The great lavender theft mystery

We planted small hedging plants around our front garden in our last house. Next morning they were all gone, approximately 30 of them.

It's the EU!!
They consider Lavender a chemical that needs to be banned !!!

Outside our workshop - on land that we have to pay for maintenance - is a lovely cherry tree. We don’t mind locals helping themselves but every year someone comes overnight and strips the whole tree - it is at least 20’ high. They must get 40 kilos on a good year. We didn’t get a single one this year.

Many years ago I made a bench for my parents back garden out of 2 small tree trunks and a plank of wood. I was quite proud of it!

They had it for a couple of years and one morning my mum strolled out with her morning cuppa to sit down and it had vanished. It was very heavy and would need 2 strong folk to carry it off.

Later that day she looked out the front window and there was the bench sitting under the window of the house directly opposite! I was livid but my parents wouldn’t let me challenge them as they were a family of thugs. They were afraid if the bench was reclaimed they’d do something worse the next time.

I did have a very similar experience.I was upset someone would steal my newly planted lavender and other plants from the newly planted pots.I was awake through the night the next night after a big clear of garden that day and watched a family of foxes take various plants away right out the pots!!

I had my Cumbrian slate door number unscrewed from the wall by the front door. Someone must have decided they needed it and came equipped.
I complained to a neighbour and she said she had just had every pot plant stolen out of her porch.
Some people will stop at nothing to get what they want, we had a lorry-load of Dolomite delivered, for creating a patio, a man in the next street sent his teenage sons round with shovels and a wheelbarrow. I had to threaten them with the police, their excuse was that they thought it belonged to a builder, still didn't make it okay.

Neighbours here had a wooden bench stolen.When they made a fuss on Facebook it was returned.

My front garden, with shrubbery up to my bedroom window so would have a job to steal any of that as it’s so well rooted!!!. My bird bath and bird table and feeders have been there many years and touchwood will stay there, there is a little gate with a bolt to get into so we would hear if anybody was up to anything untoward…

I naively put a pot of plants at the front of the house and it was stolen. A few years later I thought I'd try again. I chose a much larger pot and filled the base with very heavy bricks etc. Beautiful plant planted. One morning I opened the door to find that a pile of bricks and rubble were on my doorstep and the pot and plant gone.

Seems to be a 'thing' now. We recently had a speight locally where people reported planters,hanging baskets small trees stolen from front gardens. I dont have any but neighbour has hanging baskets firmly secured with chains and padlock. It saddens me at times this world in which we live.

Two years ago our neighbour had her drive relaid with lovely flower borders around three sides. They were only there one day, she woke up to find every plant gone the following morning. They had also tried to take the railway sleepers that formed the raised borders but had left two of them by the gate, probably too heavy or they were disturbed.

At our last house a neighbour had fifteen beautiful hanging baskets and several large planters stolen from the front of her house. She entered the local 'In Bloom' competition every year so we wondered if it was a rival competitor.

Another neighbour had her front gate stolen, it had been commissioned so was quite unique and had sentimental value. It was seen fitted to a house two streets away. The home owner insisted he had bought it at a boot sale.

We live on a corner plot, and our garden is mostly on show, except for the back patio which is in a high walled fenced space.
Over the years we have had a number of items stolen, including a wooden bench and a trolley hose.
However last Christmas some low life excelled themselves. We have a large shrub outside the front door, bare branches in winter, so I hang pretty baubles to cheer it up. The thief came at 2.30am, stole all the baubles from the tree, a "Merry Christmas" sign, and a reindeer made from tree branches. The last 2 were homemade, and the baubles weren't expensive, but had been gathered over the years.
The thief was captured on our doorbell camera, ( he came prepared with a bag for the baubles!) but was wearing a hoodie, so impossible to identify.
I was so upset, I ripped down all the other decorations outside, before he came back for the rest! I then spent the rest of the holidays being asked by passers-by where our lovely Christmas decorations had gone.
Don't think I'll bother this year x

I had my number 12 slate stolen from my tree trunk out the front. I was was walking my dog later in the week and spotted my number 12 down the road in the next close. I knocked the door and said I think you have my house number on your tree, the lady said her drunken son had arrived home with it a week ago, she said she was sorry and would send him round to apologise, he never did come round?

