Thief in the Dog Park
 

Good Day, I witness today at the Mulberry dog park a tall person in his 70’s with a black and white bulldog type walk into the pen area and take maybe 30-40 green plastic bags the park patrons uses to pick-up after their pets off the rolls there. Now how cheap can you be to need to steal (in my eyes) from the residents of the Villages?

No wonder our assessments are high if thief can take excessive amounts of supplies anytime they please. Now I understand the person taking a couple of green bags for his walk home with the animal but 30-40 bags! You buy them in the stores in rolls of 100s for a few bucks so I am in wonderment for the need to do steal them. Just thought folks should know….. https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...milies/cus.gif

Now what do we do?

Cue the crowd who explain away all this type behavior with a diagnosis of dementia.

Not just poopy bags
 

It is no surprise, as they had to start locking the doors to the kitchen at Sea Breeze because people were going in and taking pouches of coffee and handfuls of sugar packets.

It is a mental condition that some have the need to steel.

Kleptomania Symptoms - Diseases and Conditions - Mayo Clinic

It's no different than the customers in the restaurants who steal all the creamers and salt-pepper shakers and take them home in their purse or pockets.

Or it's no different than sending a half-eaten expensive steak back because of some phony thing wrong with it......so they get offered a new steak made for them that they will then take home in a box because they're "too full" now to eat it.

Cheapness taken to extreme is sick. And love of the money they save by not buying the stuff.......the root of all evil.

talk with some of the local business owners to get an ear full.
Never leave an extra roll of toilet paper in the rest rooms unless in a locked container....yes they take them.

Decorations in rest rooms to make them a little more home like? Only if they are bolted down in some manner....yes they will be taken.

Retailers experience anywhere from 7-10% loss just on product being taken out the door.

These kinds of things happen almost anywhere....but here it seems epidemic...almost like an attitude of being owed something for being our age.

And it ain't the dementia!!

Nope, not dementia, just basic cheapness. And add ordering water with lemon, adding sweetener and then not paying for a drink.

Hmm...not sure I'd put that in the same category as stealing the poop bags. Nothing illegal sweetening a glass of water. Cheap? Maybe. Thief? No.

Hahaha....saw someone taking all of the plastic umbrella bags off the rack at the library once! I was flabbergasted (sp), and just stood there watching, while they went out to the waiting car with them. Honestly, still not sure how I feel about it. It IS stealing... and yet the man was very old, so on some level I feel bad that he needs these bags for "whatever" and can't buy them? maybe??? I don't know..... :(

This does not surprise me.
My wife was shopping at Aldis, and someone took her green shopping bags out of her cart.:cus:
Did not realize it till check out.

No!! Oh, my...that is just wrong! Thankfully she didn't set her (hand)bag down in the cart like a lot of women do. Jeez....

I don't want to get the ire of everyone on this site, BUT I do this, simply because I don't drink sugary drinks, caffeine and I don't drink carbonation and people would really get upset with me if I brought a packet of Crystal Light into a restaurant and put it in my water. So in a restaurant IF they bring me water with lemon SOMETIMES I add a packet of sweetener to it, but if they would serve Crystal Light or sugar free lemonade I would buy that. The don't. They serve unsweetened iced tea ( with caffeine) or diet soda that I don't drink. Mostly I just drink water, but sometimes like everyone else I want something else. I'm even willing to bring my own packet of sweetener if it makes everyone else happy. I'm not cheap- I'm beverage impaired!
However, I do agree that it is awful to steal so many bags from the dog parks. NO excuse for that.

Beverage impaired...good one. :) Hey, to each their own, you aren't stealing anything! They give you water, and the sweetener is on the table to be used with your meal...however you choose. You're not taking it home... so enjoy!!

To put into perspective the stealing of your wife's green shopping bags from her cart at Aldi supermarket:

A nice big blue double-walled plastic shopping bag with handles costs 10 Cents there, at the cash registers. TEN CENTS!!!!!

He's not a thief, he's cheap. "How cheap is he?", you ask. He is too cheap to buy Debbie Meyer Green Bags and is taking the green baggies home to keep food that he brings home from the restaurant in doggie bags! Roflmao!

Now, the umbrella bags have me stumped.

I don't think this older man has dementia, or is poor, or is some other sort of needy. I think he is a garden variety thief, and probably has always been a thief. Young thieves grow into old thieves. And some of them move to The Villages.

If this happened at the dog park, then he's not a cat burglar.

AGREE, AGREE, AGREE!

IMHO he does not even think of it as stealing, he sees them, they don't cost him anything and he just takes what he wants.

How many of you (me included:D) have never brought home from work a 3M post it note pad?, a couple of pencils? or some other "small" item you really could not live without, some extra dinner napkins from the restaurant, etc. etc. and have we ever thought how much this must be costing the company from whom we are stealing? There seems to be a little larceny in most of us.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Did you say anything to the gentleman? I'm afraid I would have asked him why he was taking the bags. He may ignore me, but it would have made me feel better that I spoke up.

Just think of the consequences if he didn't take the bags in this case one wrongmay have made 40 rights

Yes, but its not about me feeling better its about the unreasonable lose to residents of the Villages.

Saying nothing accomplished nothing. Maybe next time he would think twice before removing the bags if something had been said.

When I worked at Publix, we would have folks return a half eaten rotisserie chicken because it was 1) too well done 2)not done enough 3) wrong flavor, etc, and request a full refund. Happens all the time. As for is it stealing? Yep. "Thou shalt not steal" is pretty straightforward and hard to misinterpret. Just because someone may need something does not give that person the right to take it, without pay, from someone else, be it a person or a business establishment. That's my opinion, anyhow.

I sympathize, but...
 

if the rolls of a hundred bags costs just a few $ how does that equate to increase assessments. No he's not a good person...yes he's stealing from the rest of us and should be stopped and made to pay, but you cross the line when you compare it to increased assessments and then state they are so inexpensive. You are intentionally increasing the value to get folks incensed.

Oh no --- i would not approach the man -- he may attack me or even shoot me --- call community watch --- not my job man

Call Community Watch about a poop bag?

Only you doug - Only you!!!!

:pepper2: :beer3:

Just Cheap...
 

Or taking the SMALL cup at Panera (for water) and filling and refilling it with soda instead of paying for a drink...happens all the time.:shrug:

I witnessed an old villager putting range balls into his golf bag! (At GlenviewGC).
Now i am suspicious of any golfer using yellow balls.

Can I just say say....WHO CARES! If he picks up up the crap off your lawn, with the"stolen" bags, it's a winner!

70's is too early for dementia unless he has "wet brain" from too much alcohol.....

I care. You can bet poop bags aren't the only thing he steals. Thieves cost all of us in many ways. Everything costs more because of them.

I think they call it "The Villages Lemon-Aide"

Should have take a pic and posted it here.

I believe, things like poop bags, sugar packets in restaurants, and the like, are there for our "momentary" use, not longterm. It's easy enough to use the plastic bags from the newspaper (my neighbors even save them for us). Anything else, like toilet paper and knic knacs from the rec. ctrs. is pure and simple stealing. People, at any age, are not entitled to steal.