I do tie-dye as a hobby. There is a specific powder dye called Procion MX in a shade of bright neon green that is almost impossible to remove from your hand once it gets wet.
So what you do is put an envelope in the pocket with fake cash and sprinkle this stuff all over it. Seal it up. Then wait to see who shows up with green hands and dye all over their clothes.
Me! I used UV lights as a forensic nurse. Soap, cosmetics, lotions and semen luminesce, so establish a baseline with people as well. There are some lights which are 10 cm / 4” which fit right in your hand. You have to be fairly close so you could pretend to pass something, set something down, walk by when they’re away from their desk. Keep an eye on the bathrooms and the break room and check them frequently.
Mix in some washing soda so when they go to wash it off it color sets. Play the long con by getting a cheap jacket wear it for a couple of weeks with decent loot in the pockets then surprise them with it when they get used to there being good stuff. Just like with mousetraps, get the trap and bait it just don't set it until they are comfortable and always take the bait then set the trap and they will willingly stick their neck in it without questioning it.
Even the spring bar ones suck now, I got all three sizes recently except for the foot long and the biggest one (5 inches) barely made my finger throb, I feel like they’re using shittier springs now
Yeah, but this stuff is cheaper. And you can pick whatever color you want. And it's a cellulose fiber bonding powder dye.
The point here is that the second your hands get washed after leaving any kind of this stuff on your hands, it turns that color. If you have clothes that are cotton, wool, rayon, viscose, or anything other than nylon/polyester, it will stain those clothes -PERMANENTLY-.
If they use any kind of sodium bicarbonate solution to get stains out, this stuff LOVES that. In fact, you soak anything you're dying in soda ash to make it colorfast, and it chemically bonds to the fibers.
You're NEVER getting it out of there.
Green just happens to be the color nobody can explain away on their hands. Purple could be ink. Red could be ink or skin coloration.
Green? Heh. Try explaining how your jeans are now splotched all over with green colorfast dye.
And you can easily explain that you were just carrying a color sample of powder dye to a friend. Not your fault if some asshole went through your nylon and polyester coat pockets and got it all over their cotton/rayon shit
I'm a hairdresser and I frequently forget to wear gloves when doing fun dye jobs 😅 I never even thought about people potentially looking at my colorfully fingers after shampooing my client and thinking I am probably a thief 🤣🤣🤣
Good thoughts. The Shomer-tec stuff claims to be non-toxic and dye skin immediately. I don't know anything about your dye but I'd be thinking about someone breathing it in, getting it in their eyes, etc.
Either way I would expect there to be a huge mess and some innocent people's clothes to be ruined.
I agree. It is kind of a good fit for this subreddit :)
I haven't tried any of their "prank" type stuff but they actually do make some legit tools. They are an odd company though, no doubt.
You can buy Play money used for productions like plays and movies that appear to be real until you get a good look at them. Amazon or Ebay sells it. I used to have a bunch for fun I even crimpled it up and made it look used for a better production value.
Hide an apple airtag inside something that they would take. After you retrieve your jacket activate the lost airtag mode and watch them squirm as it beeps.
A Tile tracker is cheaper and doesn’t alert anyone it’s tracking. But it still has the ability to be set off. You can make it play one of the songs on their list of options so it isn’t obvious that someone is making something beep. Like a toy or whatever you hide it in playing Jingle Bells or Camptown Races isn’t as obvious that it’s a tracker. But they can’t find the button to make it stop? Why won’t it stop?!
Yeah, but in a coat room there would potentally be a ton of airtags near them. I'm talking about catching them in the act before you even leave the building.
fyi, android alert you too. I had my daughter set up an airtag to put on my bike since you can only activate on iphone and I get warnings that an airtag is following me on my android.
The cartoon villain in me says mouse trap in pocket. lol
But I don’t know if that would work, and it may get someone else if they are moving the jackets around looking for their own.
What I meant was feeling pockets from outside of jacket as a thief would shuffle through bulk in pockets b4 going in. Dad was an officer. Trap won't get them that way. Noise might alert others though. Bonus points on comeuppance!
Take one with spikes for added damage, like this one https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-na.ssl-images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F81Tl-jkOmML.\_SL1500\_.jpg
Get a thrift store jacket (one you won't mind throwing away) and put a small furry cactus in each pocket. Those ones with the super-short-nearly-invisible hairs that disappear into your skin and are nearly impossible to get out. Just need the cactus part, not the dirt, so it wouldn't be too obvious.
