Yesterday was a REALLY bad Monday. When I first got to work a little before 7:00 I was looking at the fig plantation in front of the school building and I noticed that some landscape border concrete blocks had been stolen. I looked at some poor quality grainy from a distance videos from my security cameras and found that someone was out stealing them at around 3 in the morning. Oh well, I thought, no really big deal but kinda strange. The rest of yesterday was one problem after another all day. So, when I went into work today I was hoping for a trouble free day of stripping floors. No such luck. When I did my little morning tour of the figs and raised beds to water them, I soon noticed that some potted figs I had in one area by the raised beds were gone. Then I noticed some were gone from another area. In all, I had 7 fig trees of various varieties taken. Also one pomegranate plant, two shovels,  a rake, and various rocks that I had dug out when planting trees and used to break the force of the hose stream, so that is how I knew the rocks were taken. I looked at the videos, and it was the same guy, at about the same time, between 2 and 3 am, this time with a shopping cart.  He loaded up the cart, took it away for less than 10 minutes and came back for another load. He took lots of rocks, the 8 plants and various other things that weren't nailed down.

Tonight, I will be going into work at around 1:30 am, meeting a co-worker and doing a "stake out" to see if he comes again and then follow him on his less than five minute walk to where he took the fig plants. I want them back!

Wish me luck!

Get good video. Good luck!

Pissed me off just reading this. I hope you get him and he gets what he deserves.

Happy hunting!

OMG!  Get him!  This is crazy!  Tell us what figs you lost, and between us, we'll try to make it up to you with cuttings, air layers or whatever!  I'm sure we are all in on this one!

Suzi

Very disappointing to hear.

Can you put up a sign saying the area is being videotaped?

Please be careful.

10 minutes with a shopping cart. He can't have gone far. Maybe drive around the neighborhood, maybe 1/2 mile radius. I bet you find something in a yard somewhere..

Someone must make a small GPS device that you might be able to hide in a fig pot and track it.  If a new user starts selling on ebay and the varieties are the ones missing, I'm asking questions.  I have a private backyard but it's not completely fenced in.  I'm amazed at the attitude people have about going on someone's property.  Today i was out front and just came from the back yard when I noticed a new neighbor come out of my driveway and pass by and not say a word.  They had a batminton racket in their hand so I quickly figured they accidently hit something over the fence and retrieved it.  Still, It's not a public park where you can come and go when you want.  I had another neighbor move in a couple of years ago.  I  get up in the morning in the winter and find more dog and human foot prints in virgin snow all over my property then his and in the back yard too and he just moved in.  I need to get a camera too, and he's a lawyer.   Pisses me off.

He could have used the cart as transportation to his truck where he carried his loot far away.  I sincerely hope you find the evil person who did this.

You can have as many cuttings as you want from me!!

Suzi

Couldn't he have taken the shopping cart to a car that was off camera?

Why would he return the next day after committing this crime?

Sorry this happened to you. People like this kind of ruin the world at times for the rest of us.

I'm sure you'd like to catch him and give him a good azz kicking but don't , iot's just not worth it. call the cops and has him locked upeven if he offers to give them back cause if he did it once he'll do it again, people like that never learn. good luck with it all.

Post again tomorrow, to 
    a) let us know you're OK, and
    b) tell us what happened in the overnight.
Be well (and be wise), and good luck.

Mike

What a pain! Be careful--this guy sounds a little unbalanced. Stealing figs and tools makes some kind of sense, but stealing rocks???? I'm guessing the shopping cart is his main means of transporting loot, and I expect he's stealing from other places as well. Maybe you should try cruising the neighborhood neighborhood in the early hours to see if you spot him anywhere else. Good luck!

cover the rocks with itching powder. if you miss him/her, at least they will have itch all over them all day long. what kind of people steal plants? geesh..

Set some bear traps and wrap wire around the pots with a little bit of 440 volts going through it. It would prove to be a shocking experience.

Hey Tom, did you catch this guy?  Standing by...waiting for the full report...

I'm sorry Tom, that's just crappy and your a nice guy.

Instead of calling the police right away how about you offer him a choice: Bring the fig trees back and water them every day for a few months or you turn over the footage to the authorities.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been supportive over this little bit of bad luck I've had.

I haven't had a chance to respond until now, since it is close to school starting and I have a lot left to get the building ready, stripping the Gym/Cafeteria floor is my last project, so I had to spend 8 hours on that today. I did go up to see if the culprit came back this morning. I woke up at 1:00 after getting to sleep at 9:00, about three hours less sleep than I need to be rested. I got up to the area of the school (which is in a downtown salt lake area, all the immediate neighbors are office buildings, and condos, but to the west where the bad guy went, there are a few older appartment buildings that might be where he took the plants.) at around 2:00 am. Since the guy had stolen things both Monday and Tuesday mornings around 2:30-3:00 am, I thought he might come back this morning around that time and pry up some or all of the sunken pot figs that are submerged to ground level in 5 gallon pots. I even thought he might bring a friend and get the sunken 30 gallon garbage can that I have a dwarf banana in. But, after watching from the shadows accross the street from 2 until almost 4, he didn't show up. So, I went and started watering the in ground plants and the lawn before my helper showed up at 8 and I started the stripping of the floor. I managed to keep a good attitude all day and so it wasn't so bad.

The varieties he took were: 2 - of this years rooted cuttings of a local tree that is a lot like if not the same as Hardy Chicago, another one was Atreano (burnt ridge nursery), a Nazarti and a Marylane from in ground trees at the school and a Maslin's Edible Variant rooted from this years UC Davis order. I have other copies of all of these plants already, the ones stolen were either going to be sold to raise money for the school, or given to some student's to grow at their homes. Although I deeply appreciate the sentiment that DesertDance expressed, I don't need any replacement cuttings for these plants. At this point I will just write it off as a run of bad luck, hope he doesn't come back tomorrow early morning (or ever again), and see what happens. I hope to recover the plants by luck someday, but I won't waste sleep over it. I am having my evening shift cleaning guy leave some lights on and a radio on in the room that has the potted figs outside of its window tonight.

Jon, I have already walked and driven the area within that time frame, and haven't seen the plants yet, I will continue to do so, he might be hiding them‌ in his apartment for a few days and then he might put them on a balcony or something. An interesting thing I found out, while walking around the neighborhood yesterday, there is an older two story appartment building that has offices on the first floor, one of which is for a sort of new-age, holistic type magazine, and they had a potted tree they kept outside their fenced area, between the sidewalk and the street that they called "The Giving Tree" I don't know what kind it is. They would always put some food and clean used clothes and books out on a flat rock beside it with the sign saying take a gift or leave a gift or something like that. So, when I walked past there yesteday, I saw flyers up all around the gardens that said "Please bring back the Giving Tree" on them. I am betting since it is about an 8 minute walk from the school I work at, the guy who took the fig plants from us, took this tree from these nice holistic folks. He is really racking up the bad karma, and I feel sorry for him when I really think about it.

I will let you all know if anything is missing tomorrow when I go in. And thanks again for all your supportiveness.

Is there any benefit of taking the tapes of the culprit stealing your stuff to the police? Maybe they know who he is and can bring him in with your evidence?

I'd watch for your stuff on Ebay!  You never know!
Suzi

Adding to BLB's suggestion, you might want to see if the Giving Tree folks recognize the guy from your tapes.

Given the list of stuff this guy took I wonder if he isn't some sort of cut-rate gardener looking for free tools and project materials to "sell" to local clients. I could see trying to sell the trees on ebay, but he's surely not planning to sell the rocks, concrete blocks, and tools. We've had some in our area offering to do work for unbelievably low prices...