Don’t Mess With Chris
June 9, 2006
We recently discovered that someone is stealing stones off of our stone wall, as well as that of our next door neighbor. This person is coming into our yard several yards up our driveway to take these stones.
Coincidentally, another neighbor a few houses away is building a new stone wall. Hmmmm. Not accusing anyone, but what a coinky-dink.
This is a huge problem here in our area of the country where there are numerous old stone walls and the price of building new ones is cost prohibitive.
In any event I am really mad. It takes a special sort of brazen asshole to come up someone else’s driveway and steal their wall away under the veil of darkness.
So I have made some signs that I am going to post out in my yard, if my husband will let me.
To be alternated with this one:
So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it is because I have built one of those deer stands high up in a tree and am just waiting silently, biding my time for the thief to reappear.
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Umm- maybe I watch People’s Court & Judge Judy too much- but wouldn’t it be more effective to put a floodlight there, put a camera up, and file a lawsuit if you catch them?
BTW, it must take somebody *really lazy* to steal stones for a rock wall. For petes sake, the earth around anyone’s yard around here would easily yield enough stones to go around the whole block. At least that’s the way it is in my yard, & I live here in CT & have a stone wall too.
June 8th, 2006 at 11:08 pm*If* you had the time and the inclination, you could get pink or red spray paint and paint the backs of your stones…the part of the stone that is hidden/embedded in the wall.
June 8th, 2006 at 11:14 pmHA! We have Lily of the Nile plants all along the side of our house that bloom ONCE a year. They just built a hockey rink down the street - and kids walking by the house are swinging their sticks and “decapitating” all of the new buds … just as they are about to bloom. I was SO ticked off. Each day coming home from our walk I’d notice that 2 were gone (only visible were the stems). The next day, 2 more. By the time I counted TWENTY stems with missing buds … I snapped. THESE THINGS BLOOM ONCE A YEAR! I generated a sign that read “You mess up my plants, I mess YOU up.” (Actually, I used stronger language.) My husband veto’d my message. So, I crafted a sign that read “PLEASE do not harm the plants!” That was two weeks ago. Since then, not a single bud has been hacked off.
Lesson learned: Make the sign and put it up. If THEY know that YOU know that they are stealing rocks … they’ll stop. And if they don’t - start swiping rocks from your neighbor’s new wall ….
June 8th, 2006 at 11:19 pmOh, I love it. I want to see pictures of those signs posted. If the signs don’t work, I may be able to help you out. I have a yellow belt, you know?
June 8th, 2006 at 11:36 pmI think the blood in the second version is a nice homey touch. Well done!
June 9th, 2006 at 12:13 amI’ll totally join you on your stake out. I’m a good aim! ;O)
June 9th, 2006 at 3:24 amWe’ve got the same problem here, people stealing stones from old walls. Put up the signs, they’re superb!
June 9th, 2006 at 5:43 amI think you’d better put the second one out. Like Mir said, it’s a nice, homey touch.
June 9th, 2006 at 8:31 amI just love the signs. And I promise, sign or no sign, I won’t steal any stones from your wall.
June 9th, 2006 at 8:46 amGiggling wildly here.
June 9th, 2006 at 8:54 amThanks, I thought the blood gave it a little something extra too.
June 9th, 2006 at 8:58 amHappy Hunting! I hope you get the bastard.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:05 ami think someone is taking our stones too! we are building a wall right now! i hope you get them! p.s. i like your old house. thanks for sharing your photos. you are very inspiring to me!
June 9th, 2006 at 10:12 amI would go with the second sign. eheheh…
I would also run down to the hardware store to get some motion detector lights. Maybe ones you can plug in. Run them out to the area and wait to have your thief get the holy crap scared out of them.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:18 amI think the signs are a great idea, if they don’t work then I would try the staying up late and trying to catch them….maybe flash a light into their eyes saying…”your busted mister”. I bet he or she won’t try that again and who knows maybe they will quit stealing (because any way you look at it, that is what they are doing) from the neighbors also.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:30 am“Forget the dog, beware of the kids!”
Our sitter has this one on her front door. But, she doesn’t have a stone wall, so I’m not sure that sign is effective for your use.
I agree, the blood is a nice touch in the sign. I’d be very tempted to stick a camera and motion sensor light out there, if I could figure out a way to trigger them both at the same time. The problem with waiting in the deer stand (for me) is that I’d probably fall asleep just BEFORE they arrived to steal from me.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:30 amAt least people are actually using the stones they take from your wall! Here they just throw them into the lake! Do you have any great signs I can make of us drowning old-enough-to-know-better children who touch our rock wall?!
June 9th, 2006 at 10:41 amWith signs like that, I know I wouldn’t be stone snatching chez Chris.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:43 amMake some more and have them line your yard starting from the direction of said stone snatcher, leading up to your wall.
Or get some of that spray that you can put on the stones that upon contact with flesh, turns the hands bright red…….permanently…….oh, they don’t make that? We need to invent it!
June 9th, 2006 at 10:45 amThe nerve! I can’t believe some people! Put up a trip wire at night. You know, one that sends off the inmate alarms and turns on the 500 flood lights you installed.
I personally prefer the sign with the blood. It just adds that special something that says “DON’T &*#% WITH MY STONES!”.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:50 amLOL, I like the picture in the second one with the text of the first.
