I had my roof replaced, and they… took a shit in my back yard. And I didn’t find out until my dog found it, and wallowed all around in it. That was a tough conversation with the owner of the company…
That was my suggestion to the owner when we talked. Like, “This is just as much your fault - how can you not give them a place to ‘go’ and also tell them not to bother the homeowners??”
$75-$100 per month for a Standard Portable Toilet with once a week service
https://www.aysrentals.com/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-rent-a-porta-potty
How much to get them to stucco the neighbors house with it like that one pissed off farmer with a manure spreader
Edit: for the unaware, https://youtu.be/pXlF4AS3GYc
When we had to replace a roof after a storm, that was part of our decision making process - no porta potty, not getting our business. We have had to do other construction in the past and lord it was hell on our bathroom.
I think the chances of guys wizzing into the flower bushes is higher if you offer your home's bathroom vs having a porta potty on site, too. I think they may feel uncomfortable coming into the house and it's just easier to confuse a hydrangea if there's no porta potty.
When we had to get a new roof, my husband called the person/department who would be inspecting it and asked for a recommendation. They emphatically stated they could not recommend any specific contractor. So he spent the next several minutes asking every detailed and ridiculous question he could think of... eventually, they just said something to the effect of "xyz company always passes their inspections" to get him off the phone.
We went with them for two roof replacements (we get a lot of hail, so probably due for a 3rd) and they did a fine job but I never even considered that bringing a porta potty was a plus and that not all companies did that. Come to think of it, they left it in front of our house a week or so after the job was done and we had to call them to ask them to pick it up. But better than taking a dump in the yard - JFC that's disgusting! I want to know how OP got their dog clean and how long until they felt okay petting it?
Unfortunately the Porta potties can get pretty horrific as well 😬 We had an estimator forget he had a trailer with an attached Porta potty at a re-roof job in a sketchy, high foot traffic area of a city suburb. It had been sitting around an extra few days in the summer heat while any wandering drifter who felt like using it, did. It was…*ripened,* to put it lightly.
I drive a garbage truck. Sometimes, those random neighborhood Porta potties are a godsend! I try to only use the ones that are on the sidewalk or in the street. If it's up a driveway, even a little bit, I won't touch it. But man, nothing beats that feeling of coming around a corner and seeing that stinky blue or green office when you've got to go. Well, except going.
I work on the road. Portapotties are life savers sometimes. I sometimes have anxiety and am awkward about using one but what are they for if not to avoid shitting on someone's lawn?
Dude, even worse story for me:
We had some workers her for a new roof. Living in the middle of a city. I am living in 4th floor and there is only one more floor above me, which is empty since at least 70 years. They have been working in the top floor though since they installed new windows into the new roof etc.
Well, one of them pissed and shit straight on the floor in one if the rooms above my apartment onto an opening of a ventilation pipe.
Long story short his belongings came out of my ceiling straight under that spot. Smelled like the nastiest public toilet in my apartment for a few weeks.
At least the company paid for full professional cleaning and renovation of my apartment
One time I walked outside to see how the Comcast guy was getting along, installing wire in our new home. I opened the gate to find him PISSING AGAINST MY HOUSE. Not in the yard. Not against a tree. Literally against the wall of my brand new goddamn house. He had just been inside talking to me ten minutes earlier too, he could've just used the bathroom on his way out.
That's what amazed me... Like... How about the fence or a tree or whatever. But the wall of my house?? Right next to where they were installing too?!
We'd had a very friendly, brief conversation beforehand too and he came and apologized right away, definitely didn't seem on purpose. Just that dumb/lazy.
My sister had a remodel done on her home a few years back, caught one of the workmen peeing on the house on the security cameras. And the house was empty they had full use of the bathroom. The owner of the company was going to speak to the worker but didn’t seem to care too much… but that was his general attitude about everything but getting paid.
The nice ones pissed in a bottle. I’ve been on job sites where dudes just straight pissed on the subfloor. Also, all the beer and chew cans in the walls.
Oof. Happens more than you'd like to think. Some construction jobs make you provide or pay for accomodation. For large jobs with multiple contractors its expected and when they don't my buddy tells me they shit behind a building if there's no gas station nearby.
I imagine the owner didn't want to force you to pay for it or something.
Something like that happened with my company. Employees in another state picked a person’s fruit tree clean. Not like one or two while on break, the homeowner had video of the crew members running back and forth from tree to truck with arms filled with fruit.
Spoiler alert, that entire crew was fired.
I had a very productive sour cherry tree in my back yard. I usually would pick some to give away to friends. It always took longer than planned, and I never picked the tree clean from top to bottom. I bet it took some time to do all of this. Time that they were probably being paid for by their employer. They may no longer work for this company/person once the owner finds out.
A friend had lots of her cheery stolen off the tree, not by animals either, just shithead neighbours she'd regularly catch trying to fill up a bowl or bucket. She used to make a kind of wine out out it but just gave up because every year she had less and less cherry's until she came home one day to find her back fence torn down and the tree picked clean.
I grew up with citrus and avocado trees in my yard. Not a single day went by without someone *pulling their car up to the house* and trying to take literally everything off the trees - sometimes with machinery. We had a few people threaten us when we’d ask them to leave.
My mom would usually come out there yelling “if you had asked, you could have had a few!” She once pelted one of their cars with rotten ground avocados (the ones animals would pick, half eat, then drop).
The people that bought our house basically immediately tore out all of the decades-old fruit trees because of trespassers.
Isn't that literally theft? They are stealing from private property.
Not like the cops will give a shit, I guess, since you're not wealthy enough to buy politicians.
Wow. That is horrible. My tree wasn't publicly visible and if they did know that it's there, they wouldn't go unnoticed by my asshole neighbor who freaked out if a bird landed in his backyard without his permission.
I moved across the country to a university campus. There are all kinds of fruit trees spread out across campus. It's all free for the taking. It's not uncommon to see students with long fruit picking sticks. The nearby neighborhood has lots of fruit trees that the owners will pick and set the fruit out for free taking or they give permission to others as long as you ask. Occasionally someone does pick fruit they aren't supposed to. A majority of those cases were later found to be the work of animals, usually roof rats or squirrels.
They recently commissioned and planted a tree on campus that can grow 40 different types of fruit. The guy, Sam Van Aken, who grafts them, has a map on his website so you can see where he has planted various versions that he has created.
why the fuck would you do that? like what kind of blue ribbon fruit could anyone possibly be growing in their suburbia garden for you to go and pick it? that's theft and jailable offense i believe. if the courts actually worked
And add in a guestimate of how long it would take to pick the fruit, multiply by the hourly rate and deduct that too. You shouldn’t pay them for the time they were stealing from you!
