Before anyone says troll, or that I'm completely nuts, this is serious.

I need to know, how to stop a thief.

I live in an apartment, and with work, I'm away 10-12 hours a day. I
started missing food items from the pantry, and thought maybe I had fixed
them or eaten them. This had me thinking I was working too much, and would
just pick up the items the next time I went to the store.

I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and treats.
Ok, now I know I'm not nuts, because little by little, my items in the
ledger would come up missing.

The only one with access to the apartment, is the manager which lives
on-site.

How do I catch the thief?

In article , Nano
wrote:

The only one with access to the apartment, is the manager which lives
on-site.

How do I catch the thief?

Nanny-cam. Talk to a local security company. Cameras can be hidden in
anything, motion activated, and will be proof to take to the cops.

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:14 GMT, "Nano" wrote:

How do I catch the thief?


Poison your food.

"Nano" wrote in message
. ..
How do I catch the thief?


Instead of worrying about catching him, how about thwarting him? Start with
changing the locks.

GWB writes:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:14 GMT, "Nano" wrote:
How do I catch the thief?
Poison your food.

Good way to get sued or charged with a crime.

One idea: Leave a note in your pantry. "I know what you are doing. If
you do not stop, I will go to the police and the building owner."
Whether this is a good idea depends on whether you believe the manager
might become violent or otherwise make your life difficult.

Come to think of it, the risk is probably too great. The nanny-cam,
followed by swearing out a criminal complaint, as advised by another
poster, is probably a better option.

Jonathan Kamens wrote:
Come to think of it, the risk is probably too great. The nanny-cam,
followed by swearing out a criminal complaint, as advised by another
poster, is probably a better option.


I like the nanny cam idea.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 03:22:35 +0000 (UTC),
(Jonathan Kamens) wrote:

GWB writes:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:14 GMT, "Nano" wrote:
How do I catch the thief?
Poison your food.

Good way to get sued or charged with a crime.

OTOH ... there's probably a way to just get a high dose of laxative
into some sort of snack food ... not that I'm advocating it, but ....

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
Jonathan Kamens wrote:
Come to think of it, the risk is probably too great. The nanny-cam,
followed by swearing out a criminal complaint, as advised by another
poster, is probably a better option.


I like the nanny cam idea.




I do too. There are two seperate issues. One is stopping the theif.
But just as important, I'd want to know for sure who has been doing it
and what else they are doing when they come into your apt.

And whoever it is, with a video tape as evidence, you have not only a
slam dunk criminal case, but also a civil case. Now, if it's a prior
tenant for example, you can win a civil case, but collecting a
judgement may be difficult. If it's the apartment mgr, who you
suspect, then you also have an excellent case of collecting a
judgement, because you can sue the apartment mgr and owner in small
claims.










--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

writes:
If it's the apartment mgr, who you
suspect, then you also have an excellent case of collecting a
judgement, because you can sue the apartment mgr and owner in small
claims.

If someone in the employ of my landlord were entering my
apartment without authorization and stealing stuff, I'd sure
as hell not bother with small claims court. I'd get myself an
honest-to-goodness lawyer and sue for a substantially larger
chunk of change than the small claims limit.

When I was in high school a friend of mine had his lunch stolen from his
locker each day. This went on for a period of several weeks. The friend
could not identify who was stealing his lunch and wanted to stop the
process.



He added some Syrup of Ipecac to the sandwich.and culprits quickly surfaced
at the nurse station later that afternoon.



While you may not be able to easily identify the culprit, you may be able to
seek a little revenge and stop the problem.



"Nano" wrote in message
. ..
Before anyone says troll, or that I'm completely nuts, this is serious.

I need to know, how to stop a thief.

I live in an apartment, and with work, I'm away 10-12 hours a day. I
started missing food items from the pantry, and thought maybe I had fixed
them or eaten them. This had me thinking I was working too much, and would
just pick up the items the next time I went to the store.

I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off
each day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and
treats. Ok, now I know I'm not nuts, because little by little, my items in
the ledger would come up missing.

The only one with access to the apartment, is the manager which lives
on-site.

How do I catch the thief?

Someone wrote:
When I was in high school a friend of mine had his lunch stolen from his
locker each day. This went on for a period of several weeks. The friend
could not identify who was stealing his lunch and wanted to stop the
process.

He added some Syrup of Ipecac to the sandwich.and culprits quickly surfaced
at the nurse station later that afternoon.

While you may not be able to easily identify the culprit, you may be able to
seek a little revenge and stop the problem.

If an unkown person has access to all of your personal belongings and
your food (maybe he thinks rat poison is more fun than ipecac) then I
think finding their identity via a nanny-cam or such is a better idea
than ****ing them off by poisoning them. Much less likely that YOU end
up subject to a lawsuit that way as well.

If revenge is what one wanted though, I think messing with his mind
would be better. Buy a couple likely target treats and take pictures
of them floating in your toilet or something similarly disgusting
(litter box?). Leave said items out to be stolen (or maybe untainted
duplicates) and once one item disappears, place the picture of it
somewhere the thief will likely see it the next time he visits. Of
course, the thief may still seek his own revenge.

