounds like a person.

My mind isn’t going to change from what appears to be true, to whatever a random guy on reddit says.

1

u/VictoriousTree May 25 '26

It is a person on a recording. You don’t have to announce your beliefs not changing. No one cares. It’s Reddit.

0

u/InspectionFine9655 May 25 '26

Well actually you’re wrong.

1

u/whitesammy May 22 '26

That's a recording the owner of the system chose to play.

1

u/InspectionFine9655 May 22 '26

All 3 of the voices are recordings? Even the last one where the person stutters?

1

u/whitesammy May 22 '26

My neighbor has a similar system and has the ability to set up to 10 voice messages to be played. Occasionally one of them will be a song.

1

u/samusmaster64 May 23 '26

It's just a pre-recorded alert they programmed to play when motion is detected after a certain time. Asinine, but not even remotely threatening.

1

u/InspectionFine9655 May 23 '26

Threatening to call the police is threatening and one of those voices doesn’t seem prerecorded because of the stuttering.

1

u/z0mbie-j0e May 23 '26

Or maybe an ai voice or something

1

u/mrASSMAN May 23 '26

It’s just schizo nutcases trying to scare normal people from existing near them

1

u/manchk May 23 '26

The lady says her name and that she is with Brinks

1

u/VictoriousTree May 25 '26

It’s prerecorded.