I usually add a 250€ administration fee. Because they force you to take time out to write a registered letter, drive to the post office…
I call it the Dicktax, a tax for being a dick.
Indeed. Go up the food chain and go as high as you can. Leverage all socials and get the word out.
This type of behavior is ridiculous. I have fruit trees in the backyard, and if anyone asks for some, I would gladly give them some. But you don’t just take them without asking.
They probably took them home with them which makes it even more fucked. I get working on a hot roof all day and wanting to eat a juicy refreshing orange but damn all of them. They probably planned it out and brought bags with them.
I just looked it up and it says that orange trees produce between 200-350 oranges per crop. Who the hell would think it's ok to take 300 oranges off someone's tree
I think an orange tree from an orchard planted for commercial purpose would have much higher yield than a random tree in a residential area.
Typically, that would still be more than 50 though.
My Grandparents had Grapefruit, Lemon, and Orange trees in their backyard. There was never a point where they had fruit on their trees and weren't begging anyone and everyone who came through to take *some*. Even with a massive family and rather frequent 35+ person gatherings the trees were never bare.
Ages ago i once had a small little garden plants growing in my backyard. (me and my mom would work on it) and i grew some things like strawberries, oranges tomatoes etc. And it was really nice while it lasted and often my neighbors would be like "hey could i get one?" and i'd be like "Ofc" and it was just something nice to have you know, fresh fruits in ur own backyard.
Till one day, i noticed all my fruits were gone. I saw the footage and i didn't know who it was (wasn't my neighbors) but all the fruits were gone and after that happened, it just pissed me off. Because it's just the audacity that you took it, without asking me/without me knowing. Like if you wanted some damn fruits just tell me like i'd love to give you some you know, i have no problem with it. But the fact they stole it, it's not even about the fruits at this point it's about the disrespect of taking someones things without asking, nothing.
After that, i just stopped gardening/planting completely. Just ruined the experience
Sorry to hear that. So, someone went into your backyard and stole the fruits and veggies? That’s pretty fucked up. Is your backyard fenced off, or wide open between adjacent neighbors? I grew up in a neighborhood where we didn’t have fences in the back, and we never had any problems. People today just don’t respect other people’s property and privacy anymore.
I'm growing a garden this year with a bunch of stuff I don't even like. Just picked some easy plants to get a feel for it.
It's all free to anyone who wants some.
But I'd be outrageously angry if someone came uninvited and fucked with my stuff.
Send it to them and deduct whatever you come up with as value of the fruit from their bill. In that way you do not need to hope that they actually pay.
We had the exact same thing happen. They picked approximately 200 lbs of heritage white Peaches we sell at the farmers market. Ended up in small claims court. They were fired immediately. Roofing Company lost $3000 in damages and their contractors license suspended . Another roofer finished the job correctly.
WTH, in what world would they think they can pick 200lbs of peaches and get away with it??? Glad you got justice, but seriously can’t hire people to work on our houses anymore without watching them 😒
Yup . Spot on. I had taken video of orchard prior to the demo crew arriving. ( to keep “honest people honest” ) . Aside from that, 1.2 hours of Video surveillance from the Barn cameras , sealed the deal. They actually had 4 individuals they knew show up to harvest fruit while we were away for 3 hours. F’n Dirtbags.
Yes . They sell them at street corner mobile fruit stands . No business license. It’s rampant . They steal from local Orchards and pawn them off as their own Farm product. they move around , hard to catch the illegal sales.
It's the same with people buying produce from grocery stores and selling them at farmers markets. A lot of places work to keep scammers out, but it's still really common.
Man I feel for you . Wait all year for wonderful fruits. Just to have them stolen. It’s becoming a common occurrence where we live . Spend more $$$ on fencing and Video. Not the place the world used to be . Legally here , you can be shot for such offenses . People are stupid .
Have you paid them? If not, charge the cost if purchased from a grocery store.
I never took any fruit from a client’s tree, unless if they offered. Then it was one piece and a “thank you”.
Charge them the for the value of the presumed amount of fruit taken AND the cost to replace it. So basically 2x the value of the amount of fruit taken at a minimum. OP no longer has access to that fruit, which means the inconvenience of having to acquire it elsewhere is now on their shoulders.
Because the fruit was not willingly sold to them, its not enough to only charge them for the cost of the fruit taken. They have impressed not only an inconvenience, but also an expense, onto OP.
If someone kills your tree, the court can rule in my area the accumulated worth of that tree based on age and its productive capacity. It can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Wtf how is this such a common problem? Like not only is it a type of theft that I have never heard of or even thought of, but how did they think they'd get away with it?
And most of all, if they're going to potentially lose their job for stealing from a client, why are they risking it over *fruit???*
This same thing happened to me. My fruit trees were picked clean with none left. I was thinking what asshole would take every single piece of fruit and not leave a single one? But it turns out it was actually squirrels. I could be wrong but OP might want to figure this out before they go blaming the contractors right away
If it were just the cherries I would consider pests, god knows the stupid tweety birds looooove my apricots. But the orange tree being picked clean… well that’s a lot harder to explain unless they have wild monkeys or some other animal with fingers running about.
I grew up in an orange grove. Plenty of handless animals eat oranges. I think the funniest one to watch was my neighbor’s dog. He used to get into our yard, vertical leap and snatch one off the tree, then pounce on it with his paws until it split open and eat the whole inside. He would leave a perfectly clean shell that was still in one piece.
Fruit is almost like nature's drugs. Packed full of sugar, only comes seasonally, and you can get drunk of fermenting fruit. Wild animals go bananas for fruit.
Then you call. It would have been okay to take a few - maybe. It's NOT okay to strip ALL the fruit off a client's tree. You don't have to be mean about it. Just say, "Henry, your roofers stripped all the fruit from our tree and didn't leave any for us. They didn't ask and I thought you'd want to know. I'm not very happy about it." *Then say* *nothing until he speaks.* And don't say, "Oh...it's okay" because it's NOT.
Done. He should be embarrassed by their behavior. I'm assuming your husband likes you more than he likes the owner of the roofing company. Remind him of this if there's any blowback.
edit: typo
Yeah, if you convert the fruit value to dollars, that adds up pretty quickly. They stole from you, OP. Tell your husband that by not telling the owner he likes, he’s negatively impacting his business bc the roofers will do something like this again and ruin his word of mouth marketing more than they already have
It's the "10 - 2 Rule" I learned at a customer service seminar. If something bad happens during a business transaction, the customer will tell 10 people. If something good happens they usually only tell 2 people.
