In 1982, I lived in an
apartment.
This was before mass public access to the Internet, so the primary
way to keep up with the world while at home was via television and
newspaper.
At this point, the Washington Star had folded, and the
Washington Times wasn't quite yet established. The Washington
Post was pretty much the only game in town for newspapers.
I lived on the top floor and the end of a row of apartments and
a far corner of the complex. This meant that I was the last
paper in the paper boy's route. I know this because he seemed
to often come up short, and would simply quit when he ran out.
This resulted in my registering of frequent complaints of missed
papers. Eventually, a new paper boy took over the route and
things got better. I suspect that he was told that if he had
to skip any deliveries, it had better not be mine. Either
that, or he knew how to count.
After a while, I started missing papers again. So I
resumed calling again, and this time they adamantly assured me that
they had delivered the papers. They suggested that somebody
must have been helping themselves to the paper. This seemed
unlikely as one would have had to walk up four flights of stairs,
and past a number of other newspapers to get to mine. Or to
be one of the three neighbors on my floor.
One day I decided to find out. Instead of going directly
into the shower when I woke up, I camped by the door. When I
heard the thud of the newspaper on the floor, I moved into
action. I opened the door, took the newspaper inside and
immediately removed the front page.
I then inserted the front page around the front section a copy
of the previous day's newspaper that I had specially
prepared. I had not read that copy so it was in pristine
condition. I had removed the front page from that copy and
one of the internal sections. In its place I had inserted a
liberal amount of flour.
Flour is a wonderful substance. It is relatively cheap and
easy to obtain. It doesn't stain, and washes out easily.
It is also virtually impossible to simply brush out of
clothing.
I reassembled the newspaper and placed it outside the door and
went off to take my shower. After I finished and got dressed,
I checked outside the door. Sure enough, the newspaper was
gone. In its place was a trail of white powder down the
steps, past other newspapers to the bottom landing, around a corner
and out into the parking lot. At that point, the trail
mysteriously disappeared.
My newspaper delivery was pretty much reliable from then on.
That made me smile. It takes a devious mind to put flour in a newspaper.
I fixed the dog dumping problem by having my morning coffee on the front porch swing, and sometimes loudly saying hi to the dog owners as they went by. Our front porch is hidden somewhat from the street so then they had to guess if I was there or not.
An old neighbor of mine had a problem with the dogs belonging to his other neighbor peeing on his old clunky metal garage door. To solve the problem, he wired a car battery directly to the door.... the dogs never pee'd on it again.
Regarding Sam's newspaper delivery story, back when I was in high school and ran a paper route, I had a customer who complained nearly everyday that the paper hadn't been delivered. Knowing that it had, I decided to figure out exactly what was going on so I pulled a trick very similar to Sam's flour, only a bit messier. Instead of flour, I used a ziplock filled slightly with blue paint and gingerly placed it inside the Sunday paper as I laid it on the step... the baggie open just enough that if the paper was disturbed the paint would spill out onto the paper-thief (I actually practiced a bit with it to make sure I got it right). About two hours after I left the paper, the customer called me and thanked me for helping to solve the issue of the missing newspapers. Come to find out, they were rudely awoken by a man cursing loudly at their front door step... it was their neighbor... A PASTOR AT A LOCAL CHURCH... who had been stealing their paper nearly every morning who just had his Sunday Bests ruined by a splash of blue paint down the front. They gave me a $50 tip and never missed a paper from that day on.... and yes, I did help them clean the excess blue paint off their doorstep afterwards.
Been too busy to read much stuff recently, but these all caught a brief eye: Under the Iron: interviews with luminaries like Jeremy "antipixel" Hedley, Daniel "waferbaby" Bogan, Mark "diveinto" Pilgrim, and others (you know the names) (via every...
I can relate to your newspaper story. As I am a paper girl who receives a few complaints from customers not receiving their newspapers. The funniest and most frustrated complaint came from a guy who lives on my rural route. It seems that several times a week he never got his paper. I knew for a fact, plus I had witnesses that I did indeed place a paper in his box. So one day the customer and I both watched to see who was taking his paper. It was a big golden retriever. The dog would see me put the paper in the box. Soon after I was out of sight the dog would go and take it. Well we fixed him the next day. We set a cocked mouse trap in the box the next day I delivered. Needless to say..we never had anymore missing papers.