When an Ontario woman got tired of having packages stolen from her front porch, she decided it was time to give the gift of instant karma to her (not-so-)friendly neighborhood “porch pirates.”
So, she decided to surprise the next burglar by emptying her cat litter into an Amazon box, resealing it, and placing it outside her front door. Predictably, the box was promptly stolen 40 minutes later.
“We were chatting. I have a puppy, they have a German Shepherd, and we jokingly said, ‘We should just fill it up with dog doo,’” Laurie told the news outlet a few days before Christmas. “Of course, my little puppy couldn’t fill a box if we waited a week.”
However, she does have a cat, and it occurred to her that it could serve the same purpose.
“While I was cleaning the cat litter, I thought, ‘It wouldn’t take much to fill a box with this stuff,’” she said. “So I thought, ‘You know, it’s Christmas time and maybe I should help Santa with the naughty list, and instead of coal, we can give the porch pirates some cat crap.’”
So, she dumped the used cat litter into an empty Amazon box, resealed it, and positioned it on her porch like any other delivered package with her Ring doorbell cam ready to catch the unsuspecting thief.
Then, she sat back and waited.
It didn’t take long before a man walked right up to her doorstep, took the box, not realizing the package was full of cat poop, tucked it inside his jacket, and walked away.
Laurie said she didn’t report the theft to the police. After all, reporting previous thefts did nothing to stop the problem.
She did, however, post about the prank on social media, and her post generated appreciation from other people who’ve experienced the same troubles.
“It just goes to show you how many people are frustrated by this,” Laurie said.
Niagara police say they have launched “Operation Ama-gone” to help prevent package theft and locate culprits.
Constable Krista-Lee Ernst says they see many “repeat offenders,” though the operation has already helped them tackle the problem.
In the meantime, police recommend taking precautions to protect your deliveries, including having packages delivered to your work, the local post office, or a nearby store. Online shoppers can also ask carriers to conceal packages out of sight, or arrange to have someone at home when deliveries are expected.
For now, Laurie is hopeful that the prank served its purpose and sent a message to the local porch “shoppers.”
“We did a happy dance and celebrated our just desserts,” she said.
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