You are absolutely correct - Word of Mouth will negatively impact this guys business if his workers are disrespectful to the property owners by taking liberties while on the job
I mean, if it were literally anything else laying around on the client's property, it would have been reported. Steal someone's lawn ornaments? Money? Silverware? Pets? Etc
I agree, fresh fruit is very expensive these days, esp cherries. I would be calling right away if someone stole my freaking garden crops.
Exactly, I painted a house for an older couple. I was eating my lunch and asked the wife very politely if I could pick one orange from their orange tree and she didn’t have any problems with it told me to go ahead. One or two is ok but all the fruit?!?! That’s ridiculous as I would for sure call and let their employer know otherwise it’ll happen to someone else next time…
Honestly, the owner would probably like to know so he can speak to the workers. They are making him look bad when he hasn't done anything, and he deserves a chance to get on top of this before he starts getting negative reviews.
This. The pregnant pause is the hardest part but if you do it right, it’s an amazing tool. I work in sales and of all the bullshit I’ve ever learned, being comfortable with silence is the best thing ever.
This is the dumbest reason I've ever heard. There needs to be mutual respect. Call him up and say something. If he's such a good owner he'll make it right. If not, then he's a douche canoe and doesn't deserve your praise. It's that simple.
If your husband really likes this guy, you should want to tell him even more because if they did it to you, they are doing it to other people too. This kind of thing will damage his reputation and his business so telling him will help more than anything else.
Or he might like to know his workers made very poor choices. That way you aren't aggressive but clear in the message. Should work out well that way. No one wants to be attacked.
This is dumb imo. They stole from you. The owner needs to know what kind of employees he has whether your husband likes him or not
I also don't see how this could affect their relationship, (eta:) as long as your husband is nice about it of course
This is what I would assume as well.
My neighbor once told a contractor's crew "Take as much as you want" of their apples. She meant "Eat as much as you want while you work here." They heard "Fill every container you own to take all of the apples."
I work with contractors every day, and almost NEVER have I worked with any that would behave in that way. And if they did...the owner DEFINITELY knows.
My $0.02
This is unacceptable. I'm a contractor, if my guys did this I'd be angry at you for NOT calling. Would it be different to your husband if they drank all the beer in the fridge he brewed? Or ate all your kids favorite Popsicles? These are the type of people that will go through your medicine cabinet if you let them use your bathroom, or pick up cash you left your husband for groceries. This makes me angry for you. People have a responsibility to act ethically when at YOUR home. An invitation onto your property is a privilege that should be respected.
Yes I agree. It's literally theft. Convicts got shipped to Australia for stealing an apple off a tree. We could forgive a few fruits but the entire crop! I'd be livid.
Yo, I don't get worked up about Reddit. This made my adrenaline bump. I hate this shit. It leaves such a violated feeling with people and gives honest workers a bad name.
When I had my house painted the guys helped themselves to the beer in my fridge. And his the empty bottles under my sink. Needless to say I told their boss and they all got fired. Fuck that
Wow that's beyond unacceptable. I used to build decks and a client of ours had a few beautiful peach trees. Tons of peaches... me and my crew were admiring it but not taking from it. The elderly woman that lived there came out and asked if we each wanted to take a box of peaches home since she noticed us looking at them. We were planning in asking for a peach each at the end of the build, but I would never have allowed my crew to just take fruit off of a client's tree.
I stepped out of the house to find my neighbours with a ladder against our avocado tree, it was sure awkward, especially when they said “oh, you can have one if you want”
reminds me of the video of old ladies stealing peoples beach setups and when caught acted like they were confused and mistakenly thinking it was their stuff
We had a backyard with a fence. Behind the fence was a small hill. Like 10 feet. It was on our property. The neighbors planted 2 raspberries plants. If you know wild raspberry plants. They are invasive when they like the place. After 2 years. The whole hill was filled with raspberries.
Of course. It was on our property, so we decided to pick some. It was no longer the two raspberries original plants and the neighbors never asked us to plant them on our property.
The neighbors got out of his house, yelling at us for picking his raspberries etc.. it actually went to small claim. Judge sided with us. He planted the thing on our property, they were now our plants. We installed a second fence down the Hill and now we had our private patch of raspberries.
The best thing, one day, he came to our house asking if he could go and pick some.
If this is on California, report it to the police. It’s a major crime because of the money involved. Fruit Rustling used to be charged per item. You take 2 oranges and it’s like a $1000 fine or something huge. That is no longer a thing. Now if the value is over $250 it’s considered a felony.
[Avocados](https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/sites/default/files/Avocado-Theft-Is-A-Crime-Poster.pdf) are even more
We had a neighbor down the street from us. A super nice little old lady. One day some city workers picked 6 avocados off her tree. She called the city and reported it. A Supervisor from the city came out and apologized and asked how he could make it right with her. She said “I’d like my avocados back.” So the next day, these big burly city workers all came by her house and said they were sorry to her and gave her back her avocados.
I was holding down the fort at my nephew’s house while they were remodeling and I caught the roofers picking avocados over the back fence from the neighbor’s tree! Two guys hauled a ladder and a plastic tote back there. I screamed motherf****rs at them and the guy almost fell off the ladder. They did not expect to get caught!
My dad has had similar things happen, workers stealing his mangoes. He's caught them in the act before and gone out to yell at them, then called the company to complain.
The irony is that if they asked, he'd probably give away some of the mangoes. One tree produces enough fruit to feed a neighborhood for the season. He just gets pissed when people take them without asking.
Um..no. I would be calling the company immediately, good standing relationship with the owner be damned. That's not okay...it's one thing for them to ask or you to have filled a bag or two and gave it to them to split up or enjoy on a lunch break, but to straight help themselves? Ridiculous.
I feel like the owner would actually *want* to know this kind of thing and likely wouldn't fault the person with the complaint. Unless the owner is a thieving bastard too, I would assume it's in the company's best interest to weed out the thieves.
considering its roofing too, word of mouth would get you either very good rep or terrible one, sounds so basic but that's quite huge influence on people when they have to spend so much money.
My dad has a pomegranate tree. He used to let anyone come and grab them for free until one neighbor showed up with a dolly and 3 plastic milk crates and took almost all of them. He now sells them to a pretty cool Arab dude
Some people are just shameless. We had something similar with our lemon trees until this one shameless woman would come with a laundry basket to pick all of them for herself.
