The Nerve
After seeing what kind of state his tenants left the apartment in, one landlord knew what he'd do as "compensation".
The landlord woke up to another morning, he checked his bank balance, already knowing there would be nothing. The tenants moved in over a year ago and they hadn't made any payments yet, they kept promising but he was sick and tired of them taking advantage of him.
Landlord Thomas Ravaux
Thomas Ravaux was a generous person who always gave people the benefit of the doubt. So when a family of five asked if they could rent one of his apartments, he thought they looked like decent folk. The security checks were passed with ease and Thomas was satisfied.
No alarms rang in Thomas' head and he was sure that he had done the right thing by letting the family rent in the apartment.
Spotless Apartment
Thomas took it on himself to make sure the apartment was ready for the family. He lightly renovated it by giving the outside a new coat of white paint, making sure all the fittings, door handles, and pipes were in good shape.
He even polished the wooden floors with a polishing machine he had rented for the day. He felt that the house was perfect now.
Great Family
With the apartment fixed up, the seemingly great family started bringing their possessions in boxes. Thomas gave the father of the family the key and continued his business. But after two months he hadn't received any rent from them. Then it was four months, Thomas tried to stay calm.
He always gave people the benefit of the doubt. He assumed it was a banking error and that it would be resolved soon enough. They weren't doing it on purpose, were they?
Banking Error
Thomas decided to call his bank and ask them about the issue. He thought that maybe the bank was holding his money for some reason. With his own family to support, Thomas needed that money now.
But when the woman from the bank answered the phone and gave him an answer Thomas felt flush with anger.
Grown Suspicious
The woman on the phone informed that no rental payments had been made to his account - ever! He dialed the tenants repeatedly and they never once answered. He thought that maybe the families father was busy. But when he saw his call drop a fifth time his suspicions started growing, he was avoiding him.
Thomas thought he'd been more than inviting and generous. Were they taking advantage of him?
Visiting The Family
Thomas thought that enough was enough, he opened his front door and walked down to the tenants' apartment. After rapping on the door he was met with no answer. This only confirmed his suspicions. He took out the spare key he had as the landlord and was going to confront these tenants once and for all.
He slowly opened the door, but what he saw made him sick to his stomach. Why would they have done this?
Mess
The once beautiful apartment he had fixed up with his own hands had been trashed. There were heaps of garbage reaching the ceiling and furniture lay broken and splintered on the floor. Toys were scattered on the once polished floor.
Unwashed dishes were piled on every available surface and that's when the smell hit him. The smell of rotting food was unbearable and made his eyes water.
Damages
Thomas would have collapsed from shock if there was a clean surface to fall on. Instead, he steadied himself and asked himself how anyone could live like this? He saw holes in the drywall like someone had punched them in a fit of rage. He even saw scratch marks on the floor and dogfood scattered around, they had had pets in here.
He couldn't breathe in the air here, but he still tried to calm himself down. He needed to think of a way to handle this situation.
Exploited
It seems the tenant didn't care at all about the apartment. Thomas had inherited the apartment when his grandfather and now it was treated with such disrespect. He had always been hesitant to rent it out but he also wanted to help people looking for a home.
He felt exploited, he needed money and with the seemingly-nice family coming in he thought his problems were gone. He was madder than he had ever been before. Then he smirked, he knew what he would do.
Seeing Red
Thomas pulled out his phone and called his lawyer, who gave him the go-ahead. Then, Thomas knocked on his neighbor’s door. He asked the neighbor if his tenants had been at the apartment recently, but he said it had been empty for weeks.
Furious, Thomas made another call. These rude tenants were going to pay.
Plans For Revenge
Luckily, his tenants were listed. He quickly searched a directory and found their new address. He was incredulous as he walked from room to room, inspecting the damages. They had left a mountain of trash for him to clean up and had moved on without a word. His hands fisted into balls and sweat dripped from his forehead.
Something inside mild-mannered Thomas had finally snapped.
Payback
The truck pulled up to the drive noisily, and men started to stream into the building. They too were aghast at what was inside and immediately got to work loading the entire foul mess onto the dump truck.
When they heard Thomas’ plan, they applauded him. Everyone wanted to see these people get their comeuppance. They were going to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Loading It All Up
Broken furniture, garbage, paper, dog feces, rotten food, and dirty dishes, it was all piled onto the truck in a stinking heap. Thomas had never seen so much filth.
