What would you have done?

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earlier today I caught a couple roughly pulling the plants from my front wall....judging by the soil on the pavement they did the same to my neighbour.
I took them by surprise, asked what they were doing and the guy said they "would have paid" . "Ok £15 please" I said.
This happens a fair bit down here, visitors see plants they dont grow and just take them. They often leave plants in a bit of a mess and the greedy ones try to get the whole plants.:devil:
Had they asked I would have been more than generous but this was annoying.
Half an hour later and I cut back these plants anyway.....I had planned to do it before they came....and they could have had as many cuttings as they wanted. Advice too.
In many places these are tender (osteospermums and erigerons) so may well die up country.
Now I have £15 burning a hole in my pocket
What would you have done?
 
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I would have charged them more (it's cheaper than going to court under a theft charge!). The money? I'd buy some plants I'd always wanted by thought too expensive.

I've faced the same thing. Two perfectly nice looking women came and asked if they could see our garden. I was giving them a tour when one disappeared into my potting shed. Suspicious, I took a look and she had a half-dozen rooted rose starts in 4" pots in her large handbag! I got the roses back and escorted them out, with instructions to not return, ever.

Gardeners are generous to a fault. Why would anyone want to steal what would be given happily, and with instructions?
 

alp

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Crikey! They paid.. You were lucky that you caught them. Once I saw a mother pushing a buggy along the pavement with her daughter about 7 to 9 bouncing a ball along my front border. Suddenly, she bounced the ball into my driveway and snapped the flower off my iris. I was too shock by such behaviour to act. I was sitting inside my living room.

Needless to repeat, my only nerine bud was beheaded before I could see the bloom .. so mad.

My osteospermum also got stolen.. After that, any lovely plants go to the back.. No more flowers for these nasties to steal.

Once a man passed by and talked to me about how much he loved my orange californian poppies. The following day, the same man knocked at my door. I had a peep and saw his dilated pupils. No way was I going to let him in.. Mama mia, I wanted to run. I never open my door to strangers. I open my window if I need to talk to them to find out what they want.
 
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Every once in a great while illegal aliens pass through on foot to who knows where and they raid my garden of what is ripe at the time. I have no problem feeding hungry people but the ones who aren't hungry I have no mercy. Before I moved here over 20 years ago I lived in the Houston area and had a big garden. I caught a neighbor and his teen age son late at night stealing everything including my garden tools. Luckily the son had a little more sense than his father as he ran off.
 
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You were much kinder than I would have been to them. I don't want to go into what I would have done.
 
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Wow. so sad. Where I am at, set back from a slightly driven little street, no sidewalks. my main gardens are in the back. So no stealing going on.

Wow, what to do, guess the police would have been called. some of us also leave our doors unlocked. its that kind of area.
 
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Wow. so sad. Where I am at, set back from a slightly driven little street, no sidewalks. my main gardens are in the back. So no stealing going on.

Wow, what to do, guess the police would have been called. some of us also leave our doors unlocked. its that kind of area.
Nope, no police. Suffice it to say he moved away quickly and his wife divorced him.
 
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we used to have kids in our neighborhood who messed with cars in the driveway. they stayed away from ours as our drive is long and then we had a nice 130lb well trained GSD. so one never knew when he would need to to out for his evening relief. One night however, at 9:30PM there was a knock on our front door. husband answered it, and no one there. My beloved GSD, had been trained (by me) with the word "find it". And husband gave the command "find it". off my Thompson went, to air sniff. husband following close behind. and then my boy squared himself off cornering two boys in the back of our garage. Husband verbally gave them what for. Downing my boy of course. We told their parents the next day. Little did they know, my boy would have never bitten them. He just positurates himself, (squared off his large body ) to show authority. I miss my boy. there will be none again like him. BTW, he got an obedience title. So good he was.
 

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Hi,

As a child 65 years ago every family around us was living in dire poverty; my parents never locked our door and during daylight the door was usually left open as my chums and I whizzed in and out; burglars would need to bring us something worth taking because we had so little; people smiled though and neighbours helped each other;

Fast forward 65 years and now greed and selfishness rules; the more money people have the more they want and the more they get the more miserable they become. Got a grievance the answer is now to buy an arsenal of weapons and create mass murder; no longer a ticking off from a local bobby its now an instant fine. It used to be give and take now its mostly take. How many modern kids have hobbies?

A couple of years ago Bron caught two low life breaking into our garden shed; these two hurled verbal abuse at Bron as they fled up the garden; swearing is normal these days for these low life who must have a parent who needs watering rather than feeding.