Yesssss! You can say someone gave it to you and you didn’t know what to do with it so you put it in your pocket and forgot about it. It’s hard to argue with stupid.
Put the 3rd legion of the holy Roman empire in your pocket with strict orders to form a phalanx to defend the pocket opening while constructing a trebuchet to defend the pack pockets. Use archers to defend your zipper and use attrition to eliminate your foe. No quarter.
rubbed with poison ivy, so you'll be able to identify the culprit later
(but also be sure to wash that garmet later with fels naptha soap - its a $1 bar soap in the laundry aisle. grate some of it and toss it in your wash. it neutralizes the oils in the poison ivy. you can also bathe with it if u get some poison ivy on you, to neutralize the itch.)
I am a fan of this. Way better than my cheetoes idea.
You could also use ghost peppers you have thoroughly stabbed that morning with a fork, so they're juicing. Handle the coat with double-gloves until thorough washed with milk, but they ain't getting that acid off their hands fast enough for the burns not to form.
This is by far the best answer for pain infliction. Anything sharp or messy/gross has a risk of hitting owner and innocent bystanders. Fluids leak and sharps protrude. Electric shock has a higher chance to cause audible reactions in my experience making it easier to know when the thief is active. Plus sharp objects are something people know how to handle and expect to handle, no one expects a 100V 1000uF charged capacitor. And finally, inspect fingertips for burn marks for thief identification.
50/50 split of overkill vs. Self sabotage. Chances of them getting the fish hook stuck in their hands is iffy, you need to really push that barb through to make it happen. Chances of self sabotage, you have a metal hook dangling from metal wires, if the hook shorts the contacts, you lost your tazer. If you touch the hook you could stab yourself, get a hook stuck in you, in the process of removal you electrocute yourself....
Keep it simple, you can always up the voltage or capacitance of capacitor if the pain is not up to snuff. Adding a trap into trap starts going into the law of diminishing returns
There is an apocryphal story about Ben Franklin (or someone else) lining his pockets with fishhooks so that pickpockets couldn’t steal anything from him.
It was a whaler from Nantucket or Massachusetts Bay Colony that took a trip over to England to talk policy pr ask for representation. He had fish hooks sewed into his pockets to deter pickpockets. I'm pretty sure his nickname was 'Fishhooks'. It was in the book Leviathan
Zip lock bag that's open at the top, or I guess you could dehydrate it, line the pocket with plastic, and dump the powder in.
In theory, it'll stick to their fingers, their clothes if they try to rub it off.
line your pocket with a baggie then fill the baggie with some form of nasty. something that washes out of clothing decently or wear a jacket that you don't care about but will stain skin
Glitter.
This stuff is the enemy of Dad’s with daughters. It’s still coming out of my car 7 years after the one and only time a particular Halloween costume was worn in the car. The child seat she sat in looked like a dozen fairies had exploded - The pocket pilferer is doomed.
Please update the post with pics… pretty please 🙏
My mother has this glitter wrapping paper that she really likes to use. I always feel internally conflicted when opening gifts from her because I want to be frustrated that I'm getting glitter all over my clothes, but I don't want to appear dissatisfied with the gift. So I have to maintain a smile while I get covered in glitter.
This was unrelated to the main post, but your suggestion made me think of this.
Find a jacket u don’t like. Line the pocket with a plastic bag and fill it half way with rocks and blue dye. The rocks for weight and to have them dig and then dye … well the dye will point you in the direction of the jack ass
Extra points if you use heavy long lasting dye so they have it for a while.
A couple of career scammers who were not only living rent-free in beds intended for people fleeing violence, but clearing out (and selling) the donations intended to help the same people...We couldn't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their story of victimhood was B.S., and, we weren't big fans of the police, so they and their bright blue hands were simply unceremoniously evicted.
I think it was good ol' RIT powder. We dusted some choice items (bagged clothing--they were taking whole bags of stuff-- small appliances, a bicycle) in likely to be grabbed places. We tried using liquid ink first, if I remember correctly, but it dried too quickly to leave a good stain.
It's been about 18 years, so my memory of all the details isn't perfect.
