snip. I’m not trying to be argumentative here Bricker, I’m just trying to understand the difference. How is that any different then say leaving out wasabi guac? I’m not planning for the thief to steal that either, if they do they’ll get a nasty surprise. If not then I’ll either eat it, (I love wasabi) or throw it away. it’s my property, if I want to waste food, that’s within my rights.
There is a matter of plausibility at stake here, Acid Lamp. When you hang a shirt in a laundry room, it is likely to be plausible to a jury you intended to wash it later. When you leave wasabi guac in the fridge, it is less naturally plausible. If you can demonstrate a liking for spicey food, then it becomes more plausible again. The less likely it is to be in the fridge for your own use, the more likely a jury is to think you had intent to harm someone else. Similarly, if there is evidence you bitched and moaned about someone stealing your food in the past, how someone should get him, how it would be hysterical if someone left wasabi guac in there and he ate it, the jury is again more likely to believe you intended harm.
There are two things at stake here:
- Did you actually commit the offense
- Will a jury convinct you?
Whether you actually did it or not depends on your intent. Whether the jury will convict depends on how plausible your story is. It can be completely false, as in you intended the thief to take your shirt and get poison ivy, but a jury will probably believe you. Or it can be totally true, like you thought wasabi guac would be tasty, but didn’t like it, and left it in the fridge to throw it out at the end of the day, but a jury may not believe you.
I was talking this over w/my sister and she came up with a variant: suppose you start bringing your guac to work but label it something like: Don’t Steal! Joe’s dangerously hot wasabi!
So the thief either doesn’t eat your guac (win!) OR does eat it. Then, after a couple days of having him steal your dip you DO bring in a bowl of wasabi, and label it exactly the same way.
Is there any way you’d be considered liable for any pain he suffers resulting from stealing an accurately labelel foodstuff?
This seems a pretty remote possibility, but I don’t see it being a very plausible means of revenge, either. Someone who’s unable to distinguish guacamole from wasabi before conveying it into their face is very likely practically insensate.
Except that the idea that you’d make the food and then throw it away belies your intent to eat it yourself. It is strong evidence that you intend the food as a trap for a thief. Sure, you have the right to waste food, but a jury is entitled to assume you are an ordinary person who intends the ordinary consequences of his actions.
But sure: if you testify that you had no specific intent to have anyone else eat the food, and they believe you, then you’re not guilty.
It’s just when you say, “It’s my property, if I want to waste food, that’s within my rights,” it seems like you might be thinking that they HAVE TO believe that this was your intention, just because you say it was.
Yes. If you testified that this was your plan all along.
It’s amazing by the number of Dopers who want to seek harm and revenge against an unknown person for the sake of stealing food from a common location. Adding insult to injury, many of these same Dopers are playing weasel word games just to absolves themselves in their own minds that they are not doing anything wrong.
Practically everyone in college has friends, even the food thiefs. Play all the childish revenge games you want but I’m betting the thief has friends and sometime shortly after they are found out, they will know who came after them. I can see the innocent victim who punished the thief will get their own comeuppance the same way, probably after dark in a secluded area away from witnesses.
OK. How about getting someone from the electronic engineering dept. to make a very loud alarm that goes off when the container is opened? Or fill the container with those coil-spring snakes that shoot out when opened.
But it’s all good if there’s no chance of a conviction, right? It means the beating is perfectly legal and morally OK. amiright?
:dubious:
Mehehehe, I laughed out loud quite a bit reading through the replies.
I actually like the hot sauce idea – and the food dye one.
Whilst Googling this topic I also came across…wasabi sandwiches. 
I’m really not too worried about any repercussions tampering with my own food as booby traps. Would any food-thieving girl here would have the guts to report to an RD and say, “I stole this person’s food and it gave me mad runs”? Doubt it.
I’m curious on a detail here: the expanse/definition of the word “public.” Suppose the fridge is in a highly locked down, secure facility in which only three people have access. Still “public”? I assume so, but I’d like to know the logic.
ETA: This is asking about the phrase “public accessibility” mentioned in the last page, of course.
I’m not trying to destroy said thief…other people leave angry notes on the fridge but what does that really do? All I want is to try to teach the thief to think twice before stealing someone else’s food*, and the first method that comes to mind is making food undesirable. (Like positive punishment, ya know?)
