Madison Zaleski
•3/7/2026
On a house tour, most buyers check out the kitchen, the layout, or maybe the backyard. However, at a home showing in Cape Coral, one visitor had a different idea.
"If they didn't have the videos, they would have never known that happened," said realtor Carla Kluch.
Surveillance cameras catch a man walking over to the homeowner's liquor shelf, grab a random bottle, take a drink, and casually put it back. Moments later, he makes himself comfortable and snoozes on the owner's couch.
"As you can imagine, the sellers were quite, quite upset. It's kind of a violation of all kinds of things," Kluch said.
The sellers are clients of Carla Kluch. She says a buyer's agent brought the group into the home in Cape Coral for a tour, and left the man alone in the room.
"It really was discussing, a huge violation of privacy. It's a privilege to enter into someone's home, so for someone to feel that that was okay, it's definitely so wrong," Kluch said.
This time, the man just took a drink of alcohol, but someone could just as easily rummage through a homeowner's personal items instead.
"So jewelry, medication, you know, weapons, those are huge. You know, you have kids sometimes that take off and run. You don't want to leave any of that stuff out, but this is definitely an interesting one because alcohol really has not been on my big topic list," Kluch said.
Kluch calls this incident a wake-up call. She says even though she had nothing to do with what happened, it will change the way she talks to potential buyers.
"According to the other agent who was in charge of the showings, she really felt terrible. She was mortified as well. But, it goes again to our responsibility as agents that we have to kind of keep the group together, set the expectations," Kluch said.
Kluch says the sellers decided not to press charges against the man.
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