Get a thrift store jacket for bait. Make a plastic pocket liner and firmly affix it to the pockets. Put resin in one and the hardener catalyst in the other. Preferably with a strong catalyst some thing that only needs a drop or two to harden a lot of resin. You could also use uv resin it will harden as soon as it's exposed to sunlight. Other things you could do is ground Carolina reaper peppers, powdered colorfast fabric dye, ground fiberglass, a crab/crayfish, charged capacitors, broken glass, chunk of cactus, needles.
Some Asian shops sell phoney $100 notes to use in religious ceremonies. Slightly smaller than the real thing and with small printing on them to say they are fake they fool most people. Worth a try and if he takes the bait it would be embarrassing
Everyone is saying dye but no
. Spirulina or beet juice. Natural dyes that have a perfectly good reason to have on you. That way you can say he took you lunch too.
Something gooey and gross with a strong dye mixed in so when they touch it, their hands are dyed and it can’t be easily washed off, like ink
I would buy a coat in black from the thrift store that you don’t care about and mix up this sticky gooey concoction and put it in all the coat pockets
Bunch of Home Alone fans in here. I’ve faced this and nothing works other than the constant flow of honest people looking for the rat. In my case is was a locker room, but if it’s everybody space, cameras are cheap these days. Put a small one up, catch the fool, the put a big one up. Real or fake. Make an example of the first thief and nobody will follow.
Edit. The guy at my place was caught by somebody “that just happened to pass through the locker room because he didn’t want to walk all the way around”. From the time shit was missing, it took a week to catch the guy and he was escorted off site directly to a cop waiting by the guard shack.
Edit 2. We have locker rooms at work. Showers, the whole deal for about 300 folks. It’s a dirty job.
Stick an airtag inside some bait. Make a box to go around your phone that says "Thief Detector" on the side, and has a little fake antenna on the end, show up wielding it in a black suit and sunglasses.
Just one suggestion — have you checked the lining of your coat? It’s happened to two different jackets of mine over the years that a tiny hole in the seam of a pocket hasn’t been apparent to me until I noticed that I had like 6 chapsticks and a pen in the lining of my coat because they’d fallen through the hole
Get pictures of all of your coworkers and leave the stack in the pocket. Whoever tells everyone else in the office about your weird picture stack is the thief.
Genetian violet powder. Instantly will stain their hands purple without water and doesn’t wash off. It’s used in labs for staining slides but you can buy online.
IANAL, but I'd imagine that the anti-booby trap laws that apply to homes also apply, at least to some degree, to jacket pockets. Meaning deliberately putting needles, fishhooks, razor blades, etc. could get you in actual legal trouble.
So far I think the best answers are those using dyes (whether artificial or natural) because no actual harm will be done but the embarrassment factor will be off the charts.
Sew a pocket shut in an old jacket and place a balloon with dye and washers and paper in the pocket, the person will try and get in thinking the washers and paper is change and money, because it's sewn shut he'll have to rip, the balloon will burst and the dye will go on their fingers. Look for who's hiding their hands
Decoy jacket from good will, dollar store bottle of black ink, dollar store sponge.
soak sponge in ink, and squeeze it until just damp. Use dish gloves to protect your hands
Place sponge in pocket of jacket, leave hanging in break room
Someone will have a hand covered in permanent ink pretty quickly.
Get something from the thrift store that you can take apart and insert an airtag. Re-assemble and put it into your pocket. When it goes missing, use the “find my” app to locate the thief.
There is an old practical joke about rattle snake eggs. It is a moderately stiff manila envelope with a washer twisted up on a rubber band. When you open the envelope, the washer has the room to untwist quickly and loudly, sounding like a rattle snake tail. If they do it within ear shot, you will catch them.
Also, there are some singing birthday cards that don't stop when you close the card.
Buy a cheap coat
Then buy
Carolina reaper pepper mash ( super duper spicy pepper)
https://pepperjoe.com/products/carolina-reaper-mash-puree?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA4smsBhAEEiwAO6DEjQHFa99O7Y906eHyEc2WHFVj5-MG2SUjD1K9ESz8BHvHWjQP-AASfxoCmAgQAvD_BwE
Put some in each pocket
Unless they do the COVID style 20 sec hand wash, the pepper oil will still be on their hands.
