Cohabitation - Check - Yet another service a Private Investigator can help you with.

Not too long ago, a client asked me to verify whether a former spouse was currently living with another person.  They call this "Cohabiting" or "Cohabitation" and the person who appears to be the subject is often referred to as the "Cohabitant."

Usually this is done during the legal process of separation, divorce and child custody matters.

It is imperative to get as much information as possible ahead of time in order to make the investigation go smoothly. Sometimes you will have a physical description of who it is they suspect may be there. There are however some cases where it's not always possible to get this information, and you just have to start from scratch.

In terms of proof of cohabitation, a few common sense factors come to mind.  If someone comes home in the evening and does not leave the residence until the next day and their clothes have been changed and they didn't carry bags in with them the night before, well then there you go. Their clothes are being kept in the home and that is pretty much a dead give-away.

 There are many ways to determine this factor, and for starters the quickest way to obtain the facts, is to find out who enters and exits the property at the residential address over a 24-48 hour period.

However, I must tell you, on one investigation we witnessed three different people come over and stay overnight, three nights in a row and to make it more interesting, the resident would back their car up in order for the overnight visitor to park their vehicle in front of the resident's vehicle.  It was complicated to say the least, however, we were able to provide photos of each individual and the client was happy with the photos of the cars and the license plate and felt they had enough and didn't need anything further.

The process of determining cohabitation usually requires surveillance during the day and at night as the occupants of the residence, may work different shifts and/or have different schedules on different days, so it might be helpful to have your investigators work in shifts and have a means of communication as well.

It's important to be discreet as possible as to not alert the neighbors who may report you to the police as a suspicious character who is threatening their peace of mind. Never drive your personal vehicle. Always rent a car. If your investigation is going to take more than a day, I suggest Enterprise Rent-A-Car who has a fleet car service. They will come and pick up your rental car from the day before and replace it with a new one.

Myself and my associates always obtain the vehicle make, model and tag number in order to get their identity. You can do a DMV record search and determine if their address has been updated to the residence that you are watching.  In addition, as an investigator you can find out through the United States Post Office, if a forwarding address has been issued if you have the first and last name of the suspected occupant.

Other ways would be to check the utility records as well.  There are some other ways you can determine if some is cohabiting with another person, however, I will leave that for my next post when I cover, a few factors regarding trespassing, or not, what you can and cannot do.