I haven’t had too many problems, but I’ve also never had a garden.
I did have a person 3 doors down from me that took my ‘snow sticks’ (those things you put in your lawn so that the snow plows know where the road ends and your yard begins). I came home and they were all gone and the neighbor 3 homes down had some.
Coincidence, I thought.
However, I went down there and, sure enough, saw that they were likely mine. I had just put them in yesterday and so knew some of the characteristics of what I put in like, for example, a flaw in 2 of the flags.
Angrily, I stormed up to his front door and, to make the story short, he just laughed at me saying I couldn’t prove anything*
I thought about some sort of retribution but, fuck it. Not worth it.
That’s about it though. I did have raspberry bushes that I never got fruit out of but I told the neighborhood kids they could have them. They were damned efficient
This means he didn’t do it to steal but likely was doing it to ‘bully’ me.
Not quite a food-stealing story, but my friend had a mean dog that hated all humans but his owners. He eventually had to be put down because he just couldn’t be socialized. So one day, she’s walking him on his leash, they round a corner and encounter a man, and the dog starts barking at him. She’s pulls him back firmly on his leash and starts to apologize. “I’m so sorry. I’ve got him; you’re s…is that my flowerpot?”
The man was holding the very large ornamental flowerpot that she had just received as a gift. She had put it out on her stoop but hadn’t yet had time to cement it down.
So the three of them had a little parade: her, her snarling dog on his leash, and one sheepish thief being held at dogpoint, carrying the flowerpot back to her stoop.
Are there any urban foraging groups in your community?
Edited to add: The cool, formal kind who ask permission and distribute fruit to families and food banks, rather than the freelance kind who’ve caused all the problems listed in this thread.
Two years ago my raspberry bushes were looking good, but there were never any ripe berries. A couple had moved in across from my now ex-husband and I. He was quick to befriend them, but my inner freak alarm was blatting, so I made nice but did not embrace the friendship the way my ex did.
Toward the end of the summer the woman brought over some jam she had put up. Raspberry jam. :smack:
Last November I bought a house. One of the things that sold me was that there are two apple trees in the front yard. When we moved in there were still three apples left on the trees, and I left them there, anticipating spring and blossoms to be followed with lots of lovely apples.
The trees bloomed, lovely apple blossoms, yes! The fruit set and began to swell and turn red. Enough fruit that I was getting ready to cull them. I went to the door and looked at the trees. :eek: The tree closest to the house was as I remembered, the other was not. All but 12 apples had been picked. Small, hard green apples.
My son told me that he had noticed some kids* running in and out of our yard, and I am fairly positive that they were the culprits. They live across the street and down one house, so I made certain to talk loudly about apple thieving children. I haven’t seen them out of their back yard since.
They are all elementary aged. If they wanted apples I would have gladly shared them either when I culled or when they were ripe, if only they had asked.
I’d love to be on that jury. If ever there were a case screaming for jury nullification…
I’d also like to hear that phone call to the police. “Arrest him. I stole his tomatoes and he booby trapped 'em with exlax!” Are you saying the cops would actually show up to arrest someone for this? And a prosecutor would take the case?
People just walk into your yard and steal shit?! Does this happen everywhere?
I remember once I stole a flower from someone’s garden. (To me, it was ripe for the pickin’!) My mother threw a fit when she found out. I never did it again…as an adult, I can see why kids do dumb things, but what ADULT walks into their grown neighbor’s hard and cuts of parts of their plants?!
Cement it down? I’ve never even heard of that! It never even occurred to me that stealing flowerpots is something people would do. Of course, most of the poor behaviour in this thread is a surprise to me. I’m feeling a little naive!
Is cementing flowerpots to stoops a common thing in some areas?
Yes. I had someone dig up a plant from my yard and carry it away. My SIL had someone steal a flower pot from her front yard that must have required two men and a boy to lift; it was almost 3 feet tall, the same across and full of dirt. Maybe they had a fork lift. I lived in a big city but SIL lived in a fairly small town.
We had someone dig up about 150 shrubs and young trees from a counciol planting a year or so back. A new flyover had been put in and the council added the plants to reduce noice and beautify the area.
The next day the plants were gone.
They turned up a week later when the nursey owner the next region over got suspicious and rang the police about the 150 recently dug up plants he’d been offered for sale …
Various relatives of mine have had planters (up to 60kg) taken from the front of their houses. Especially bad around Christmas.
If these stories are true, it will only get worse, wouldn’t it? Maybe someone will come up with anti-theft planters, fruit/pepper guards and tree locks.
The fashion for planters will die off before the security measures catch up.
This all reminds me of the letter to the editor about the cherries that had been stripped from some guys tree in his front yard. He described how each drupe had been snipped cleanly off. Every single last piece of fruit gone and he cursed the thieves and hoped they died from stomach cramps.
Thoughtfully, he’d included his street and the next week one of his neighbours described watching the theft take place. Nesting magpies had removed the entire crop in the space of half an hour. The neighbour had the all the stalks and eventually the seeds under a tree in their back yard to prove it.
Go to the local ag store and buy bird netting. Cover the tree entirely and tie it around the trunk. Post the tree with one of the available 'sprayed for’ signs.
If they have to stop and untie netting [which you can hang with bells, by the way] and have to go wash the theoretical spray off the fruit before eating it becomes less attractive.
It’s actually recommended that if theft is a problem in the area, chaining/bolting down your trees is an option.
"If you’re in the process of putting in some landscaping, and your neighborhood is known for plant thieves, consider weaving chain or cable through the roots of your trees as you plant them, and then connecting them either to other trees or to something immovable."
And as noted earlier, if seasonal (i.e. Xmas) thievery of conifer trees is a problem, you can mix up a dye to spray on trees that will wash out after a couple of months (orange-dyed Xmas trees appear less festive to thieves).
What would I do with all those planters? I’m on back section so not even part of the fashon - not that it stopped my bike from being nicked out of the garage.
As for the fruit, I only take the stuff that’s hanging over my side of the fence. My kid even heads off to the neighbours to ask before taking that much!.
