An OTBKB reader wrote in to share this unpleasant news:
I returned home from a week’s vacation only to find that one of our potted shrubs outside our apartment building had been stolen. A 3 foot bush in a fairly large terracotta planter. Poof, gone. Nothing left but its own small dirt potprint. This petty theft has me feeling so down and morose. I mean, it takes a lot of effort to steal a 100 lb potted shrub!
A friend tells me that this kind of plant caper happens all the time…Have you heard anything about this? Can you enlighten me and also alert people to keep an eye out for a bargain-priced 3 foot burning bush in a glazed black terracotta pot.
Someone stole our hanging plants from the front of our house even though they were wired to a metal hook. The actually removed the hook screwed into the brick facade. NIce.
I knew someone who had a fairly large plant in a heavy planter stolen from the front of their house. He later found it up the street in front of someone else’s place. He thinks it was just kids fooling around. Although it does seem like a lot of effort to move something so heavy.
I had 2 decorative cement urns stolen from my front yard. After that I stuck to plastic. And unless you’ve got your address spray-painted conspicuously on your trash/recycle cans, those will disappear too. I once caught a vagrant emptying a pre-sprayed can of garbage onto my front walk. Saved the can, but had some clean-up (as I did with the urns since my annuals were not desirable). Patio furniture not bolted or chained to something stationary, and those front gates that are not welded in place…