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The day before I saw my plastic bird bath slung across the yard, and upon close inspection it was cracked all around it and had holes in it as if either a dog gnawed it or some kid shot at it for fun. It was in perfect condition the day before, then this morning, I went out to water my garden and saw my giant plastic ant was missing. I hope it was just a stray dog, like the one taking a dump in our yard for the past several weeks rather than think that one of our neighbors stole it. It is impossible to replace and it served to deter squirrels and birds from pecking at my tomato vines and blackberries.
Sad that people can't have something that uplifts their spirits as well as enhances the neighborhood. I have a turtle, plastic, that I bought in the dollar store about 12 years ago. He sits on a flat stone in my front yard adjacent to the sidewalk. Everyone who strolls through the neighborhood for the first time will stop and look and sometimes pick it up. Those who are acquainted with Slowpoke will just pass by.
My area is pretty quiet but that can change at any time so I don't put anything in the yard that I would grieve over if it "disappeared".
This past Christmas one of our lawn pieces was stolen, but I put out an APB on the neighborhood facebook page and a teenager msged me to tell me she knew who took it because she overheard her bragging about it at school. She said she would try to get the girl to return it, and if she didn't that she would tell me the girl's name.
A week later my doorbell rang again - it was the girl, offering a BRAND NEW lawn decoration for our collection, thanking me for not calling the police and that she regretted that her actions had ruined what was clearly a holiday season we loved. I hugged her, thanked her, and promptly put the new lawn decoration in the display.
I also gave a $25 Amazon gift card to the girl who alerted me as to the identity of the thief, as a reward for stepping up when others might not have.
This epitomizes ratchedness! I came to this forum to commiserate. I had a statue of a lovely young fairy in a comtemporary style stolen from my front porch. Had her for years!!! Leave for work on the nightshift come back the next morning to notice a small pile of leaves, and then remember she was just there. How much of a (lowlife regardless of your age do you have to be) to feel comfortable with walking onto a person's property to steal lawn decorations from them? You are the lowest form of thief there is. Not quite up(or down) there with people who steal old people's social security checks, but not too far removed from that. They cut off hands in other countries for lesser crimes than that. Too bad we can't cut off the tip of a finger or something similiar to that.
I live in Peoria, Az and I take ombrage to that. Losers can and do exist anymore, and to be honest the majority of people that are here now are transplants and mainly from Cali so...
Had a sailor, decades ago, do that. I don't recall what happened to him but do recall the Captain saying upon signing the rare search warrant that he was expecting to see a charge sheet. Given the Captain, said sailor was probably crucified.
In Berkeley, back in 1990, I had a Norfolk Island pine in a homemade wood wheel barrel and another good size tree disappear from my yard. I lived in the back apartment behind a house and heard a truck tail gate slam shut early in the morning, by the time I got out to my yard, the truck was gone and my two trees too. Here where I live now in far northern California, had just moved here and hired a tree service to remove 10 pine trees, this was in 2000. I took pictures and video of the trees being removed from different parts of the yard and it shows our yard and the plants. I noticed the next day that one of my plants was missing, a 22 year old bonsai'd yucca given to me from an old friend. This plant was not visible from the street, but the workers trucks were parked in that area and it was easy for one of them to load up the yucca. The tree service owner agreed to a 50% discount for the theft. I thought I knew who took it and so did the boss. In 2007 I was awakened around 2 am by my dog, she led me to the front window and I saw a woman taking my neighbors potted plants off the porch and putting them in the bushes along the street. I snuck outside and when she went around the corner, I shadowed her and noted where she went. I came back, put all my neighbors plants back and returned to bed. The next morning about 7:30 I saw a woman walk past my house, noticed all the plants back on the porch, she bolted upright and took off around the corner and I followed. It was the same woman and same apartment unit. I called my network of neighbors and one had been hit that night and two of his neighbors. When I went out to tell my neighbor across from me about her plants, I noticed that my brass hose fittings were removed by reaching in between the fence rails. In all this woman hit five of us that night. I called the owner of the apartment complex, filed a complaint with the landlord and the police. She got evicted soon after. We now have four alert young dogs and almost all my neighbors have dogs now and none of us have been hit by thieves in over 8 years now. Though I did have a situation where I had planted nearly 100 plants outside my fence along a local paved trail. It took me all day to plant the 100 foot long bed and the next day, 45 of the smallest plants had been removed. It was so infuriating, I was going to just dig them all back up and throw my hands up. But that made me angrier, so I made a set of signs and wrote on the to the person who stole the plants that it took me a lot of work growing them from cuttings and if they had of asked me, I would have offered them plants from my yard that I have an excess of, that they should be ashamed of themselves and from now on they would be video taped. We set a camera up on the eaves of the garage and no a single plant has since been removed. Also had some women go behind my hedge and reach over my rose fence and start cutting bunches of my roses, when confronted they laughed and took off running. Now I have my posse of dogs that I do not discourage from barking at strangers I have not allowed on my property. When one of them barks, the others come running ready for action.
Oh boy, this is a 5 page thread now! We recently had a white cement angel statuary stolen from my mom's back garden in Sun City, AZ. I am almost 100% certain that it was a member of the landscape crew that took it. Well, when they look into the mirror, they see their own face, the face of a thief. It had a great deal of sentimental value, since it was an angel....
No worries OP. Just imagine their new year when karma comes calling. Their entire next year is going to be a disaster. They'll be lucky to even have a Christmas next year.
The absolutely worst incident affecting my family was the theft of new sod from my grandfather's grave in a city cemetery in Arkansas. My mother, aunts, and uncles had arranged for it to be put in place, as the soil was rather poor and rocky. It lasted about a month. This occurred almost 40 years ago, so thefts of this kind are nothing new, unfortunately. It greatly distressed my mother and her siblings.
Who on earth could live with themselves, after stealing sod from a grave?? A sociopath, I assume. I doubt if the sod was sold, as it was too small for most other purposes.
I also had some very large, very colorful croton plants stolen from my front porch - the night before Mother's Day several years ago. I suppose some mother's little darling presented Mom with a nice (stolen) gift. I'd had those crotons for over ten years at the time, and it was impossible to find others of that size in nurseries.
Wicker furniture disappeared off front porches in my community's older neighborhoods for several years, but the police eventually managed to nab the culprits. Of course, by that time, most of the wicker was long-dispersed. Wicker isn't as trendy now, so it's safe to put it on the porches once again. I don't have any good wicker, just one broken down old planter (which I still use), but have a green porch rocker from my grandmother's house that has many fond associations. It's never been nabbed, thankfully.
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