On 12/15/2011 02:59 PM, Gabriel Gunderson wrote: > On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Daniel Fussell<[email protected]> wrote: >> I have a similar, on-going problem, but mine involves stolen pumpkins, >> stabbed jack-o-lanterns, and doorbells rung in the middle of the night >> throughout the year. > Rather than a high-tech solution, you might just need a shotgun. > > Good luck with that. > Yeah, but I'm too lazy to hide outside all the time waiting for something to happen. I thought about rigging up a trip switch under the pumpkin to an air horn hidden somewhere near ear level. But a blast like that in the middle of the night, while effective, might not impress the neighbors.
I also thought about replacing the breakable plastic doorbell button with a more solid all-metal one. Then I thought it would be cool to run DC power to it controlled by a photo cell for night-time activation. I figure if the doorbell bites back, maybe I wouldn't have so much trouble. I'd need some kind of ground though, and something to handle the case of gloves. I read something like this from the olden days where some guy didn't like immigrant workers peeing on his tin work shed. So he buried a wire mesh and ran power to the tin shed and the grate. He didn't have any trouble after a couple shoe-less, peeing immigrants completed the circuit for him. But a good friend suggested the retribution might be hard to deal with. So the best option is still probably to record the problem, identify the person and their parent, then suggest to the parent that something ought to be done about it before the footage ends up at the police station. Not nearly as fun to do, but less likely to cause problems for the neighbors and myself. And if the parent and police aren't able to prevent the problem, I might feel more justified in some modernized booby-twaps ala Goonies. ;-Daniel Fussell /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