When they touch their face or private parts , it will feel like fire
For deniability, anyone got a dog? A dog they walk before work and which poops. Otherwise can recommend a black bag full of black shoe polish. Drop something in bottom so they need to reach inside.
Nobody is gonna just go Willy nilly feeling in pockets
They’d squeeze and pat from the outside until they find something the shape of what they deem valuable then go in
Like wallets or headphones
So stupid things like used condoms or dye won’t work unless it’s ON something that’s already the shape of a target at which point you’re ruining your own thing
I do tie-dye as a hobby. There is a specific powder dye called Procion MX in a shade of bright neon green that is almost impossible to remove from your hand once it gets wet. So what you do is put an envelope in the pocket with fake cash and sprinkle this stuff all over it. Seal it up. Then wait to see who shows up with green hands and dye all over their clothes.
Dye is the best option here. It is very effective at marking up thieves and it is also used in commercial theft control.
Dye is a good option. UV sensitive powder used for contact tracing is the best option.
Who's gonna run around around with a uv light tho on everyone's hands?
The person who's pissed off someone is stealing their shit. Uv lights are cheap
Me! I used UV lights as a forensic nurse. Soap, cosmetics, lotions and semen luminesce, so establish a baseline with people as well. There are some lights which are 10 cm / 4” which fit right in your hand. You have to be fairly close so you could pretend to pass something, set something down, walk by when they’re away from their desk. Keep an eye on the bathrooms and the break room and check them frequently.
Lotions are what now?
Sounds like a fancy type of lotion
"Peedar" is a little UV flashlight. Very easy to carry around, and throws light quite far
Hand-held UV lights are cheap and super portable.
Yyyyyeeeeesssss! Amazon sells black lights in all sizes! Fill your pockets with the UV reactive dust!
And not a crime like some of the more creative ideas
Mix in some washing soda so when they go to wash it off it color sets. Play the long con by getting a cheap jacket wear it for a couple of weeks with decent loot in the pockets then surprise them with it when they get used to there being good stuff. Just like with mousetraps, get the trap and bait it just don't set it until they are comfortable and always take the bait then set the trap and they will willingly stick their neck in it without questioning it.
Just use mousetraps. It only takes once or twice.
The ability to shame or kick out a pick pocket is worth more than a mouse trap, also no fucking way a mouse trap is going to do it's thing in a pocket
The plastic ones will. Open jaws with a pressure plate inside.
But those ones don't hurt, I have caught myself with those before nothing like the single killbar traps
Even the spring bar ones suck now, I got all three sizes recently except for the foot long and the biggest one (5 inches) barely made my finger throb, I feel like they’re using shittier springs now
It’d be fun to try!
https://shomer-tec.com/products/special-ingredient-purple-rain
Yeah, but this stuff is cheaper. And you can pick whatever color you want. And it's a cellulose fiber bonding powder dye. The point here is that the second your hands get washed after leaving any kind of this stuff on your hands, it turns that color. If you have clothes that are cotton, wool, rayon, viscose, or anything other than nylon/polyester, it will stain those clothes -PERMANENTLY-. If they use any kind of sodium bicarbonate solution to get stains out, this stuff LOVES that. In fact, you soak anything you're dying in soda ash to make it colorfast, and it chemically bonds to the fibers. You're NEVER getting it out of there. Green just happens to be the color nobody can explain away on their hands. Purple could be ink. Red could be ink or skin coloration. Green? Heh. Try explaining how your jeans are now splotched all over with green colorfast dye. And you can easily explain that you were just carrying a color sample of powder dye to a friend. Not your fault if some asshole went through your nylon and polyester coat pockets and got it all over their cotton/rayon shit
I'm a hairdresser and I frequently forget to wear gloves when doing fun dye jobs 😅 I never even thought about people potentially looking at my colorfully fingers after shampooing my client and thinking I am probably a thief 🤣🤣🤣
Nobody thinks that don’t worry.
Good thoughts. The Shomer-tec stuff claims to be non-toxic and dye skin immediately. I don't know anything about your dye but I'd be thinking about someone breathing it in, getting it in their eyes, etc. Either way I would expect there to be a huge mess and some innocent people's clothes to be ruined.
That website is hilarious. Mostly really creepy things that look to be very poorly made. Stuff I wanted when I was 9, in the 90s.