I am so sorry to hear this. I havent had this happen to me
( yet) although I have had a small fairy statue/ ornament taken from my front garden. However, this is actually becoming a really big thing where I live. I have seen on the local “Nextdoor” neighbourhood group on line, that lots of people are reporting having trees and bushes stolen in the early hours. Even faux plants and fake lawns just rolled up and taken!!
I think it may be because of lock-down and all the focus on beautiful gardens and nature, people want it instantly. I think its vile I am really considering getting a ring door bell to notify me when some one is in my garden.

Our local undertakers had a huge raised bed planted up at the side of their premises. Caught on camera a few nights later, an elderly man & his wife pulled up, opened the boot & pulled a large Cordyline out of the back of the bed (which was about 4/5 feet off the ground & about 5/6 feet front to back). What a shocking thing to do, I really hope they get their comeuppance when they pass on!

Kate 5 how irritating to say the least, what is the matter with these thieves, surely a few lavendar plants wouldnt cost the earth to buy, but its easier to thieve them I suppose, cheeky things.

Alioop
Our local graveyard is where the flower thieves seem to be heading to. A lot of people have been complaining about the amount of plants that have gone missing, no-one could stoop any lower than that

My friend mentioned recently that plants and fresh flowers were disappearing from her local graveyard. She was out for an early morning walk last week and called by the family grave. There were 4 deer munching their way around the graves. She’d left roses just the day before and a deer ran off into the bushes with them hanging from its mouth when she arrived!

When Milton Keynes was relatively new and new build houses would fresh turf laud out in the front garden many times the new house owner would wake up to see the turf had been rolled up and stolen in the middle of the night leaving bare soil!

Makes you lose faith in folks this kind of thing. Yesterday I bought some beautiful plants I'm going to re-pot into a large tub and also a lovely ready made tub. They were all pretty cheap from our local nursery and I'd love to show them off outside the front of the house but I'm just going to keep them for our eyes only in the back as I'm sure they'll end up stolen/in the middle of the road/on top of the car.

A lot of people locally have these door bells fitted that film when anyone is coming up the drive. It’s linked to your phone

They have been a great help when neighbours have had things stolen

We are going to get one soon

Many moons ago our neighbour put a couple of hanging baskets up in a communal area, to pretty it up a bit. A neighbour grabbed one on the way to her car, bold as brass. Apparently she was off to visit her mother on her birthday, and took it as a present.

Had pots of flowers taken from the front. Never bothered to replace them, as I knew they’d go again. Also a new doormat - which I should have screwed down.

When we moved into our newly built house we had a red door, my daughter took the casing from our boring old ding-dong doorbell and painted it red to match. She put the casing back on and within 15 minutes it had gone!

And one day, I put a stair bannister out the front, it was due to be put up later that day. I was moving things around, and I tripped over it and moved it. Front door was wide open and the rail half in half out the door. Five minutes was all it took to disappear - and then strangely reappeared two weeks later!?!?!

There are some VERY strange people in the world but I think most of them live around here

Recently I read of someone’s allotment being raided and although it’s a despicable act at least if it was done by someone who couldn’t afford to buy food I would have had a smidgen of sympathy. (No need to steal food in my town as there are lots of regular free giveaways). However, this is such a sad indictment of people simply taking from others, without there being any actual need. Nobody has any excuse for stealing plants other than greed.

It’s a very sad fact that there are some thieving scumbags around who think what is yours is theirs. Despicable is a polite way of describing them.

These days I regard my front garden as simply somewhere to keep my bins. Apart from keeping it fairly tidy so as not to upset the neighbours, I am not interested in it and certainly wouldn't spend money planting it up nicely as I would expect someone to steal everything.