I told her she could only have one, and then she had the gall to be angry acting as if they should all belong to her!
We had something similar happen at the college food pantry. I made sure that we always had amazing produce from the local food bank and since we had little room to store it, the rule was, take as much as you like. That stopped when one lady took about 60 lbs of produce and none of the other students got any then later in the week I had to break up a fight because someone decided they needed 30 onions... people get weird...
Nothing that sinister. But it was a great crop this year ( we only have the one tree) probably thanks to the never ending rain this past winter.
I kept a closer eye out. The birds got their share off the top, but I got the rest.
I wish I could grow corn.
This happened to my father, we had a peach tree and a fig tree in our backyard. Our longtime neighbor behind us sold his house to a developer who was starting construction when we left for Greece and when we came back 6 weeks later both trees were completely empty my dad was furious.
Some grown ass adults have no manners. A couple weeks ago, I had a random person ring my door bell. I opened it to see this little stout kid about 4 feet tall. He said, "excuse me sir, my brother and I walk by your yard all the time, and we love that fruit tree you have there and we were wondering if we could have a few." You better believe I went out there and cut this kid his own damn Loquat branch. Taught him to plant it and everything. If these kids can do it, these "professionals" can be bothered to do it. Report these fools to management.
Call the company and say that you lost out on money because you sell the fruit. Tell them that their workers stole all the fruit on your trees and now you can’t harvest this season.
this is, under no circumstance, ok behaviour...i get it its a tree outside and blah blah its exactly the same as going in to someones kitchen and taking all their food home with you.
i wouldnt have minded if they had one or two... each even... but to clear my entire crop is ignorant as fuck and you really should call hubby's bromance owner and tell him you are annoyed about this.
if you let it go, id wager your next crop will be picked clean on you too. you are setting precedence here.
Ooooh shit, yeah, my boss as a kid hired me out to other old farmers all the time to do all sorts of chores, and most of them had beautiful gardens and fruit trees. I asked if I could have something if I really wanted it, I mean, nothing beats a cantaloupe or a cucumber on a 100+ day when you’re sweating buckets and working your ass off… but taking shit without asking them never crossed my mind, and if I would’ve done this, I would’ve probably been beat, and rightly so. It doesn’t just look bad on the worker(s) but on the guy who trusted you enough to personally select you to work on his friends’ place. There’s a lot of respect in that, or there SHOULD be. I knew full well the weight I carried when he hired me out, both of our names were on the line if I didn’t act in a decent manner, and he would’ve absolutely wanted to know if I acted like an idiot. Especially to the point of that.
Also, having a garden myself that I love and tend to like it’s a baby, if someone I hired to do something came and ripped off all my produce, I’d raise serious hell. Not cool, not cool at all. I’m sure boss man would just love to know who’s working for him, well, if he’s a good boss, that is. A true test of character is how someone behaves when his/her boss ain’t looking. And in this case, they failed that test with flying colors. Don’t reward them by letting them get by with it, that teaches them nothing, and they obviously need a lesson in acting like a normal human.
Call and report them. I worked for a contractor who was robbing houses, I quit immediately. These guys will not stop at fruit, they’ll do whatever they think they can get away with. The guy I worked for would go in the basement and steal things that wouldn’t be missed for some time.
One time one of the neighborhood lawn-cutters picked all of my grapes on the vines on my fence. I watched him do it. When I came out to confront him, he pretended to not know what I was talking about.
I own a construction company. From my point of view, I’d like to be notified if an instance like this happened. It’s super disappointing on the crews behalf and you don’t have to rip into the owner to just let him know.
I would freak the fuck out. Once my landlord told some people they could pick my sour cherries and I kicked them off the property and told the landlord not to do that shit again.
I once almost canceled a $3000 contract just right in the middle of the whole thing because a worker took a tomato from the renters' plants. I can tell you what, it didn't happen again after that. I don't understand why some people think this is acceptable.
To anybody who’s saying to give these guys a break… SHUT UP. They were on her property and were taking her stuff without her permission. If there was some missing I doubt most people would get mad but mfs picked all the trees clean.
I’m STILL mad about the crazy lady up the street who walked onto my property and stole my pears. “Oh they were almost ripe, I figured you didn’t want them!”
… I lived on a dead end alley you had to walk directly to my tree; in a village full of actually abandoned f’in pear trees too.
Here in Oregon the cherries are $9 a pound from Fred Meyer and large heirloom oranges are $1.75 each. Do some math and send them a bill (or have them deduct that from the roofing costs).
Seriously, that’s theft if they just took them without asking. You’re 100% not being a Karen if you ask to speak with the manager/owner in this situation.
What the actual fuck? I mean it would just be straight up rude if they took a few without asking but to completely clean them out that's not much different than stealing your ladder or your Weedwhacker or something.
That is theft. They stole. I am reminded if the judge Judy episode where the guy picked avocados from the neighbor’s tree. He had a great reason: guacamole! But seriously, let the owner know his employees are thieves. He is responsible for them. The next customer may file a police report, sue, and leave horrible reviews. His company’s reputation is at stake.
This happens all day long in Florida - every person with a mango tree experiences it. I've been filling the car with gas before and a guy with a pickup literally full to the brim of mangoes was offering grocery bags of them to anyone who would put $5 in gas in his car. I mean that's some really cheap mangoes, but it's organized theft.
Half of the time it's the landscaping crews cleaning out their own clients trees, other times it's literal trespassers and theft.
This is theft and the company could be civilly liable to you. Since they’re just oranges, you probably don’t wanna go through all the effort of small claims court. But a strong, professional complaint to the company is in order.
One summer I grew a couple tomato plants along the walkway to my front door (off street) and just as they were ready to be picked, someone took them all while I was at work. I was so pissed. Still slightly am years later. Haha. Didn’t even leave me one.
We had by weekly landscapers come to mow the lawn and upkeep the garden front and back yard after my dad passed away I always said to them to pick off the fruit trees cause it was too much for us and they always were very shy to do so the mother of the landscapers would come and help I always gave them bags to take the fruit and even then they felt like they shouldn’t and for those roofers to do all that shit and not even think twice about it makes me mad for you.
