Posted on 10/08/2008 5:28:43 PM PDT by dubie
Ok. I am pissed off and I need some help from you my fellow freepers. There is a bastard thief steeling my McCain yard signs every night.
For the first week, they held up pretty well. I bought 4 signs from johnmccain.com ($7.00 a piece) because my local republican committee only had 'McCain' signs and I wanted the McCain/Palin signs as I am actually voting FOR Sarah. I did take some of their 'McCain' signs anyway because I was not sure how long it would take for the the ones I ordered to arrive in the mail and I at least wanted something.
When I got home I setup the signs ALL over my property( I live on a very busy highway and my signs gets LOTS of exposure). I also live on a corner lot and two sides of my property have road frontage. The one side is a road that is a dead end and this is where I am having a problem. the busiest side my property close to to the highway has been fine. Only a true idiot would stop there to pull my signs. Those signs have been untouched (this does not mean the person stealing my signs has even an ounce of intelligence, they are just a little brighter than I give them credit for).
My theft story starts two days ago. I was going to get my mail when I noticed my one sign missing and just a bent up metal frame left behind still stuck in the ground. Lucky for me, it was only one of my lamer 'McCain' only signs of which I had 5 and not my coveted 'McCain/Palin' signs that no one can get. Since the first sign I initially put up was ok in this spot, I thought that perhaps the wind blew the plastic sign off the top and my lawn mower guy perhaps hit it so I just replaced it. My wife also said she saw some plastic blowing across the street so I just chalked it up as whatever.
Having a bare spot on my lawn with no McCain sign had me disturbed so I then marched into my house and fielded a replacement. I firmly pushed the posts into the ground and made sure it was snug. In the back of my mind I had a small feeling the first one was stolen but I thought to myself I have more sings no big deal perhaps it was not stolen just put up another sign.
Next day, sure enough my theft suspicions were confirmed when I was leaving for work and happened to look to where I placed the sign the day before as I was pulling out of my driveway for work. I proceeded onto the not so busy street while rubber necking to the new bare spot on my lawn with no sign... I saw the same bent up frame with the plastic sign part missing. The frame looked as if someone tried to quickly yank it up out of the ground from the top middle and bent the frame upward but only got the plastic part leaving this arch in the fame and it was still snug in the ground naked and devoid of the most important piece... the McCain plastic cover!
I was running late so I could not replace it. Being on a busy road, someone from McCain campaign must have been by that morning before I left for work as two new signs popped up that were 'McCain/Palin' and were closer to the stop sign. There were two other skeleton metal frames across the street. It seems someone stuck in 3 signs and that fast, mine and two others were taken but one survived. This allowed me to settle my brain because there was still at least one sign there even though it was not mine and it kept my bare spot from being so noticeable. =)
At work, as I reflected on what was happening to my signs, I decided I would try to get the bastard who is doing this since this happened two nights in a row it will happen again tonight in the same fashion. So on my way home from work I stopped at the grocery and bought two big containers of Vaseline (actually cheap store brand petroleum jelly) as I figured I could coat the edges of the sign liberally with jelly so the person stealing would get a sticky mess the next time they attempted to grab the sign in the middle of the night.
I'm actually getting a warm feeling in my heart right now as I write this because of what I did to those signs and of what will perhaps happen tonight to the perp when they go to grab my signs... This is what I did to them...
First, I grabbed the jelly (I have no rubber gloves so I used saran wrap) and went to the street and coated the edges of the sign that was not mine.
Then I went back in the house to assemble one of the signs that just arrived in the box from johnmccain.com that I paid $7.00 for.
Then Once the sign was assembled I took it out and put it in the EXACT same location the first two were stolen from and went back in for my jelly and saran wrap to do the deed. 
I then gobbed and gooped the jelly all over the edges making sure to get every part of the sign.
With the deen done, I snapped my picture and headed back into my house with an overwhelming sense of glee. =) 
Just a small upgrade on your vaseline meme.
Silver solder a few straight razors at an oh-so-slight angle (10-20 degrees) so the hand slippage is rewarded with a message- Thou shalt not steal!
Razor contaminants optional.
You could connect the metal frame of the sign to your doorbell, they’d get an electric jolt and might take the hint.
Or you could use high-strength fishing line to rig the sign to a paint sprayer, the next day tell the cops that your culprit is bright green (or whatever color strikes your fancy).
Seems I recall seeing ads for a motion-detecting lawn sprinkler thingy that squirted water from your hose at intruders (and rabbits, mainly rabbits).
How cruel do you feel like being? You could rig the sign to a gun loaded with blanks and scare the pants off him!
Okay, so I went out to get my mail and noticed my sign was still there, but my hundred dollar infared camera strapped to the tree by it was missing... LOL.
The only improvement, would be to place horse or dog crap in the spot where they will step....in the dark, it won’t be until they get in their car, that they notice the smell! Hehehe!
Step 1, dig a pit.
Step 2, whittle pointed sticks.
Steps 3-5, use your imagination.
Poison Ivy! That is genius! Perfect. I vote for this one!
Actually hurting someone isn’t fun. Outsmarting them is.
Oh, yeah! Perfect. I vote for this second.
Land mines.AWB
If they slice off a finger while stealing my property I not gonna feel sorry for them. This is America and somebody wants to plaster their home with Obama is my Jesus, have at it. THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY, at least for now.
Lighter note ping. [I think the rats could sue for at least one of these ideas. Be careful what you post. But fun to read.]
Go by the local farm supply and get yourself an electric fence charger. Attach the electric fence charger to your signs with low voltage lighting wire available in 50’ and 100’ lengths. (You can actually get 100 usable feet from a 50’ package of low voltage wire - you just split it down the middle as it is really nothing more than “zip cord”.) Fasten the wire to the frames of the signs with a nylon wire tire and plug in the charger. Sit back and enjoy the excitement!
That is funny.
Actually I want to go out one night with a bunch of “N” stickers to put on the Obama signs to turn them to Nobama.
Knowing me, I would get caught...
:)
Go to tractor supply and get an electric fence charger and lite them signs up!
Insulate the legs with electrical tape where you push it into the ground and run a wire to an electric fence transformer.
http://www.powerwizardinc.com/powerwizardinc/plugin.asp
It won’t harm them, but it sure gives them a thrill.
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