Homeowner Leaves Thief A Box Of Payback — Er, Dog Poop

A Las Vegas homeowner hopes he taught a package thief a lesson, after security camera footage caught the thief stealing a bait box full of dog poop.

As KTNV (Las Vegas) reported, Eric Burdo was frustrated with a rash of package thefts in his neighborhood; it’s Christmas, after all, the time of year when the mail man (and FedEx man, UPS man, and so on) leave packages on porches. For thieves, those packages are easy pickings, and Burdo’s neighbors have been falling victim to them for weeks.

With new security cameras itching to be tested out, — the homeowner bought them not long ago, after his car was broken into shortly after he moved to Vegas — Burdo came up with a plan to get revenge against the package thief: he took an empty box, filled it with dog poop, and left it on his porch.

“One day I kind of just thought about cleaning up the poop and putting it in a box and that’s what I did.”

It took a few days, said Burdo (plenty of time for the dog poop to take on a powerful aroma), but a thief finally took the bait. And, it was all captured on video.

“I was kind of excited and I just kept replaying it. I just kind of wanted to give them back something.”

The video posted above only shows one thief stealing the box of dog poop; another thief was captured on the homeowner’s garage’s security camera. That video hasn’t been released.

“Hopefully they don’t do it again and they learn their lesson.”

Eric Burdo is not the first homeowner to exact a poopy revenge against package thieves. In 2014, according to United Press International, Washington, D.C. resident Andrea Hutzler was having a problem with a thief stealing packages from her porch. In October of the same year, a thief got away with three packages; expecting more package deliveries for Christmas, she didn’t want to risk another theft.

Doing what appears to be the beginning of a national trend, Hutzler filled up a package with dog poop and left it as bait. Sure enough, a thief showed up.

The good news is that the camera caught a perfect shot of the thief’s face, which was promptly given to the police. The bad news is that the camera didn’t catch the thief’s reaction upon seeing that he’d only managed to steal a box of dog doody.

“I had originally wanted to put a note in the box that said, ‘Surprise!'”

Hutzler also had a rather colorful message to the thief that read as follows.

“You give me s***, I’ll give it back to you.”

Trolling a thief with a box of poop is one thing, but exacting vengeance on him or her is another matter entirely. In 2012, a woman used the power of social media to do just that. When a thief stole the unidentified woman’s cell phone, he left behind his wallet. She then posted an open letter to the thief on Facebook.

“Dear F****r: In your haste to abscond with my cell phone you dropped your wallet. I now have possession of the following: $195 cash, 1 prepaid Visa gift card from Aunt Dana… your driver’s license. I will be standing at the exact spot you grabbed my phone at 5:10 PM and will exchange all of the above (less $100, which we’ll call the “A*****e tax”). If you do not appear I will give your credit cards and everything else of value to homeless people, and turn the rest of your wallet to police.”

Do you think it’s a good idea to troll a package thief with a box of dog poop? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Image via Shutterstock/Frenzel]