Porch pirate leaves trail of glitter after Massachusetts woman sets cunning trap
The holidays are here, and that means joy, love, caring, friendship, family — and a whole lot of gifts.
But gifts that wind up stashed neatly on porches or in front of doors are ripe for pillaging by nefarious “porch pirates.”
One Massachusetts woman, a 10-time victim of such criminals, decided she wouldn’t have it this season — and so she set a cunning trap, WCVB reported.
“I wanted a little justice,” she said, according to the Patriot-Ledger.
The woman, Melissa Peralta of Scituate, bought a spring-loaded “glitter bomb” trap and had it mailed inside a large padded FedEx package, which she left outside her door, according to a Facebook post.
The trap is designed to shoot glitter all over the place when the package is opened, coating the receiver and the ground in sparkly confetti. It’s surprising, annoying, and in this case, potentially incriminating — because glitter is notoriously difficult to get off clothes.
Inside the package, she left a note: “Please stop stealing my packages (heart emoji).”
It worked.
On Friday morning, Peralta came home to find the package gone and a trail of glitter littering the hallway outside her apartment.
“I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist it,” Peralta said, according to WBZ-TV. “I wanted them to know there are consequences because they’re obviously continuing to do it.”
A video shows her following the trail over carpet and into the bathroom, where sparkly glitter is seen all over the ground.
“I was thinking there is a sparkly person out there somewhere and I need to find them,” Peralta said, according to WBZ-TV.
Her story of “glitterante justice” took off, and Peralta made a twitter account called “GlitterBombGirl.”
On the account, she mused as to whether the person lived in the building (possibly) and why they would have opened the package in the bathroom (to get rid of evidence).
So what can you do to protect your goods, besides stuff them with glitter bombs?
There are a few things, according to the Kansas City Star: Track your packages so you can be there when they arrive; invest in keypads when workers can secure your packages; give specific instructions for where to hide the packages; or get the package shipped somewhere else, like to an office or special locker.
“When we’re on patrol we see packages out on people’s porch and we don’t know if they’ve been there for minutes or hours,” Hingham Police Sgt. Steven Dearth said, according to the Patriot-Ledger. “Potential thieves can see them, too.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Porch pirate leaves trail of glitter after Massachusetts woman sets cunning trap."