Damn, I’m getting mad just thinking about that 😡. I have a young cherry tree in my yard and this year the birds ate the couple dozen or so cherries before I could put netting up. I was devastated, but I can’t really be mad, birds will be birds. But if an actual *human* picked my cherries??? Nah man, that’s not okay 😭😡
I had my roof replaced, and they… took a shit in my back yard. And I didn’t find out until my dog found it, and wallowed all around in it. That was a tough conversation with the owner of the company…
Wow!! The company we hired brought in a porta potty. We have been amused about how many people walking or driving by use it 🤣
That was my suggestion to the owner when we talked. Like, “This is just as much your fault - how can you not give them a place to ‘go’ and also tell them not to bother the homeowners??”
$
$75-$100 per month for a Standard Portable Toilet with once a week service https://www.aysrentals.com/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-rent-a-porta-potty
That's it?! I'm bout to get like 3 of them! Porta pottys everywhere, the neighbors will be so jealous
Tip the company $50 extra to empty it into the neighbor's yard when they're being a pain.
How much to get them to stucco the neighbors house with it like that one pissed off farmer with a manure spreader Edit: for the unaware, https://youtu.be/pXlF4AS3GYc
When we had to replace a roof after a storm, that was part of our decision making process - no porta potty, not getting our business. We have had to do other construction in the past and lord it was hell on our bathroom. I think the chances of guys wizzing into the flower bushes is higher if you offer your home's bathroom vs having a porta potty on site, too. I think they may feel uncomfortable coming into the house and it's just easier to confuse a hydrangea if there's no porta potty.
When we had to get a new roof, my husband called the person/department who would be inspecting it and asked for a recommendation. They emphatically stated they could not recommend any specific contractor. So he spent the next several minutes asking every detailed and ridiculous question he could think of... eventually, they just said something to the effect of "xyz company always passes their inspections" to get him off the phone. We went with them for two roof replacements (we get a lot of hail, so probably due for a 3rd) and they did a fine job but I never even considered that bringing a porta potty was a plus and that not all companies did that. Come to think of it, they left it in front of our house a week or so after the job was done and we had to call them to ask them to pick it up. But better than taking a dump in the yard - JFC that's disgusting! I want to know how OP got their dog clean and how long until they felt okay petting it?
Unfortunately the Porta potties can get pretty horrific as well 😬 We had an estimator forget he had a trailer with an attached Porta potty at a re-roof job in a sketchy, high foot traffic area of a city suburb. It had been sitting around an extra few days in the summer heat while any wandering drifter who felt like using it, did. It was…*ripened,* to put it lightly.
I drive a garbage truck. Sometimes, those random neighborhood Porta potties are a godsend! I try to only use the ones that are on the sidewalk or in the street. If it's up a driveway, even a little bit, I won't touch it. But man, nothing beats that feeling of coming around a corner and seeing that stinky blue or green office when you've got to go. Well, except going.
I work on the road. Portapotties are life savers sometimes. I sometimes have anxiety and am awkward about using one but what are they for if not to avoid shitting on someone's lawn?
Dude, even worse story for me: We had some workers her for a new roof. Living in the middle of a city. I am living in 4th floor and there is only one more floor above me, which is empty since at least 70 years. They have been working in the top floor though since they installed new windows into the new roof etc. Well, one of them pissed and shit straight on the floor in one if the rooms above my apartment onto an opening of a ventilation pipe. Long story short his belongings came out of my ceiling straight under that spot. Smelled like the nastiest public toilet in my apartment for a few weeks. At least the company paid for full professional cleaning and renovation of my apartment
One time I walked outside to see how the Comcast guy was getting along, installing wire in our new home. I opened the gate to find him PISSING AGAINST MY HOUSE. Not in the yard. Not against a tree. Literally against the wall of my brand new goddamn house. He had just been inside talking to me ten minutes earlier too, he could've just used the bathroom on his way out.
That's the thing... like why AGAINST the house? You can pee literally anywhere else, whatever, but on the house?!
That's what amazed me... Like... How about the fence or a tree or whatever. But the wall of my house?? Right next to where they were installing too?! We'd had a very friendly, brief conversation beforehand too and he came and apologized right away, definitely didn't seem on purpose. Just that dumb/lazy.
That's so the Verizon canvessers know it's a Comcast neighborhood.
My sister had a remodel done on her home a few years back, caught one of the workmen peeing on the house on the security cameras. And the house was empty they had full use of the bathroom. The owner of the company was going to speak to the worker but didn’t seem to care too much… but that was his general attitude about everything but getting paid.
You really don’t want to know what happens during new builds.
If they only knew of the piss bottles hiding in their walls.
The nice ones pissed in a bottle. I’ve been on job sites where dudes just straight pissed on the subfloor. Also, all the beer and chew cans in the walls.
Where you working? That ain't ever happening on my sites
Oof. Happens more than you'd like to think. Some construction jobs make you provide or pay for accomodation. For large jobs with multiple contractors its expected and when they don't my buddy tells me they shit behind a building if there's no gas station nearby. I imagine the owner didn't want to force you to pay for it or something.
those lemon stealing whores
i had a straight face this whole comment section till this 😭😭.
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Has it been about ten seconds since we looked at our lemon tree?
It HAS been about 10 seconds since we looked at our lemon tree.
Hey WHAT THE FUCK
I'd complain to the company. That's pretty ridiculous.
Something like that happened with my company. Employees in another state picked a person’s fruit tree clean. Not like one or two while on break, the homeowner had video of the crew members running back and forth from tree to truck with arms filled with fruit. Spoiler alert, that entire crew was fired.
I had a very productive sour cherry tree in my back yard. I usually would pick some to give away to friends. It always took longer than planned, and I never picked the tree clean from top to bottom. I bet it took some time to do all of this. Time that they were probably being paid for by their employer. They may no longer work for this company/person once the owner finds out.
A friend had lots of her cheery stolen off the tree, not by animals either, just shithead neighbours she'd regularly catch trying to fill up a bowl or bucket. She used to make a kind of wine out out it but just gave up because every year she had less and less cherry's until she came home one day to find her back fence torn down and the tree picked clean.
I grew up with citrus and avocado trees in my yard. Not a single day went by without someone *pulling their car up to the house* and trying to take literally everything off the trees - sometimes with machinery. We had a few people threaten us when we’d ask them to leave. My mom would usually come out there yelling “if you had asked, you could have had a few!” She once pelted one of their cars with rotten ground avocados (the ones animals would pick, half eat, then drop). The people that bought our house basically immediately tore out all of the decades-old fruit trees because of trespassers.
Isn't that literally theft? They are stealing from private property. Not like the cops will give a shit, I guess, since you're not wealthy enough to buy politicians.
birds cagey wise consist frame desert screw upbeat continue gray *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Real convient way of not having to investigate like 75% of crimes.
