Free Republic

Security camera footage shows the moment a suspected porch pirate walked into a Queens homeowner’s trap by trying to steal a fake parcel deliberately left on the stoop. Carlos Mejia said he was “done” with thieves following FedEx and UPS trucks and raiding his parcels, and decided to take matters into his own hands last week by leaving out “decoy packages” outside his door with the aim of catching one of the bandits in the act. “I was just trying to make an example for those out there doing the same thing … stealing from others,” Mejia told Storyful. Video...

A New York porch pirate targeted homes in broad daylight under the guise of delivering food as she canvassed residential neighborhoods for her next target, police said. Juliana Saggaram, 33, of East Elmhurst, Queens was arrested Wednesday after she used her position as a DoorDash driver to freely approach two homes and swipe packages. Saggaram conducted the scheme twice in 48 hours before she was caught in the act on Sept. 3 in Manhasset, when a 54-year-old victim reported the stolen package. The alleged thief had stopped at a nearby Chipotle for a DoorDash order to use the food order...

“A recent survey found that a staggering 210 million packages vanished from porches across the US over the past 12 months,” reports the New York Post. “Safewise found that a mind-boggling 64.1% of Americans have been victims of package theft in the last year — a 36% increase from the prior year, according to the survey.”

‘Tis the season for porch pirates. When online shopping deliveries increase for the holidays, so do the number of porch pirate thefts. Porch pirates are thieves who steal delivered packages from other people’s porches. You see it happen all over social media, as victims post videos of porch pirates in the act. “I noticed the Ring doorbell that a lot of people have was showing video after video after video of people stealing packages off porches,” said Scott Ryan. Those videos are what lead Ryan to take action. “I built what I call the Amazon Wall,” he said. The wall...

Authorities in the San Diego area are looking for a man who allegedly poured liquid plant food onto an unopened water jug. The jugs, delivered by Sparkletts, were sitting on the couple's front porch when their home surveillance camera captured the trespasser, saving them from potential harm. ... Tina Gagne said the incident occurred just after midnight Tuesday. Gagne and her wife said they did not recognize the man and don't know why he would have targeted their home.

Excellent - Juan Williams is sitting in for Bill O'Reilly on the Factor, and is leading with the Warren Ballentine racist slur. Hitting it straight on.

We have been plagued with groundhogs burrowing under our front porch slab for a couple of years. The burrowing has caused several cracks in the slab. We have tried liquid fence, mothballs, noise, electric trip wires, have a heart trap, plugging up holes with stone and cement (it just digs new ones). Sometimes we are rid of them for a little bit, then a new one comes along. This morning, I went out to pick some lettuce from my small garden and there wasn't any left. It had all been chewed off. We live in suburbia and can't exactly sit...

The sale didn't go through A spurned saleswoman took her revenge on a housewife who refused to answer the door by defecating on her doorstep.

The Daley administration released the most detailed photos yet of the Lincoln Park porch collapse Thursday, showing cracked beams and dangling floor boards--proof, they say, that the porch was structurally unstable and had to be removed immediately. "These photos clearly demonstrate the remaining structure posed an imminent danger to the public," said Corporation Counsel Mara Georges. "There is no way that the city will be found to have destroyed any evidence." Georges said the city had no choice but to hire a demolition crew to remove the remaining porch because debris was falling on neighboring yards and buildings and was...

Mayor Richard Daley said today the owner and manager of a building where a porch collapse killed 13 people are to blame for the incident. "Had he followed the law he would have known that the porch was unsafe," Daley said of the owner of the building, which city officials say did not have a proper construction permit. Daley said it is ultimately the responsibility of the building owner — not the city — to ensure that porches are built to code. Funerals also continued today for victims of the collapse. Among those remembered were Eileen Lupton, 22, who recently...

The city filed a lawsuit today against the owners and managers of the apartment building where 13 people died in a weekend porch collapse, arguing that the porch was too big, built with the wrong materials and lacked the proper construction permit. The city asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties. Also today, hundreds of friends and family members attended funerals for several of the victims, remembering them as kind, caring and helpful. According to the city's lawsuit, the porch jutted out 11 feet from the building -- 1 foot more than is allowed under city codes. It...

<p>The porch that collapsed early Sunday killing 13 and injuring more than 50 in Lincoln Park was built illegally without a city permit, Buildings Commissioner Norma Reyes said Monday.</p> <p>Kelly Pagel, of Minnetonka, Minn., the 13th fatality, died Monday at Illinois Masonic Medical Center.</p> <p>After making no public statements about the tragedy earlier Monday, Reyes appeared at a late afternoon news conference and said the owner of 713 W. Wrightwood Ave., Philip J. Pappas, applied for permits for heating, cooling and plumbing improvements in 1998 but then renovated the entire building without permission.</p>

Did a search and didn't find this posted: --- CHICAGO  — A 25-year-old woman died Monday from injuries she received during a weekend porch collapse (search), becoming the 13th victim in the incident that injured at least 57 others, hospital officials said.