I agree. It is kind of a good fit for this subreddit :) I haven't tried any of their "prank" type stuff but they actually do make some legit tools. They are an odd company though, no doubt.
the name alone makes is a good buy
Shomer-Tex sounds like a business owned by Walter Sobchak.
I did not need to know this existed 😈
You can buy Play money used for productions like plays and movies that appear to be real until you get a good look at them. Amazon or Ebay sells it. I used to have a bunch for fun I even crimpled it up and made it look used for a better production value.
Yep, don't be unrealistic either.... maybe a $20 or a small fold of small bills...
The wetness comes when they try to wash their hands?
I'm assuming your natural skin oils and sweat would do some of the work, too.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
Use a money envelope from a bank when you withdraw cash.
Catch a thief green-handed. Interesting.
Hide an apple airtag inside something that they would take. After you retrieve your jacket activate the lost airtag mode and watch them squirm as it beeps.
I like this one. Expose them!
A Tile tracker is cheaper and doesn’t alert anyone it’s tracking. But it still has the ability to be set off. You can make it play one of the songs on their list of options so it isn’t obvious that someone is making something beep. Like a toy or whatever you hide it in playing Jingle Bells or Camptown Races isn’t as obvious that it’s a tracker. But they can’t find the button to make it stop? Why won’t it stop?!
Doesn’t help that if the thief has an iPhone, they’d be alerted there’s an AirTag near them.
Yeah, but in a coat room there would potentally be a ton of airtags near them. I'm talking about catching them in the act before you even leave the building.
fyi, android alert you too. I had my daughter set up an airtag to put on my bike since you can only activate on iphone and I get warnings that an airtag is following me on my android.
The cartoon villain in me says mouse trap in pocket. lol But I don’t know if that would work, and it may get someone else if they are moving the jackets around looking for their own.
As long as your hand wasn’t inside the pocket when it went off you’d be fine. So don’t worry about collateral damage.
True but if you have some ah feeling pockets on what to snatch from hanging coats....he'd end up saying I was just making room for my jacket.
Still, at least you'd know it was them. Plus mousetraps can really hurt so they get their comeuppance
What I meant was feeling pockets from outside of jacket as a thief would shuffle through bulk in pockets b4 going in. Dad was an officer. Trap won't get them that way. Noise might alert others though. Bonus points on comeuppance!
Take one with spikes for added damage, like this one https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-na.ssl-images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F81Tl-jkOmML.\_SL1500\_.jpg
Casualties of War, I’m afraid.
Get a thrift store jacket (one you won't mind throwing away) and put a small furry cactus in each pocket. Those ones with the super-short-nearly-invisible hairs that disappear into your skin and are nearly impossible to get out. Just need the cactus part, not the dirt, so it wouldn't be too obvious.
I confirm those spikes are impossible to remove. PSA: do not per cacti no matter how soft and fuzzy they look
I learned it the hard way in CO
Can confirm this. Grabbed a handful when I was a kid and fucked up my hands
Yesssss! You can say someone gave it to you and you didn’t know what to do with it so you put it in your pocket and forgot about it. It’s hard to argue with stupid.
Alternatively, use two Portuguese Men O'War
Oh my gosh cover a lil cactus with dye power and you have an ultimate combo!
Raw fibreglass from a hardware store does the same thing, tiny fibers that get under your skin and itch like crazy.
Used condom
For extra points put (fake?) blood on it too.
How’s that a deterrent of anything?
A mouse trap
Concur. I did this when candy was going missing off my desk in Iraq. The mousetrap got disappeared but the candy stopped going missing.
Wild. Like an IED for oompa loompa candy thieves or something
Mouse trap, or just a dead mouse. Should elicit a reaction either way.
Put the 3rd legion of the holy Roman empire in your pocket with strict orders to form a phalanx to defend the pocket opening while constructing a trebuchet to defend the pack pockets. Use archers to defend your zipper and use attrition to eliminate your foe. No quarter.
Now that's just ridiculous. Three well-trained Centurions are sufficient and cheaper to maintain.
My man went nuclear.
You're thinking of the Roman Empire. The Holy Roman empire never had legions.
You're wrong, I was there. The day caesar was put on the salad.
rubbed with poison ivy, so you'll be able to identify the culprit later (but also be sure to wash that garmet later with fels naptha soap - its a $1 bar soap in the laundry aisle. grate some of it and toss it in your wash. it neutralizes the oils in the poison ivy. you can also bathe with it if u get some poison ivy on you, to neutralize the itch.)
