If you've ever bought a piece of clothing without trying it on only to come home and find out it doesn't fit you right, then you know just how important dressing rooms are. However, as necessary as fitting rooms might be, there could be something creepy going on in them, and one woman on TikTok pointed out one example.
A dressing room is supposed to be a private area, but Nallely Valencia showed how that isn't always the case. In her disturbing video, filmed in the changing room of a clothing store at a California mall, Valencia zoomed in on the mirror and showed how, not far away, a domed security camera hung from the ceiling. She warned that thanks to the mirror's reflection, if the camera is pointed that direction, it would give store security a clear shot of anyone in the fitting room.
In the caption, Nallely wrote, "I know I’m not trippen & this is absolutely not allowed. Smh Windsor in Modesto Ca." The text shown on her video reads, "Wow I'm so mad, I literally noticed when I was putting my clothes back on," and another part says, "You mean to tell me they watched me get naked."
You might think that she could easily have a winnable lawsuit against the store, but that's actually not always case by any means. In fact, in 37 states, it is totally legal for stores to do this. According to legal news site Dopplr, the use of monitoring systems in dressing rooms is only prohibited in 13 states. In the other states, per Dopplr, the law says that the use surveillance in fitting rooms must be "done as loss prevention only" and "any motive other than this is illegal and would cause the store to be fined heavily."
However, California, where Nallely had her experience, is one of the 13 states where it is illegal to film changing rooms, but she wouldn't really have a case since she doesn't know if the camera she saw was facing her or if there even was one in there - employees of clothing stores have previously said that those domes are sometimes just used as deterrents and there aren't actually cameras behind them.
Nonetheless, many commenters were deeply disturbed by what Valencia shared, with one writing, "That's why I don't try on things in stores anymore," and another saying, "That is so scary and who knows how many people changed and it went unnoticed."
Definitely something to be mindful of the next time you find yourself in a dressing room.