*I never store my food in the shared fridge – I only keep ice cream in the freezer because it won’t fit in my tiny 3.5 cu ft minifridge.
And I’m just going to end this reply by saying…my university is very different than other ones (i.e. there will be no confrontations in dark alleyways at night).
Tahssa is correct. The largest fridge we’re allowed to keep in our rooms is the tiny 3.5 cu ft fridge. The freezer is large enough for a tray of ice.
My dorm does have a clean out policy, but they clean out fridges/freezers every TWO weeks. My ice cream was in there for just under one.
Aaand…the thief probably had an ice cream party (it was only the half-gallon size).
Slightly off-topic: is there any way I can change the title to “Best way to stop a food thief”? Since so many seem so offended and misled by the word “revenge”?
Yeah you’re right, we all should just learn our place and suck it up when someone steals our property because they might have a posse. :rolleyes: That person stole from you. It doesn’t matter that it’s cheap ass ice-cream. Theft is theft and I’m certainly not going to fear for my safety because I don’t tolerate thieves.
So the only alternative is to play coward vigilante and drug complete strangers? Surely there’s a middle ground.
Hey, thanks for getting back and answering my questions.
Any further developments? Has anyone else mentioned any more thefts?
I haven’t taken any action so far, and food theft is something that just happens throughout the year (hence always using my own mini-fridge unless I have no other choice). Stuff like that doesn’t stop if there isn’t a consequence or a chance of getting caught.
As for your other question about middle ground, my number one logical choice would be to simply confront them because I think food thieves are generally gutless; heck, they steal your food when your back is turned.
Frankly, setting up a way to catch them in the act seems more complicated than simply messing with my food and getting to them that way. Haha. That’s not to say I’m not considering a webcam at ALL (hey, maybe I should set up one that doesn’t ACTUALLY work as a decoy – if the RAs and RDs approve), but when it comes to considering my options, that one takes a lower priority.
Plus…you have to admit. Pranks are fun.
I’ve been curious about something – how many people have access to that fridge? Are we talking dozens or hundreds? Is it possible to work with your RAs to either set up a camera or make general announcements about fridge bandits? Simple awareness on everyone’s part might just be enough to solve the problem.
We had that problem at work a little while back. We ended up putting combination locks on the fridge. Everyone in the department was made aware of the combination. The problem stopped. I guess that means that it was the cleaning crew that was doing it. At this point, the lock is not even there anymore (maybe someone stole it), but no one has complained about theft ever since.
Okay, here’s the thing. The food theft happened because someone thought they could take your ice cream and have no reprocussions. You are now planning to do something that has been shown time and again in this thread to be illegal because you don’t think the person who swiped your ice cream would file charges, essentially saying that you don’t believe your actions would have any reprocussions. Do you see the flaw in your logic?
I can promise you that someone who is willing to steal your food isn’t going to see that the reasonable thing was that they should expect to be pranked, they are going to see the reasonable thing to do to be revenge, possibly be releasing hundreds of millipedes into your dorm room during the night or waiting to see your name on food in the freezer again later and putting eye drops in it to get back at you for your revenge plan or some other horrible thing. And they will know it was you because all of your stuff has to be labeled with your name, right? Beyond that, if your prank backfires (you put hot peppers in something and this person has a horrible allergy to capsacin and has to be hospitalized or something like that) they will probably be willing to take the slap on the wrist for food theft to see you kicked out of your school and punished in a court of law. Do not fool yourself into believing that the ice cream burglar won’t come after you in one form or another. Just learn to disguise your stuff or don’t use the communal freezer.
IANAL(ADPOOTV), but it would seem to me public, in this case, means any area to which you generally cannot (and don’t expect to be able to) absolutely control or explicitly grant access (does not include illicit breaches of that area, i.e., break-ins, snooping kids where something has been locked or clearly placed out of reach, etc). Even your example is public because, although the facility is securely locked down, there are two people who have access for whom you cannot control their access. In terms of the phrase “public access,” public means that which is not absolutely private and controllable, not necessarily that which is in an area freely accessible to (almost) any and everybody.