One morning, a homeowner who had planted a line of trees along their property line was greeted by a bewildering sight: Five of their trees had gone missing. They weren't dead. They were simply gone, leaving five gaping holes in the soil.
The homeowner posted a photo of the scene on Reddit's r/landscaping community, saying, "They were pulled right out of the ground sometime last night. What would you do to try and prevent the rest of them (9 more) from being stolen?"
"Drive around and look for 5 newly planted ones," one person suggested, only half-jokingly.
Unfortunately, others knew the frustration of losing property to theft all too well. One person wrote about how things would disappear from their porch until they installed cameras that were easy to spot.
Frustratingly, the theft of plants is particularly common.
"I lived in a town on Long Island that re-did the median with a long planter full of trees and flowers. Within a week they were *ALL* stolen," another commenter lamented. "Few months later the town just dumped stone over the mulch. We couldn't have nice things, we got rocks instead."
"People will steal anything that's not nailed down," one person vented.
"My neighbor had sod put down to fix ~150 sq/ft of yard. It got ripped up and stolen the following evening. A friend had plants he'd had for a couple years pulled up and stolen too," another person shared.
Other commenters suggested installing AirTags and tracking devices in the remaining trees so that the homeowner could sleuth out the thief if they returned.
Indeed, most states in the U.S. have "timber trespass" laws in place, which penalize the illegal destruction or removal of trees with hefty fines and even jail time. One New Jersey resident who cut down over 30 trees on a neighbor's property to improve his view is now looking at something much less savory: charges of $2 million.
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