Finally, the apartment was cleared of trash, and Thomas followed the truck to its destination–outside the tenants’ newly rented apartment, just a few blocks away.
Special Delivery
The truck backed up with a beep-beep and tipped the heap of trash right onto the rude tenants’ driveway.
Onlookers gathered and couldn’t help but gawk at such a ghastly delivery, but Thomas smiled when he thought of the rude people’s reaction when they saw what surprise he had left for them.
Drastic Measures
Thomas uploaded the video of his revenge onto Facebook and Youtube, and it quickly gained traction around the world. Local news stations picked up the story, and the original video has garnered over a million views. Most commenters praised Thomas for teaching his nightmare tenants a lesson in common decency.
One commenter wrote: “Love it!! This needs to be done in the United States! I’ve seen some disgusting tenants in my neighborhood!” But not all who saw Thomas’ revenge video have praised him.
Mixed Reactions
Some viewers have voiced their concerns: “Not a bad idea but if these tenants can’t pay rent moved to new place which is not their place you just made a big mess for a new landlord who now can sue you for jumping on his property. Think man. I know you’re upset but you put a new landlord in the middle and he did nothing to you.”
But Thomas stands firmly by his decision.
The Law On His Side
“It was carnage inside. Everything was totally destroyed. The carpet is messed up, there are holes in the walls, all the paintwork needs re-doing, and we will need to disinfect it all. The smell is unbearable.
I had a legal representative witness the damage before we emptied the place,” Thomas says in his defense. And he has a message for his tenants.
“Shame On You!”
“This is how this flat was returned to me. Living like that with three kids, bravo. Not to mention the food that has gone bad in the fridge. Food offered to you by restaurant owners from their heart!
Shame on you. Good luck to your new landlord.” Thomas also had to pay for all the damages to his once immaculate property.
Learning The Hard Way
He added: “…I loaded everything into a dumpster and brought them back home…I met the authorities and we talked… For now, I’m not worried… The old tenants had to clear the sidewalk and bring everything to the dump Tuesday night. Everything is cleaned.”
Do you think the unbelievably inconsiderate tenants learned their lesson? Sometimes people have to get rather creative to ensure that ne’er-do-wells get their comeuppance… and it helps when you’re an engineer!
Thieves Prowling Porches
There is something to be said for having to sign for your package. Leaving a box on your porch for an entire day seems too much for people to bear before they get the idea to remove your package for you.
These ‘porch pirates’ as you will see are not the hardened criminals you would expect. In fact, you may be rather surprised at just who is taking your mail.
Acting Casual
Incredibly, a third of all packages delivered to residential homes in the U.S never make it to their intended recipient.
Not because of a broken postal delivery service, but because of greedy ‘porch pirates’, and although they have a cute name their deeds are far from innocent.
Not The Big Cities
You might expect that large cities have the highest rates of theft but they are actually more likely to happen in suburban, rural or secluded areas as you can see from the photos–and security company Blink confirms these statistics.
Strangely, North Dakota is the state with the highest rate of package theft, where residents are 26 times more likely to be victims.
No One Is Safe
Of course, there are worse times for theft than others, the holidays for instance, when thieves suspect that your packages will contain wonderful gifts and not the replacement toaster you got yourself online.
With the high theft rate, you have probably been a victim too. So, have you dreamed about the ways you would take your revenge? These guys did and they were awesome enough to share them with us.
A Gross Package
Alec Armbruster is our first revenge artist and he sweetly recorded the entire process so that we may live vicariously through him.
As you can imagine, Alec’s package had been stolen before, often in fact, before he decided to assemble quite a gross package for the next unsuspecting criminal. So stop daydreaming, sit back and enjoy the pranks.
It Begins With A Video
The first prank begins with a video that has clearly had time and effort put into it, Alec obviously really got into his revenge tape. The video is titled “I’m sick of my packages being stolen, so I got creative…” and has now been viewed by over 1 million people.
It seems that everyone wants a piece of the action, maybe because so many of us have been burned before.
A Smelly Present
The video begins by Alec cleaning out his cat’s litter box. He makes sure to get it all, every kitty parcel.
He seems to have collected kitty contents for a few days because when he fills a brown package lined with a black bag there is a lot of it. All the way to the very brim.
Wrapping It All Up
Most impressively, Alec even spends some time by making the box look like a very official delivery, going to the trouble of neatly taping it all up.