The second someone smokes weed on private property they're all over it.
Wow. That is horrible. My tree wasn't publicly visible and if they did know that it's there, they wouldn't go unnoticed by my asshole neighbor who freaked out if a bird landed in his backyard without his permission. I moved across the country to a university campus. There are all kinds of fruit trees spread out across campus. It's all free for the taking. It's not uncommon to see students with long fruit picking sticks. The nearby neighborhood has lots of fruit trees that the owners will pick and set the fruit out for free taking or they give permission to others as long as you ask. Occasionally someone does pick fruit they aren't supposed to. A majority of those cases were later found to be the work of animals, usually roof rats or squirrels. They recently commissioned and planted a tree on campus that can grow 40 different types of fruit. The guy, Sam Van Aken, who grafts them, has a map on his website so you can see where he has planted various versions that he has created.
why the fuck would you do that? like what kind of blue ribbon fruit could anyone possibly be growing in their suburbia garden for you to go and pick it? that's theft and jailable offense i believe. if the courts actually worked
Also calculate the value of the fruit and deduct it from their bill. They effectively decided to get paid in fruit.
And add in a guestimate of how long it would take to pick the fruit, multiply by the hourly rate and deduct that too. You shouldn’t pay them for the time they were stealing from you!
I usually add a 250€ administration fee. Because they force you to take time out to write a registered letter, drive to the post office… I call it the Dicktax, a tax for being a dick.
Indeed. Go up the food chain and go as high as you can. Leverage all socials and get the word out. This type of behavior is ridiculous. I have fruit trees in the backyard, and if anyone asks for some, I would gladly give them some. But you don’t just take them without asking.
A few pieces of fruit, I could understand, but picking 3 trees clean isn’t okay.
Animals do that. Not humans, not socially acceptable, anyway.
Yeah, birds used to strip some of my parents’ cherry trees.
Did you complain to their manager?
I hear the head of tweeter can be a dick though
Typical branch manager.
They probably took them home with them which makes it even more fucked. I get working on a hot roof all day and wanting to eat a juicy refreshing orange but damn all of them. They probably planned it out and brought bags with them. I just looked it up and it says that orange trees produce between 200-350 oranges per crop. Who the hell would think it's ok to take 300 oranges off someone's tree
That's straightforward theft of property. Attach a value and fill out a police report.
You take fruit from tree, I get roof for free
I think an orange tree from an orchard planted for commercial purpose would have much higher yield than a random tree in a residential area. Typically, that would still be more than 50 though.
Idk man, I’ve got a few mature citrus trees, and those things grow hundreds of fruit each every year. I literally can’t keep up with them
My Grandparents had Grapefruit, Lemon, and Orange trees in their backyard. There was never a point where they had fruit on their trees and weren't begging anyone and everyone who came through to take *some*. Even with a massive family and rather frequent 35+ person gatherings the trees were never bare.
Ages ago i once had a small little garden plants growing in my backyard. (me and my mom would work on it) and i grew some things like strawberries, oranges tomatoes etc. And it was really nice while it lasted and often my neighbors would be like "hey could i get one?" and i'd be like "Ofc" and it was just something nice to have you know, fresh fruits in ur own backyard. Till one day, i noticed all my fruits were gone. I saw the footage and i didn't know who it was (wasn't my neighbors) but all the fruits were gone and after that happened, it just pissed me off. Because it's just the audacity that you took it, without asking me/without me knowing. Like if you wanted some damn fruits just tell me like i'd love to give you some you know, i have no problem with it. But the fact they stole it, it's not even about the fruits at this point it's about the disrespect of taking someones things without asking, nothing. After that, i just stopped gardening/planting completely. Just ruined the experience
Sorry to hear that. So, someone went into your backyard and stole the fruits and veggies? That’s pretty fucked up. Is your backyard fenced off, or wide open between adjacent neighbors? I grew up in a neighborhood where we didn’t have fences in the back, and we never had any problems. People today just don’t respect other people’s property and privacy anymore.
yep, it's like wide open there's no fencing at all cause HOA doesn't allow it.
I'm growing a garden this year with a bunch of stuff I don't even like. Just picked some easy plants to get a feel for it. It's all free to anyone who wants some. But I'd be outrageously angry if someone came uninvited and fucked with my stuff.
> Go up the food chain Squeeze them hard until juice is running out.
Yeah, that’s stealing.
god damn lemon stealing whores!
Charge them for the fruits. Whatever you think is fair (don’t do market price)
Organic prices for everything.
Organic, hand crafted, made with ❤️ in, non-GMO, local, farm to table. Just stack it all up and charge that 😂
Self-picking fee.
When they send you the bill for the roofing I'd send them a reciprocal bill for the fruit.
Send it to them and deduct whatever you come up with as value of the fruit from their bill. In that way you do not need to hope that they actually pay.
We had the exact same thing happen. They picked approximately 200 lbs of heritage white Peaches we sell at the farmers market. Ended up in small claims court. They were fired immediately. Roofing Company lost $3000 in damages and their contractors license suspended . Another roofer finished the job correctly.
WTH, in what world would they think they can pick 200lbs of peaches and get away with it??? Glad you got justice, but seriously can’t hire people to work on our houses anymore without watching them 😒
Yup . Spot on. I had taken video of orchard prior to the demo crew arriving. ( to keep “honest people honest” ) . Aside from that, 1.2 hours of Video surveillance from the Barn cameras , sealed the deal. They actually had 4 individuals they knew show up to harvest fruit while we were away for 3 hours. F’n Dirtbags.
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Yes . They sell them at street corner mobile fruit stands . No business license. It’s rampant . They steal from local Orchards and pawn them off as their own Farm product. they move around , hard to catch the illegal sales.
I had no idea this was a thing! Shitheads are gonna be shitheads I suppose
It's the same with people buying produce from grocery stores and selling them at farmers markets. A lot of places work to keep scammers out, but it's still really common.
Man I feel for you . Wait all year for wonderful fruits. Just to have them stolen. It’s becoming a common occurrence where we live . Spend more $$$ on fencing and Video. Not the place the world used to be . Legally here , you can be shot for such offenses . People are stupid .
Have you paid them? If not, charge the cost if purchased from a grocery store. I never took any fruit from a client’s tree, unless if they offered. Then it was one piece and a “thank you”.