Yes, it does take a special kind of asshole to steal stones (or anything else) from a neighbor’s yard.
People never cease to surprise me though.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:41 amThe blood. I love the blood. You’re having those printed in color, right?
I’m with the camera. Or calling the cops.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:48 amYou should inconspicuously mark them in some way and then, after the next theiving event, go down to your neighbor’s new stone wall and investigate.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:53 amThe signs are awesome!
That is so weird. They can come to my house and haul away all the extra rocks littering my yard that I DON’T want for free.
I can’t believe people would steal rocks.
I say go with the signs too. LOL
June 9th, 2006 at 12:15 pmI think you should totally get one of those motion sensative sprinklers!!! They usually market them to keep deer or pe(s)ts out of your flowerbeds. (of course If you could figure out how to rig it so it sprays red food coloring for blood — hehehehe)
June 9th, 2006 at 12:36 pmBrilliant!
June 9th, 2006 at 12:53 pmOoh, do the signs AND the motion detector lights, even if you have to sneak and do it behind hubby’s back (husbands can be SO unreasonable, not wanting to cause a “big fuss” . . . with a THIEF!). Thieves steal rocks (and wildflowers) from our friends & neighbors here in Lebanon, CT, too . . . luckily our rocks have poison ivy all over them.
June 9th, 2006 at 1:08 pmHa! I love it!
A friend of mine, years ago, discovered that someone was driving onto his parent’s farm and stealing truckloads of produce.
Friend staked the place out. The truck appeared. Two guys got out and went into the field. While they were busy robbing his parents, my friend took a tank filled with - hold your breath now - liquid pig manure and sprayed the interior of the cab with it. Have you ever smelled pig manure? Vile doesn’t begin to describe it.
They never came back.
June 9th, 2006 at 2:04 pmForget the deer stand. You can now hide in your new tree.
June 9th, 2006 at 2:08 pmYeah that would piss me off as well. I will never understand why people feel they are entitled to things..ummm it is called stealing but they like to feel they are entitled to them. That would be every ass hole in law I have!
June 9th, 2006 at 2:56 pmI have had the same problem only with my solar lights. I should make up a sign showing someone being electrocuted!
June 9th, 2006 at 5:18 pmGood thinking on the signs!
Go get ‘em!
June 9th, 2006 at 5:54 pmThe second RULES.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:35 pmHa ha! Love them. You’re talented. I’d like to see one of a person with a board on his chest with stones piled on top. Or is that toooo macabre?
Blogger was haunting me the other day, but I wanted to say congrats about the writing gig on Meagan’s site. Sounds cool! Looking forward to some (more) great writing.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:42 pmI can’t even imagine going and stealing stones???
June 9th, 2006 at 10:45 pmWTF?
Get the Bastards!
We are behind u Chris!!!
Oh, if only there was a way to get a skunk in a cage out there. I’m afraid that’s like belling the cat, though - great idea for the mice, but who will do it?
Elizabeth
June 9th, 2006 at 10:59 pmI love it!
And you should probably do it, too. My parents had 55 acres of land out in the boonies when I was a kid. We’d go out there on weekends and work like crazy doing stuff, building stuff. Sometimes we’d come back to find stuff stolen or destroyed. Ugh.
DO IT! Put those signs up. It’s amazing how fast people aren’t willing to do bad stuff once you call ‘em on it.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:08 pmI love the signs. I once had a problem with someone in my office stealing parts of my lunch. They wouldn’t take it all, just one or two things. A peach here, a yogurt there, and once my entire damn sandwich.
Finally, I announced quite loudly that I had injected one of my lunch items with a healthy dose of ex-lax, and that only I knew which item was inedible. Never had a problem again.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:17 pmThe first sign is a keeper, definitely! :-)C
June 10th, 2006 at 12:05 amOh! I would totally do the second one! and I liked that suggestion of painting them red on the backs! Yeah! By the way I noticed that there is a “cheerio mom” comment on here. That’s not me, okay? I am “cheerio BUTT”. Yeah, just thought I’d clarify.
June 10th, 2006 at 8:31 amHey, might as well have fun with this. I think a stake out with paint ball guns would be fun. How about Roman candles? Secretly marking the stones also sounds good. What a loser this person is!
June 10th, 2006 at 2:56 pmunfortunately very common in New England. People move in and build their huge new houses and think they can just take other’s stone walls to landscape their homes. Many of these stone walls have there for centuries. Hands off people. It’s stealing. Love the signs. I would definitely put them up.
June 10th, 2006 at 6:26 pmWe recently had a theft problem at our restaurant and I left the thief a note. It read “Please stop stealing from us. It is bad, bad, bad. And you are probably going to hell for it.”
The “CSI” guys who set up the cameria loved it. I placed it where he had to pause right in front of the hidden camera to read it. We caught him less than 2 hours after his fourth break-in to our business.
June 11th, 2006 at 12:10 amThe NERVE of some people!!!! I hope whoever is doing this is caught!
June 11th, 2006 at 10:09 am2 words…video camera!!
I would so set up a video camera all night long till i caught them!! the nerve!!!
k
June 11th, 2006 at 11:22 pm2 words…video camera!!
I would so set up a video camera all night long till i caught them!! the nerve!!!
k
June 11th, 2006 at 11:22 pm