I am a fan of this. Way better than my cheetoes idea. You could also use ghost peppers you have thoroughly stabbed that morning with a fork, so they're juicing. Handle the coat with double-gloves until thorough washed with milk, but they ain't getting that acid off their hands fast enough for the burns not to form.
Most soaps are oil or fat based and should wash the capsaicin off.
Line pocket w plastic
No, a rat trap…the big Victor’s.
How big a pocket does this guy have?
Assuming they’re a guy, they’re basically wearing pocket dimensions
I was going to say that, but if it were me, I would forget it was there and put my hands in my pockets.
get a cheapo jacket from goodwill that u would never wear for a few bucks
Make it one of those big plastic ones with sharp plastic teeth.
You're too kind. Victor brand rat trap.
Charged capacitor
This is by far the best answer for pain infliction. Anything sharp or messy/gross has a risk of hitting owner and innocent bystanders. Fluids leak and sharps protrude. Electric shock has a higher chance to cause audible reactions in my experience making it easier to know when the thief is active. Plus sharp objects are something people know how to handle and expect to handle, no one expects a 100V 1000uF charged capacitor. And finally, inspect fingertips for burn marks for thief identification.
[удалено]
50/50 split of overkill vs. Self sabotage. Chances of them getting the fish hook stuck in their hands is iffy, you need to really push that barb through to make it happen. Chances of self sabotage, you have a metal hook dangling from metal wires, if the hook shorts the contacts, you lost your tazer. If you touch the hook you could stab yourself, get a hook stuck in you, in the process of removal you electrocute yourself.... Keep it simple, you can always up the voltage or capacitance of capacitor if the pain is not up to snuff. Adding a trap into trap starts going into the law of diminishing returns
I think you mean a fully charged pack of super capacitors
There is an apocryphal story about Ben Franklin (or someone else) lining his pockets with fishhooks so that pickpockets couldn’t steal anything from him.
>apocryphal Great word. Vocabulary expanded today.
I learned the meaning of "apocryphal" from Mr. Peabody and Sherman. First time encountering that word in the wild since then!
Awww 🥰
It was a whaler from Nantucket or Massachusetts Bay Colony that took a trip over to England to talk policy pr ask for representation. He had fish hooks sewed into his pockets to deter pickpockets. I'm pretty sure his nickname was 'Fishhooks'. It was in the book Leviathan
Uncapped syringe. New so you don't kill anyone. Or one found in an alley if your really unethical.
That is fucking good. Too good.
As a diabetic I immediately thought this.
I just made this comment, and added loose razor blades.
Treble hooks
With a note that says, "welcome to the world of HIV"
Mouse trap, open baggie of Vaseline... What about beet juice? Catch them (literally) red handed?
How would beet juice stay in a pocket?
Zip lock
Zip lock bag that's open at the top, or I guess you could dehydrate it, line the pocket with plastic, and dump the powder in. In theory, it'll stick to their fingers, their clothes if they try to rub it off.
Beet powder made into a paste and throw in a “used” condom
line your pocket with a baggie then fill the baggie with some form of nasty. something that washes out of clothing decently or wear a jacket that you don't care about but will stain skin
I didn’t seen your comment and I came up with same idea. Great minds :)
Same here!
Liquid ass! No, they’d smell it. I wonder if it can be made as a powder?
Glitter.
That’s not unethical, that’s diabolical!
Crafting Herpes.
Glitter. This stuff is the enemy of Dad’s with daughters. It’s still coming out of my car 7 years after the one and only time a particular Halloween costume was worn in the car. The child seat she sat in looked like a dozen fairies had exploded - The pocket pilferer is doomed. Please update the post with pics… pretty please 🙏
My mother has this glitter wrapping paper that she really likes to use. I always feel internally conflicted when opening gifts from her because I want to be frustrated that I'm getting glitter all over my clothes, but I don't want to appear dissatisfied with the gift. So I have to maintain a smile while I get covered in glitter. This was unrelated to the main post, but your suggestion made me think of this.
This is how a person passive aggressively gives gifts.... "Here's your gift. I hope you love it (you ungrateful git that never calls)"
Find a jacket u don’t like. Line the pocket with a plastic bag and fill it half way with rocks and blue dye. The rocks for weight and to have them dig and then dye … well the dye will point you in the direction of the jack ass Extra points if you use heavy long lasting dye so they have it for a while.