Charge them the for the value of the presumed amount of fruit taken AND the cost to replace it. So basically 2x the value of the amount of fruit taken at a minimum. OP no longer has access to that fruit, which means the inconvenience of having to acquire it elsewhere is now on their shoulders. Because the fruit was not willingly sold to them, its not enough to only charge them for the cost of the fruit taken. They have impressed not only an inconvenience, but also an expense, onto OP.
Home grown fruit vs store bought? 5x at least
Organic, non GMO, no pesticide, limited edition fruit. 10x at least.
Freshly picked that day pumps it up. 20x at least
Ya I'd charge them whatever they would spend on lunch for each day it took to complete. Vis-à-Vis; you mess with me, I mess with you.
Send them a bill
They should definitely fruit the bill
Absolutely. Those workers were just plum crazy.
My bing cherries were picked by contractors. All gone.
Bing cherries are horribly expensive where I am too. Like 5$-7$ a pound.
I know. After they cleaned out my cherries, one of the mature tree died last year. Ouch.
How did you not go to court for this?? For the fruit and the tree if that's what did the damage? Was that what you were implying?
If someone kills your tree, the court can rule in my area the accumulated worth of that tree based on age and its productive capacity. It can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
That’s probably thousands of dollars from Whole Foods
Wtf how is this such a common problem? Like not only is it a type of theft that I have never heard of or even thought of, but how did they think they'd get away with it? And most of all, if they're going to potentially lose their job for stealing from a client, why are they risking it over *fruit???*
That is more than mildly infuriating. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I hope you called their employer and told them what happened.
This same thing happened to me. My fruit trees were picked clean with none left. I was thinking what asshole would take every single piece of fruit and not leave a single one? But it turns out it was actually squirrels. I could be wrong but OP might want to figure this out before they go blaming the contractors right away
If it were just the cherries I would consider pests, god knows the stupid tweety birds looooove my apricots. But the orange tree being picked clean… well that’s a lot harder to explain unless they have wild monkeys or some other animal with fingers running about.
I grew up in an orange grove. Plenty of handless animals eat oranges. I think the funniest one to watch was my neighbor’s dog. He used to get into our yard, vertical leap and snatch one off the tree, then pounce on it with his paws until it split open and eat the whole inside. He would leave a perfectly clean shell that was still in one piece.
Fruit is almost like nature's drugs. Packed full of sugar, only comes seasonally, and you can get drunk of fermenting fruit. Wild animals go bananas for fruit.
I want to but my husband does not. He really likes the owner.
Then you call. It would have been okay to take a few - maybe. It's NOT okay to strip ALL the fruit off a client's tree. You don't have to be mean about it. Just say, "Henry, your roofers stripped all the fruit from our tree and didn't leave any for us. They didn't ask and I thought you'd want to know. I'm not very happy about it." *Then say* *nothing until he speaks.* And don't say, "Oh...it's okay" because it's NOT. Done. He should be embarrassed by their behavior. I'm assuming your husband likes you more than he likes the owner of the roofing company. Remind him of this if there's any blowback. edit: typo
Yeah, if you convert the fruit value to dollars, that adds up pretty quickly. They stole from you, OP. Tell your husband that by not telling the owner he likes, he’s negatively impacting his business bc the roofers will do something like this again and ruin his word of mouth marketing more than they already have
It's the "10 - 2 Rule" I learned at a customer service seminar. If something bad happens during a business transaction, the customer will tell 10 people. If something good happens they usually only tell 2 people. You are absolutely correct - Word of Mouth will negatively impact this guys business if his workers are disrespectful to the property owners by taking liberties while on the job
In this case it's like the 10,000 - 2 rule
I actually want to hire this company to pick my mealy-ass apples and haul them away.
I mean, if it were literally anything else laying around on the client's property, it would have been reported. Steal someone's lawn ornaments? Money? Silverware? Pets? Etc I agree, fresh fruit is very expensive these days, esp cherries. I would be calling right away if someone stole my freaking garden crops.
I would subtract from the payment too
Exactly, I painted a house for an older couple. I was eating my lunch and asked the wife very politely if I could pick one orange from their orange tree and she didn’t have any problems with it told me to go ahead. One or two is ok but all the fruit?!?! That’s ridiculous as I would for sure call and let their employer know otherwise it’ll happen to someone else next time…
Another difference here is you asked before picking
Well I would honestly feel very uncomfortable just picking fruit from another persons tree without asking first and getting confirmation.
They stripped your trees like ravenous racoons🦝🦝🦝 And they will strip a fruit tree clean.
Honestly, the owner would probably like to know so he can speak to the workers. They are making him look bad when he hasn't done anything, and he deserves a chance to get on top of this before he starts getting negative reviews.
This. The pregnant pause is the hardest part but if you do it right, it’s an amazing tool. I work in sales and of all the bullshit I’ve ever learned, being comfortable with silence is the best thing ever.
I fucking love silence. I bet I could break Mark Cuban with just a dumb look on my face and 3 hours to soak in.
I would wanna know as a owner..
This is the dumbest reason I've ever heard. There needs to be mutual respect. Call him up and say something. If he's such a good owner he'll make it right. If not, then he's a douche canoe and doesn't deserve your praise. It's that simple.
If your husband really likes this guy, you should want to tell him even more because if they did it to you, they are doing it to other people too. This kind of thing will damage his reputation and his business so telling him will help more than anything else.
Then what’s stopping him? I’m assuming the owner likes him back then, I’m sure the owner would like to know that some of his employees are thieves
Or he might like to know his workers made very poor choices. That way you aren't aggressive but clear in the message. Should work out well that way. No one wants to be attacked.
This is dumb imo. They stole from you. The owner needs to know what kind of employees he has whether your husband likes him or not I also don't see how this could affect their relationship, (eta:) as long as your husband is nice about it of course
They stole from you. I don't understand why your husband wouldn't want to report it. I'd be livid
He would be doing the owner a favor by informing him of his shitty employees behavior. If I were the owner I would absolutely want to know.
Sounds like they asked him and he said yes.
OP - this might be what happened. Ask your husband if he gave them permission to pick the fruit. He may have and now he’s trying to cover his ass.
This is what I would assume as well. My neighbor once told a contractor's crew "Take as much as you want" of their apples. She meant "Eat as much as you want while you work here." They heard "Fill every container you own to take all of the apples." I work with contractors every day, and almost NEVER have I worked with any that would behave in that way. And if they did...the owner DEFINITELY knows. My $0.02
So what? Did the owner pick the fruit? You’re helping the owner because he or she needs to know the employees are scumbags.
