It’s never pleasant to lose something. Anxiety slowly (but surely) starts kicking in almost immediately after realizing that the thing is lost, despite it probably being something insignificant. At that moment, it is often too late to understand that as we’re already caught up in the thought and obsessing about it.
It’s even more unpleasant when you know that something you lost was actually stolen. While losing means being deprived of something, stealing adds that feeling of having your privacy breached. A part of you was taken away, which, needless to say, makes it all the more sucky.
As times move on, thieves adapt and evolve to new forms of theft. One of the most recent developments is the rise of the porch pirates. A porch pirate is any person who comes over to another person’s porch and takes whatever parcels or packages they have received over the post. In fact, it has become a bit of an epidemic in the US nowadays, getting a tad out of control.
Colorado woman Christine Hyatt got fed up with her packages being stolen all the time
Image credits: Spencer Wilson
Well, Christine Hyatt, a mother of 4 from Colorado Springs, has taken it upon herself to start fending off the waves of porch pirates who have already claimed over 20 of her packages. To fight this, Hyatt picked up some old boxes from previous Amazon orders and shoved a heap of trash left over from Thanksgiving. She packages it all up to look authentic, as if it had just been delivered. Bored Panda reached out to Hyatt to comment on her porch pirate experience.
Hyatt works several jobs, one of which is for Amazon Flex, so you can imagine that it wasn't a problem for her to find some boxes laying around the house. "I am also known as the crazy Amazon lady because I have averaged 2.5 packages a day for the year!" elaborated Hyatt.
And no, this isn’t the same woman who pranked her husband with 6 months’ worth of Amazon packaging stacked to look like they’ve ordered a heap of stuff.
So, she filled them up with garbage—and it worked as 3 thieves took the bait
Image credits: Christine Hyatt
"So, the way we came up with the idea was actually because we forgot to put the trash out the Wednesday before Thanksgiving," explained Hyatt. "So, we had an over-abundance of trash! I thought well, I have tons of Amazon boxes, let’s box up some trash and see if they take it!?"
The elaborate waste disposal scheme worked like a charm—3 porch pirates already took the bait. Upon opening the decoy box, they were greeted by a sea of plastic bottles, soda cans, fast food packaging, cigarette butts, and even used cat litter.
"Well, they did... so I did it again. They took a little bit for the second set to get stolen," Hyatt told Bored Panda. "That’s when everything went viral, so we had 3 boxes on the porch for days! Finally this last weekend the decoy boxes were stolen."
The woman already lost 20+ packages because of porch pirates, including diabetes medicine for her daughter
Image credits: Christine Hyatt
Hyatt is also trying to one-up her porch pirate trap design by adding good olf-fashioned glitter: "Today we made a glitter bomb present! I have put a 2-week old cup half full of gross milkshake, cat poo, a diaper, and wipes, trash, cigarettes buts, and more."
While most stolen things can be replaced, stealing something like Hyatt’s daughter’s diabetes medication certainly leads to more than just a theft problem. Apart from it being expensive, it is also dangerous to have medication stolen as someone’s life depends on it. "My youngest struggles to pay for her insurance and meds. We have had several packages over the years stolen with her meds! Which means I have to replace," explained Hyatt.
We asked Hyatt if she had any other ways to protect her belongings from porch pirates: "We have a ring camera, but don’t have Wi-Fi to set up. So, we have changed where the deliveries should go to. At some point, we will have a ring set up."
She even kept track of her successful garbage disposals to taunt the thieves
Image credits: Christine Hyatt
On the other hand, one’s solution to a problem could cause another one. Hyatt has already received a complaint pointing out that as soon as the porch pirates open the boxes, they may very likely just throw it out the window or leave it at someone else’s house, not properly disposing of them. This effectively makes Hyatt the original litterbug. Regardless, something has to be done with theft of such caliber.
Lastly, we've asked Hyatt what other recommendations she had for fending off porch pirates. She had this to say: "I totally recommend decoy boxes and to agree with the drivers that deliver to you to put the items in your back yard or completely out of sight."
Hyatt also shared a video of her most recent decoy box equipped with a glitter bomb
Video Credit: Christine Hyatt
Have you ever had pirates raid your porch? Let us know how you’re dealing with the issue in the comments below!
The internet loved the idea and some even explained their own versions of this prank...
