I've come across two discussions about bugging devices in two books I've read and I am having a hard time believing what is being said can still be true. Apparently it is common knowledge that you can't bug a shower. In Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, Nick and Amy Dunne have a conversation in the shower because she is certain he has bugged their house in order to catch her admitting to certain things. She forces him to have conversations about these certain subjects in the shower with the water on so any electronic recording devices will not be able to pick up what is said.
In Henry Bromell's Little America, Mack Hooper is a CIA operative in 1958 working in the American Embassy in Kurash, a fictional Middle Eastern country. Through his contacts, he learns that the American Ambassador to Kurash has been covertly photographed having sex with underage boys and Mack has to decide how to handle possible fallout from the situation. When Mack needs to discuss this predicament with his wife, where do they go to talk? Of course, to the bathroom with the shower running.
I can believe that bugging technology circa 1958 could be foiled by the sound of running water. But it less believable that in 2012 when Gone Girl takes place that a shower is an effective way to evade electronic eavesdropping. Hasn't the technology improved? Isn't there some algorithm out there that can filter out the water noise and isolated human voices?
(The closest thing to a solution to this dilemma was nearly accomplished by Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2. http://youtu.be/7yatqBQWC0k)
And why anyone would ever think the shower is a safe place to be for anything is beyond me. I think we all know why.
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