And then he really goes the extra mile, adding official-looking accessories, such as an authentic-looking printed packing list, taped to the top of the diabolical parcel.
The Victim Arrives
He makes an elaborate video of placing the box on his porch steps, cleverly adding his accomplice cat to the film, watching him through the glass door as he lays his trap.
Then the wait begins. It takes a couple of days for the bait to be taken, but taken it is.
The Gift Of A Lifetime
His security camera catches the unsuspecting man walking up to his porch looking for all to see–audaciously strolling up–as though he belongs there. He rings the bell to check if anyone is home before grabbing the package and making a quick getaway.
Alec is filled with glee knowing that any minute now, this package thief is about to get his just desserts.
A Smart Plan
Like many package thieves, this team knew which homes were going to have packages delivered to them, not exactly state of the art tracking… They actually just followed the UPS truck around all day, leaving a 10 minute wait time between the truck and themselves.
Armbruster even states that “They were tailing the UPS truck, which can be seen in security camera footage about 10 minutes prior.”
Getting Even
Just imagine the look of disgust as the perpetrator opens the sandy surprise and after a few days on the porch, I’m sure it was smelling rather ripe. But the next group of people who decided to go sidewalk shopping with a five-finger discount crossed the wrong man.
An engineer named Mark Robert created the ultimate revenge box, and inside was something far fouler than cat litter.
A Smart Guy
Mark is a former NASA engineer who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a nice guy. He doesn’t want to see anyone hurt, but he does want to mess up your car interior… If you happen to be a Porch Pirate that is.
Mark’s prank goes so deep that the technical mastery of screwing up someone’s day is absolutely mind-bending.
His Elaborate Plan
He begins with this apparently common problem of people not being able to keep their hands to themselves and then he explains his elaborate and mesmerizing plan.
So what would you consider the worst way to ruin someone’s day? Without violence of course? Did you say glitter?! Well, that is exactly what Mark thought too. Glitter and a certain odor.
6 Months Of Work
It took Mark six months along with help from a friend to create what must be the most satisfying revenge video for all of you who have suffered at the hands of the Porch Pirates.
Not only are the tools used absolutely perfect at distributing glitter into absolutely every nook, cranny and crevice but we get to watch it all go down.
Going Viral
Mark’s video was trending at number #3, that’s how good revenge tastes.
His 10-minute video starts with a lengthy introduction explaining how he built his booby trap, designed to douse thieves in glitter and fart spray and is named “Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap”.
A Beautiful Tornado
Unleashing a tornado of gorgeous glitter followed by 5 sprays of fart from a can every 30 seconds it is bound to get reactions.
Personally, I slowed it right down to look at the amazing glitter cloud spin and change color over and over again but that’s just me, I think most people would agree that the genius is in the video feedback. From every angle!
Every Angle
Boasting 4 individual iPhones, each triggered by two latches. When the lid of the box is opened it sets a whole lot of things into action. Mark explains: “This custom printed circuit board is the brains of the operation.
It has a built-in accelerometer and when it’s jostled that will check the GPS signal to see if it’s been moved from the porch. And if so it sends a signal to all the phones to wake up and start recording and I’m using four phones that have a wide-angle.”
Nothing But The Best
“Ultimately when they open their package I just want to celebrate their choice of profession with a cloud of glitter, because who doesn’t love glitter?”
He continued “…and because the phones have GPS we created a virtual geo-fence around my house so I get a notification when the package has been moved off the property.”
The Footage
And it was not long before that happened. The best part? Seeing the footage… “So it appears he was walking down the pavement and then suddenly makes a hard left.
Then he takes the package and gets in his car and eventually makes it to this garage where this glorious sequence unfolds,” Mark narrates in glee.
Just Desserts
The first worthy victim is a young thief and he was really not impressed but you can hear in his voice that he knew he deserved it. He whines to a friend, “My car dude. It’s all over my car. [It’s on] Everything!”
And the second group, they don’t manage to open it properly so it wasn’t so visual, but everyone in the car is yelling to ‘Throw it out!’ and ‘What’s that smell?”
The Best Prank
Of all the thieves caught out by this fantastic gadget, I think the man shown last is my favorite. He managed to hold in the excitement of opening the package until he got home.
As the lid is lifted off you hear and see the glitter being flung across the room and he just stands there, absolutely still and silently. The device plays a recording, “Keep the change you filthy animal.” A fitting end to a whirlwind ride.