A few days later four youths were running riot in the garden adjacent to ours which was for sale; they were having a whale of a time; Bron came down to the workshop to inform me and I shot up into the garden; I leaned through the tall conifer hedge over a picket fence and caught one of the youths by his ankle as he straddled the 6' tall wrought iron gate; I told him to come over and was greeted with loud swearing in effect telling me to let him go; by now one of his chums was trying to kick me in the face through the gate; I said either come over or end up with a broken leg; unfortunately the picket fence was stabbing me in the chest with the conifers poking me and the repeated kicking attempts forced me to let go; as the four ran away they hurled more foul language at me; I simply replied I had seen all four so they could now sit back and await the police to visit them.

At the time I was 68 and I might be considered mad taking on four youths but Bron and I have put our life and soul into making this bungalow and grounds our home and no way am I prepared to let anyone trash it.

I then opened a chatline with the police explaining what had occurred and I was given a file number also a police officer would visit us. Half an hour later whilst discussing this with Bron in our front room the four youths suddenly appeared on the decking to the bungalow front; I'm always very quite and polite but as I pulled our front door open I thought the first two are going straight over the decking fence into our front garden; what a total and unexpected surprise though; immediately the first youth said they had come to apologize for their bad behaviour; Bron and I invited the four in to our front room and when they were seated I explained the effect their behaviour had on us and on our neighbour next door I went on to say that the biggest youth I had by the ankle was extremely lucky he didn't suffer a broken leg; all four were most apologetic and we were given promises they would never ever do such a thing again shaking hands on it; I then took all four round to our neighbour a retired lady living alone and in turn they also apologized to her; back home I contacted the police again and explained what had occurred and cancelled the police call out; the policeman asked if I would consider joining the Specials?

The four youths were simply bored out of their heads not meaning any serious harm or trouble their actions impacted badly on us and our neighbour. Bron and I learned a lot from this episode in that no real harm had been done but more importantly the four youths having apologized suddenly grew up and without a police record to their name; something good came of it.

I was brought up in the pit working underground in a deep coal mine at 15 years of age so I'm used to hard knocks and nothing frightens me; I'll do my best to avoid trouble or confrontation but I won't run away when confronted. The world is now mostly a nasty place to live in and its the people causing the trouble.

I've rambled on enough and time I wandered up the garden to dig up more roots. :)

Kind regards, Colin.
 
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The four youths were simply bored out of their heads not meaning any serious harm or trouble their actions impacted badly on us and our neighbour. Bron and I learned a lot from this episode in that no real harm had been done but more importantly the four youths having apologized suddenly grew up and without a police record to their name; something good came of it.

Reminds me of two of my neighbor families. One who kept their 3 children very active in appropriate clubs, after school, such as boy scouts. The other who parents let them do their thing. The later were the ones who knocked on our door at night and messed with cars in driveways, long now moved away. The first neighbor still next door, all three of their children upstanding citizens with purpose and value in their lives in chosen careers.
 
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Nice one Colin......:)
I too try the talking way once in a while.....when the red mist has faded! :(
The police would have done nothing and prob exacerbated the situation anyway:)
 
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Colin, you were raised in the school of hard knocks, I was raised in the school of cotton wool! I didn't have to face down anyone until I moved to Texas. In the past 20 years I've made two people so scared they fled in terror--one a 40 year old man who was much bigger than I and considered himself a "tough guy", and the other a teenager with a foul mouth and attitude. This happened before I got a gun, by the way. An irate woman is more dangerous than a firearm!
 

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Hi,

You're not married to Arnie by any chance marlingardener? It takes courage to face up to a bully so good on you; all you really need with a bully is a bigger stick?

Here in the UK we don't suffer the same level of gun crime you suffer in The States and I hope we never will. In general the UK is very safe and although every day there are killings of one kind or another given the population the killings are quite rare. I can also go into our gardens without fear of snakes; we have a pair of badgers visit us after dark each night which we leave well alone but they are welcome; the birds and wildlife are also most welcome; we don't suffer tropical storms although lots of places do get severely flooded and the winters are a lot milder than when I was a kid so all in all the UK is a wonderful place to be in. The UK also boasts some of the best scenery in the world with places like The Yorkshire Dales and The Lake District within two or three hours drive and due to the rainfall everything is so rich and green. The UK isn't perfect but I reckon its as good as it can get. (y)

I'd better be careful in future in what I say in case you pop over to beat me up; I was beaten up enough at school and in the pit. :)

Kind regards, Colin.
 

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