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. =) 
Silly me ... I just bring my signs in at night and replace them in the morning.
:)
Molly in California
If you live near central Virginia or know any friends who far, maybe we could work something out with an electric fence charger ..... I have one that puts over 5k volts and feel like you’re being hit with a hammer.
Thanks, A.Hun!
I used it when some dirtball was trying to siphon gas from my truck. Just coat the object of interest with it lightly.
Be warned: YOU MUST WEAR GLOVES WHEN USING THIS!!
It will cause extreme pain if you get this on your hands and then touch a sensitive body part such as your eyes, nose, lips, or genitals.
L
Hrm. That seems too easy =) To bring the signs in each night but worth a try if this other fun I will be having fails. Thanks everyone so far on these GREAT ideas =)
Great minds think alike!
The appropriate response belongs to the aptly-named anniegetyourgun.
Two related stories: My neighbor across the street (Republican) had a problem with stolen signs. After several nights, he set up a lawn chair in his bushes and waited the night. The perp showed up in the wee hours of the morning, and my neighbor popped out and said, “What are you doing?” The offender turned out to be a woman — with her young child in tow! Unfortunately, all my neighbor did was threaten arrest if it happened again.
Story two: My brother-in-law was running for attorney general in 2004. One of his friends had one yard sign stolen, then a second. The third one was doused with gasoline and set on fire, leaving a nice patch of dead grass.
You stay classy, Liberals!
After the first theft of cardboard signs from my lawn in 2000, I learned my lesson.
Industrial staples, my friend. Framing the sign in both directions, plus a few at random spots. Hard to see during the day, even harder to see at night.
Worst thing that happened after that? They were kicked over a couple of times. Problem solved.
Hahahahahahaha!
Anti-seize. For months the thief will be trying to clean the mess up from their car, clothes, and home. It will never end. Banks have dye packs, homeowners have anti-seize.
Tar is good.
You need to put the hottest chile powder you can find in the vaseline. Then when the perp wipes his eyes or takes a leak...Whoa!!!!
Nah, need to get some scorching Dave’s Ultimate Insanity Sauce for that.
Or better yet get some pure capsaicin. Capsaicin BTW it the chemical compound that makes a Habanero chili pepper hot, and in pure form is rated at 15,000,000 Scoville Units. In comparison, Tabasco Sauce is rated at a puny 2,140 Scoville Units.
Get a 5 gallon bucket of grease. You could be cruel and get the industrial strength kind that’s hard to get off or the crisco kind.
Smear the grease about 5 yards in all directions from the sign on the ground, drop dog poop here and there in and on top of the grease and when they take one step too close to the sign, down they go into the grease and a nice smell that’ll stick to their dumbass for the rest of the evening at least.
Of course the sign should be covered in it also.
In many places it is.
It's also against the law in many places to put them in the Right Of Way of a road....But this is hardly ever enforced unless you have a butt-wipe county commissioner and/or engineer who doesn't like the sign.
I am loving the recommendations hoping for a solution for my son’s Honda which is parked outside and has been hit recently by thugs trying to get the wheels off. They did get away with the hub caps but the lug nuts were not so easy so they left.
Or use some heavy duty synthetic axle grease.
Look for a high Molybdenum content, and water resistance.
My friend kept having the radio stolen out of his car, so he rigged up some 250 amp capacitors to it so when you slide the radio out so far......ZAP!
Just 2 bad things happened after that. The first was that he had to clean the urine out of his car, and a week later the same punks came back and smashed all his windows out.
But he never had a problem after that though.
Or you can have an alarm system installed, quite a few have proximity sensors, and some even have a paging feature.
Thanks for the advice! I guess Honda parts are very marketable. This was the first hit on the car and concerned it will happen again so trying to figure out a way not to let them have any more pieces. It is a 1999 with over l50,000 miles but runs great.
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