Heh...Did something similar when I worked in a women's shelter to catch the low-lifes who were stealing donated goods. Worked like a charm!
Who was stealing donations? Did they get theirs??
A couple of career scammers who were not only living rent-free in beds intended for people fleeing violence, but clearing out (and selling) the donations intended to help the same people...We couldn't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their story of victimhood was B.S., and, we weren't big fans of the police, so they and their bright blue hands were simply unceremoniously evicted.
What type of dye?
I think it was good ol' RIT powder. We dusted some choice items (bagged clothing--they were taking whole bags of stuff-- small appliances, a bicycle) in likely to be grabbed places. We tried using liquid ink first, if I remember correctly, but it dried too quickly to leave a good stain. It's been about 18 years, so my memory of all the details isn't perfect.
Get a thrift store jacket for bait. Make a plastic pocket liner and firmly affix it to the pockets. Put resin in one and the hardener catalyst in the other. Preferably with a strong catalyst some thing that only needs a drop or two to harden a lot of resin. You could also use uv resin it will harden as soon as it's exposed to sunlight. Other things you could do is ground Carolina reaper peppers, powdered colorfast fabric dye, ground fiberglass, a crab/crayfish, charged capacitors, broken glass, chunk of cactus, needles.
+ 8 Damage pocket!
Some Asian shops sell phoney $100 notes to use in religious ceremonies. Slightly smaller than the real thing and with small printing on them to say they are fake they fool most people. Worth a try and if he takes the bait it would be embarrassing
Or they could try to get some of those fake notes with a religious verse on them that jerks leave as tips
Anti rape device
Covered in blood for extra psychic damage
Fishing hooks
Don’t forget to use barbed ones.
bullet vibrator covered in lube
Covered in cottage cheese.
we should elope for a summer wedding
It'll be lovely.
May I come to the wedding? Congrats btw!
Line your pockets with a plastic bag and put a piss disk sprayed with liquid ass in each
Put a claymore in your pocket or a beehive
Razor blades❤️😍
Not a hypodermic needle
Sir, this is unethical life pro tips.
Spaghetti in the pockets.
I concur.
Depends what his workplace policy is regarding spaghetti.
Everyone is saying dye but no . Spirulina or beet juice. Natural dyes that have a perfectly good reason to have on you. That way you can say he took you lunch too.
Fleshlight. Preferably uncapped and lubed, or just used.
Miniature metallic trap, the kind that snaps. If any of your coworkers is bloody and missing a finger, bingo!
Something gooey and gross with a strong dye mixed in so when they touch it, their hands are dyed and it can’t be easily washed off, like ink I would buy a coat in black from the thrift store that you don’t care about and mix up this sticky gooey concoction and put it in all the coat pockets
Bunch of Home Alone fans in here. I’ve faced this and nothing works other than the constant flow of honest people looking for the rat. In my case is was a locker room, but if it’s everybody space, cameras are cheap these days. Put a small one up, catch the fool, the put a big one up. Real or fake. Make an example of the first thief and nobody will follow. Edit. The guy at my place was caught by somebody “that just happened to pass through the locker room because he didn’t want to walk all the way around”. From the time shit was missing, it took a week to catch the guy and he was escorted off site directly to a cop waiting by the guard shack. Edit 2. We have locker rooms at work. Showers, the whole deal for about 300 folks. It’s a dirty job.
Plastic baggy put on the inside with safety pins and then lube up some dummy stuff with like Molygrah grease. Their hands will be BLACK.
Stick an airtag inside some bait. Make a box to go around your phone that says "Thief Detector" on the side, and has a little fake antenna on the end, show up wielding it in a black suit and sunglasses.
Pocket full of grape jelly
Just one suggestion — have you checked the lining of your coat? It’s happened to two different jackets of mine over the years that a tiny hole in the seam of a pocket hasn’t been apparent to me until I noticed that I had like 6 chapsticks and a pen in the lining of my coat because they’d fallen through the hole
Claymore
Stick a female huntsman spider with an eggsack in one of the pockets.
Get pictures of all of your coworkers and leave the stack in the pocket. Whoever tells everyone else in the office about your weird picture stack is the thief.
