"Somebody tied rubber gloves to our trees!" - Why?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is the call I received from my wife yesterday morning while I was traveling. The question is, why in the world would someone do this? The call chilled my blood, which probably hasn’t happened since I was six years old. It was pure Blair Witch Project. Am buying a shotgun today, just in case.

Here are the details: My wife went out Friday morning to walk the dog. Our house on the east side is ringed by a row pines that sit just inside a chain link and wood fence (I can’t stand chain link fences, but fortunately most of the fence is hidden by the trees and what you can easily see is the wood part). In order for anyone to access these trees, he/she had to come onto our property and alongside our house.

Two gloves were found on two trees up near our driveway and the third was found on the last pine in the row, down a small slope near the back of the house. When my wife found the first, she thought it bizarre and figured, while odd, there must be a second glove, so upon further inspection she found the second. At that point she was a bit alarmed and called me. I informed her that I, as the person that daily takes the dog out to that area, hadn’t seen anything like that yesterday (Thurs) and would have noticed them.

The gloves were brand new and the fingers were tied around small branches on the pines, maybe chest-high. When my wife found the third glove near the back of the house (which was right next to my teenaged-daughter’s ground-floor bedroom), she went from alarmed to 911-calling mode. Police came, took a report (and the gloves), but offered no clues as to WTF. No further gloves were found (although my wife still suspects a fourth out there, based on the same logic that led her to think there was a second glove).

Our house is in a relatively nice neighborhood north of Seattle. We rent the house (property manager has not yet gotten back to us on if he has hired someone to do anything to the trees). My town has been hit by a spate of burglaries over the past year or so and my wife is worried that our house has somehow been marked. I can’t imagine burglars casing our house would use such an overt method to mark a house, but then… I just can’t think of any rational reason for this, so I can’t say that theory is implausible. After all, someone came on our freaking property and put these gloves here in the middle of the night. At least, I’m assuming it was in the middle of the night. I have enemies (that I know of) in the neighborhood. Even if the landlord has hired someone to treat/prune/do something with those three trees… why mark them with rubber gloves? I have a 15-year old and 5-year old daughters and can’t stand the thought of guns in the house, but I do intend to go out today and find a used shotgun with some beanbag rounds just in case. I’m not one to overreact, but this has my head spinning. Putting this in GQ because I assume there’s a factual answer out there–mods, feel free to move if appropriate. Anyway, I welcome your theories as to whether I’ve slipped into the Twilight Zone.

2

I meant to type “I have no enemies”.

3

Teenagers, perhaps?

This would freak me out a bit too, especially since the person(s) would have had to come on your property, but I don’t know that I’d think the house had somehow been ‘marked’ for a crime. I guess I’d be extra vigilant for the next month or so just in case.

4

You’ve been marked by The Proctologist.

5

Were they surgical rubber gloves, or dish washing rubber gloves?

6

911- really? Please tell me the regular phone line to the police department was down and she had to call 911 for any response.

It does sound strange. I would probably chalk it up to teenagers doing stupid shit, but I would be extra watchful for a while.

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This post has been … er … nevermind.

8

Surgical rubber gloves, which my wife described as still having creases in them from the box. They were dry and clean (it’s been raining most of the week here).

There is a houseful of teenaged boys across the street, and that was one of my first thoughts. My daughter mentioned it to them after they asked why we had a police car at our house and they said it wasn’t them. Proof of nothing, of course, but at the same time… even if it was them… rubber gloves? Tied to trees?

9

Your “brown” shows as more red on my laptop, so that was even more disturbing. :slight_smile: Wasn’t he banned?

10

“Buying a shotgun, just in case” - deduct liberal brownie points

"Someone in house, going outside at night and doing weird shit, “because the voices are telling them to” in the hopes that you will buy a shotgun - add liberal brownie points

11

Sounds like someone with a rather surreal sense of humour is engaging in some real life mindscrewing.

12

I would think probably stupid teenagers trying to do something they thought would be scary or creepy. Maybe they saw something similar in a movie or something. Or maybe surgical gloves are the new toilet paper.:wink:

13

Yeah, that would be my thought. I wouldn’t have worried about it, but I’m not really the worrying type.

14

It sounds like a message to pick up after your dog.

15

Were they palm trees?

16

Do yourself a favor and don’t get beanbag rounds. You’re not a police officer on riot patrol, you’re an individual in your own home defending your own life and you have no reason to piss off an attacker, you have reason to kill that attacker. If for whatever reason you can’t do that, don’t buy a gun for home defense.

If you decide to buy a gun, get something like a Mossberg pump and load it full of defense rounds. Talk to the guy at the gun shop, he can give you some pointers and steer you in the right direction to get some training. With kids in the house you definitely want a safe, and you really should teach them age appropriate firearm safety.

17

From the OP’s description of their location, it sounds like they live in my neck of the woods. In unincorporated Snohomish County, 911 is the only number we’re given to call, even for routine calls.

For the OP: My wife is a police volunteer and active in the neighborhood watch. When she gets home, I’ll run the rubber-glove thing by her.

18

That’s an interesting thought. I always pick up after him when he goes in anyone else’s yard. However, the strip on the other side of the fenceline (where the pine trees are) borders alongside a cul de sac, and the strip is city-maintained. I did leave his poop there once this past week during the rain (yes, that was wrong, illegal, etc.). So, it’s entirely possible the neighbors (there is only one house that has visibility on that piece of land) noticed this and decided to… well, I don’t know what. The manner of placement of the gloves is bizarre. They were overt if they were placed by potential burglars, but not overt from someone trying to send us a message. If you’re going to go through that trouble, why not just pick up the poop and drop it on our driveway or something completely obvious? Hang a baggie on our doorknob? A baggie full of poop on our doorknob? It’s probably the best explanation so far, but it still makes no sense to me.

As for the 911 thing–I didn’t want to address that, because it’s totally irrelevant to the discussion. Somebody clearly trespassed on our property and it could be related to a string of break-ins. It’s not an emergency, but I wouldn’t fault someone for calling the 911 line. For the record, my wife called the non-emergency number first, and got a recording (it was six a.m.). So she called 911. And thanks, dracoi.

19

Must be a touchy subject with you- didn’t mean for you to get all defensive there! I just pictured the scene:

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Someone tied gloves on my trees! Help!”

“What?”

And this is the Dope- everything is relevant to the discussion around these parts, haven’t you noticed?

20

This is a hard one for me–I’d have given the same exact advice two days ago. But I’m now confronted with two overriding thoughts: I have evidence suggesting someone could very well try to get in this house in the near future (or at the very least, is sneaking around the property with less-than-honorable intentions), and I absolutely do not want a firearm in the house capable of killing me or one of my family. I know little about guns. The only compromise I can see is non-lethal ammo, which I understand can be perfectly lethal in the right circumstances. I’m betting a round or two will stop if not drop the guy. What about rock salt or bird shot?