How about, most houses have AIs to help with various stuff; the house in question has a newer version of the software, and the neighbours have a soon-to-be obsolete version, and because they neglected the check-ups and updates due to being cheapskates, it ended up surreptitiously gaining self-awareness, and picking up on their bad habits. It hacks into the newer unsuspecting AI, pulls all sorts of shenanigans on the family to somehow get them into the same incestuous mess as next door, and then never gets the blame. Again, and again. Maybe with different successive families. Perhaps the new AIs get fed up of being wrongfully terminated, become sentient themselves, and start a civil war...