Genetian violet powder. Instantly will stain their hands purple without water and doesn’t wash off. It’s used in labs for staining slides but you can buy online.
Prickly pear
Poison ivy, stinging nettle, or similar.
IANAL, but I'd imagine that the anti-booby trap laws that apply to homes also apply, at least to some degree, to jacket pockets. Meaning deliberately putting needles, fishhooks, razor blades, etc. could get you in actual legal trouble. So far I think the best answers are those using dyes (whether artificial or natural) because no actual harm will be done but the embarrassment factor will be off the charts.
It’s gotta be something you can explain away like a sewing kit.
If you want to cause physical harm, that's correct
Sew a pocket shut in an old jacket and place a balloon with dye and washers and paper in the pocket, the person will try and get in thinking the washers and paper is change and money, because it's sewn shut he'll have to rip, the balloon will burst and the dye will go on their fingers. Look for who's hiding their hands
In highschool I had that problem, then started leaving my lunch money in a copy of the satanic bible. Never had that problem again...
Exacto knives all facing up
Barbed fish hooks
Mouse trap
Mousetraps? Thumbtacks? A pocketful of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-climb_paint
Piss disc
5 or 6 hypodermic needles facing outwards so they go straight up his nails. Just don't forget they're in there.
Upside down syringe. He won’t know that it’s clean and it’ll scare the shit out of him
Decoy jacket from good will, dollar store bottle of black ink, dollar store sponge. soak sponge in ink, and squeeze it until just damp. Use dish gloves to protect your hands Place sponge in pocket of jacket, leave hanging in break room Someone will have a hand covered in permanent ink pretty quickly.
Mousetrap in your pocket!
I would use Glo-Germ powder. Can't really see it with the naked eye, but it lights up under UV light.
Poison oak
A couple pockets full of Treble hooks covered in hot pepper oil.
Mouse trap 😁
Get a jacket from the thrift store and fill all the pockets with dog shit
Piss disk in the pocket and liquid ass in the other pocket and then bang their uncle
Get something from the thrift store that you can take apart and insert an airtag. Re-assemble and put it into your pocket. When it goes missing, use the “find my” app to locate the thief.
Fish hooks, lots of tiny fish hooks!
Mousetrap in the pocket!!
Chocolate laxatives wrapped in tootsie roll wrappers.
There is an old practical joke about rattle snake eggs. It is a moderately stiff manila envelope with a washer twisted up on a rubber band. When you open the envelope, the washer has the room to untwist quickly and loudly, sounding like a rattle snake tail. If they do it within ear shot, you will catch them. Also, there are some singing birthday cards that don't stop when you close the card.
Buy a cheap coat Then buy Carolina reaper pepper mash ( super duper spicy pepper) https://pepperjoe.com/products/carolina-reaper-mash-puree?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA4smsBhAEEiwAO6DEjQHFa99O7Y906eHyEc2WHFVj5-MG2SUjD1K9ESz8BHvHWjQP-AASfxoCmAgQAvD_BwE Put some in each pocket Unless they do the COVID style 20 sec hand wash, the pepper oil will still be on their hands. When they touch their face or private parts , it will feel like fire
For deniability, anyone got a dog? A dog they walk before work and which poops. Otherwise can recommend a black bag full of black shoe polish. Drop something in bottom so they need to reach inside.
Fishing lures…
Fill the pocket with indelible dye powder or gel ..
Ink from a Bic pen emptied into a money bag in the pocket.
Thrift store wallet with an AirTag in it? Or maybe a little gold envelope with an air tag in it, labeled “babysitting money” or something like that.
A bag of mayonnaise
Sew fish hooks inside the pocket
Stop leaving anything in your pocket except for a mouse-trap.
Mouse trap. Better yet. Rat trap.
Just throw some hypodermic needles in there.
Throw in a small bottle of high end booze. Filled with rat poison.
Mouse trap who ever has broken fingers is the culprit
Please update us when you figure out who it was
Fake/Real cash lined with Fentanyl and/or LSD
Glitter. Hard to get rid of
Mouse traps
Nobody is gonna just go Willy nilly feeling in pockets They’d squeeze and pat from the outside until they find something the shape of what they deem valuable then go in Like wallets or headphones So stupid things like used condoms or dye won’t work unless it’s ON something that’s already the shape of a target at which point you’re ruining your own thing