[1990C4S]

A few months ago I placed about twenty-five very large curbstones behind my house. There are 8"x8"x24", not light, and not cheap. There was about $400 of material there.

My house backs onto a through street, and I was planning to build a curb between the garden I maintain and the city property. This is technically city property, but most of my neighbors maintain a garden that can be seen from the street. I laid all the bricks end to end and buried/levelled two of them into the soil. The plan was to get my transit out the next weekend and set up a string to work to.

During the week all the curbstones on the surface were stolen. They left the two stones I had buried but took everything else. I was a) shocked that someone would do this on a fairly busy street and b) super-pissed off that I had carted all these blocks and laid them out, only to have them disappear.

A week later, the two buried stones disappeared. I guess the thief needed a couple more to finish his/her project. Now I'm freakin' livid.

I bought two more blocks and buried an Airtag in one of them. Weeks go by, it gets cold out, and I say to my wife 'we missed our chance', no one is coming back to steal these. The next night (Saturday) they disappeared! I looked at my phone before bed and the block showed up as being a few streets away, I just ignored it because I've a had a few false updates that show the item is close, but not where it used to be. But Sunday AM I went to check, and they were gone.

I went straight to the new location, knocked on the door and told the kid (14-ish) who answered that it looked like something I owned was either in their backyard or their neighbor's back yard. The kid acted clueless, he opened the garage so I could look in, and then he let me in the back yard to look.

As soon as I walked into the yard, I saw a 250-gallon water tank sitting on top of my bricks. I told the kid those bricks are mine, they were stolen from me yesterday ad I want them back. He told me his uncle installed the tank the day before. I told him to expect the police to visit and charge the uncle with theft.

Two hours later the blocks show up at the back of the house.

Eventually the police came to see me and then they visited the thief's house. The kid took the blame for the theft, which is total BS. He's too weak to lift the blocks, he's too young to drive, and the whole irrigation set-up in the back yard wasn't done by a kid.

So, in the end the police warned him. They did ask me if I wanted to lay charges, but for two cement blocks, and a 'young offender' there was no point. The family denied any knowledge of the remaining blocks, and the cop said there were no additional blocks in the yard, which I believe is true, as I had a quick look when the kid let me in to look.

So, overall, not very satisfying. But the blocks are back, and trap has been set again...the AirTag is your friend.