Nano wrote:
I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and treats.

I agree a camera is the best bet but when I saw that I immediately
thought of a trick we played on a roommate in college. Did you know
that tuna fish cans and cat food cans are almost exactly the same size
and that labels come off pretty easily?

Use your camcorder or borrow a friends. Buy a long tape. Hide the
camcorder with a view of the pantry. Turn it on when you leave. Watch
it when you get back.
If you catch a former tenant, get the manager to change your locks.
If you catch a someone working for the manager, notify the manager.
If you catch the manager, notify the owner. Tell the owner to please
keep you anonymous from the manager in case they do not fire the
manager.

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:52:42 -0600, GWB wrote:

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:14 GMT, "Nano" wrote:

How do I catch the thief?


Poison your food.


There's the story about the farmer who was tired of people stealing
his melons so one day he put a sign in his melon patch, "Warning! One
of these melons has been poisoned!" Hoping it would deter the thief.

He woke the next day and ran out to check on his melon patch and found
out that someone had crossed out the "One" and changed it to "Two".

"WDS" wrote in message
oups.com...

Nano wrote:
I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off
each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and
treats.

I agree a camera is the best bet but when I saw that I immediately
thought of a trick we played on a roommate in college. Did you know
that tuna fish cans and cat food cans are almost exactly the same size
and that labels come off pretty easily?

How would the victim tell the difference? Cheap tuna vs. cat food - pretty
much determined by how they label it. Next time at the store, compare a can
of the cheap tuna to the cat food- I did once, and the cans were identical
as to size, color and format of the canning code stamped in the lid.

aem sends...

On 22 Mar 2006 10:09:22 -0800, "WDS" wrote:


Nano wrote:
I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and treats.

I agree a camera is the best bet but when I saw that I immediately
thought of a trick we played on a roommate in college. Did you know
that tuna fish cans and cat food cans are almost exactly the same size
and that labels come off pretty easily?

Not a good one (In truth) as the smell alone would be a dead
giveaway...

Yes, I have cats and eat lots of tunafish...

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 03:22:35 +0000 (UTC),
(Jonathan Kamens) wrote:

GWB writes:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:14 GMT, "Nano" wrote:
How do I catch the thief?
Poison your food.

Good way to get sued or charged with a crime.


And how would they prove such? The cops would be looking for someone
who hated the thief, but they'd be looking local, not "Well, the dude
was a sneak thief, so we've got 400 suspects"

But in reality, nah, not nasty enough..Must make *******
suffer...B&E, Theft, Violation of Civil rights...Wow, wanna be a
apartment owner?

Gene wrote:
On 22 Mar 2006 10:09:22 -0800, "WDS" wrote:


Nano wrote:
I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and treats.

I agree a camera is the best bet but when I saw that I immediately
thought of a trick we played on a roommate in college. Did you know
that tuna fish cans and cat food cans are almost exactly the same size
and that labels come off pretty easily?

Not a good one (In truth) as the smell alone would be a dead
giveaway...

Yes, I have cats and eat lots of tunafish...

That's what we thought BUT we actually had to intervene to prevent our
roommate from eating the stuff. He looked at it funny when he opened
the can and even sniffed it but then he prepared to chow down. Bleh!

On 24 Mar 2006 05:40:09 -0800, "WDS" wrote:


Gene wrote:
On 22 Mar 2006 10:09:22 -0800, "WDS" wrote:


Nano wrote:
I started a ledger with certain items listed, and would check them off each
day. Mainly what would come up missing would be canned goods, and treats.

I agree a camera is the best bet but when I saw that I immediately
thought of a trick we played on a roommate in college. Did you know
that tuna fish cans and cat food cans are almost exactly the same size
and that labels come off pretty easily?

Not a good one (In truth) as the smell alone would be a dead
giveaway...

Yes, I have cats and eat lots of tunafish...

That's what we thought BUT we actually had to intervene to prevent our
roommate from eating the stuff. He looked at it funny when he opened
the can and even sniffed it but then he prepared to chow down. Bleh!


Hmmmm...I wonder what his physical reaction would have been...But you
are a nice guy for saving him some major intestinal discomfort

wrote:
Use your camcorder or borrow a friends. Buy a long tape. Hide the
camcorder with a view of the pantry. Turn it on when you leave. Watch
it when you get back.
If you catch a former tenant, get the manager to change your locks.
If you catch a someone working for the manager, notify the manager.
If you catch the manager, notify the owner. Tell the owner to please
keep you anonymous from the manager in case they do not fire the
manager.


Now this is a classic. The manager is a burglar, and you want to keep
it all anonymous in case they don't fire the manager? And if it's
someone working for the owner, but reporting to the manage, you'd just
notify the manager, but not the owner? My how sensitive we are!

If I had the manager or other employee on videotape, being fired would
be the least of his problems. I'd file a criminal complaint with the
police and if he wasn't fired immediately, I'd file a suit against the
property owner, which I might do anyway.