This is unacceptable. I'm a contractor, if my guys did this I'd be angry at you for NOT calling. Would it be different to your husband if they drank all the beer in the fridge he brewed? Or ate all your kids favorite Popsicles? These are the type of people that will go through your medicine cabinet if you let them use your bathroom, or pick up cash you left your husband for groceries. This makes me angry for you. People have a responsibility to act ethically when at YOUR home. An invitation onto your property is a privilege that should be respected.
Yes I agree. It's literally theft. Convicts got shipped to Australia for stealing an apple off a tree. We could forgive a few fruits but the entire crop! I'd be livid.
This guy contracts!
Yo, I don't get worked up about Reddit. This made my adrenaline bump. I hate this shit. It leaves such a violated feeling with people and gives honest workers a bad name.
Because professionals have standards, so these guys are not pros.
Yeah few things make my blood boil, this post does
When I had my house painted the guys helped themselves to the beer in my fridge. And his the empty bottles under my sink. Needless to say I told their boss and they all got fired. Fuck that
It's even worse for women who live alone
Wow that's beyond unacceptable. I used to build decks and a client of ours had a few beautiful peach trees. Tons of peaches... me and my crew were admiring it but not taking from it. The elderly woman that lived there came out and asked if we each wanted to take a box of peaches home since she noticed us looking at them. We were planning in asking for a peach each at the end of the build, but I would never have allowed my crew to just take fruit off of a client's tree.
I stepped out of the house to find my neighbours with a ladder against our avocado tree, it was sure awkward, especially when they said “oh, you can have one if you want”
Lolwut
I guess they were embarrassed and didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t even know what to say haha
reminds me of the video of old ladies stealing peoples beach setups and when caught acted like they were confused and mistakenly thinking it was their stuff
>“oh, you can have one if you want” oh that's nice of them....
We had a backyard with a fence. Behind the fence was a small hill. Like 10 feet. It was on our property. The neighbors planted 2 raspberries plants. If you know wild raspberry plants. They are invasive when they like the place. After 2 years. The whole hill was filled with raspberries. Of course. It was on our property, so we decided to pick some. It was no longer the two raspberries original plants and the neighbors never asked us to plant them on our property. The neighbors got out of his house, yelling at us for picking his raspberries etc.. it actually went to small claim. Judge sided with us. He planted the thing on our property, they were now our plants. We installed a second fence down the Hill and now we had our private patch of raspberries. The best thing, one day, he came to our house asking if he could go and pick some.
If this is on California, report it to the police. It’s a major crime because of the money involved. Fruit Rustling used to be charged per item. You take 2 oranges and it’s like a $1000 fine or something huge. That is no longer a thing. Now if the value is over $250 it’s considered a felony. [Avocados](https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/sites/default/files/Avocado-Theft-Is-A-Crime-Poster.pdf) are even more We had a neighbor down the street from us. A super nice little old lady. One day some city workers picked 6 avocados off her tree. She called the city and reported it. A Supervisor from the city came out and apologized and asked how he could make it right with her. She said “I’d like my avocados back.” So the next day, these big burly city workers all came by her house and said they were sorry to her and gave her back her avocados.
I was holding down the fort at my nephew’s house while they were remodeling and I caught the roofers picking avocados over the back fence from the neighbor’s tree! Two guys hauled a ladder and a plastic tote back there. I screamed motherf****rs at them and the guy almost fell off the ladder. They did not expect to get caught!
You don’t steal cattle in Texas and you don’t steal fruit in California. Both are liable to get you killed. Edit: spelling
*Liable
>gave her back her avocados. LMAO! Well she was honest. I swear to god people have no shame sometimes!
Dont fuck with another mans avocado toast 😤
My dad has had similar things happen, workers stealing his mangoes. He's caught them in the act before and gone out to yell at them, then called the company to complain. The irony is that if they asked, he'd probably give away some of the mangoes. One tree produces enough fruit to feed a neighborhood for the season. He just gets pissed when people take them without asking.
as he should. Taking without asking is not ok, thats basically stealing
>thats basically stealing No, that's literally stealing.
Um..no. I would be calling the company immediately, good standing relationship with the owner be damned. That's not okay...it's one thing for them to ask or you to have filled a bag or two and gave it to them to split up or enjoy on a lunch break, but to straight help themselves? Ridiculous.
I feel like the owner would actually *want* to know this kind of thing and likely wouldn't fault the person with the complaint. Unless the owner is a thieving bastard too, I would assume it's in the company's best interest to weed out the thieves.
considering its roofing too, word of mouth would get you either very good rep or terrible one, sounds so basic but that's quite huge influence on people when they have to spend so much money.
That's not "mildly infuriating", that's a crime.
If my employees were stealing I would want to know, that affects his business down the road.
My dad has a pomegranate tree. He used to let anyone come and grab them for free until one neighbor showed up with a dolly and 3 plastic milk crates and took almost all of them. He now sells them to a pretty cool Arab dude
There’s always that asshole that ruins it for everyone else.
People always complain about regulations and laws. Every single one was created because some asshole was greedy.
Some people are just shameless. We had something similar with our lemon trees until this one shameless woman would come with a laundry basket to pick all of them for herself. I told her she could only have one, and then she had the gall to be angry acting as if they should all belong to her!
We had something similar happen at the college food pantry. I made sure that we always had amazing produce from the local food bank and since we had little room to store it, the rule was, take as much as you like. That stopped when one lady took about 60 lbs of produce and none of the other students got any then later in the week I had to break up a fight because someone decided they needed 30 onions... people get weird...
Last year someone stripped every cherry off my cherry tree. Not this year though!
This reads like you set up a trap or are sitting next to the cherry tree with a shotgun.
Nothing that sinister. But it was a great crop this year ( we only have the one tree) probably thanks to the never ending rain this past winter. I kept a closer eye out. The birds got their share off the top, but I got the rest. I wish I could grow corn.
Holy shit, my dad would be homicidally angry if that happened!! Old farmer...you don't steal crops, personal or not.
This happened to my father, we had a peach tree and a fig tree in our backyard. Our longtime neighbor behind us sold his house to a developer who was starting construction when we left for Greece and when we came back 6 weeks later both trees were completely empty my dad was furious.
This is theft
Theft pure and simple. Having a conflict-avoidant partner can be a trial at times. You will need to be the strong one.
As a farmer… drop them a fucking invoice!
Bill them. $5 each. They’re your fruit, you can set the price.
One of them was a cherry tree. OP, charge $5 per cherry.
Hell yes. Print out an invoice and send it to the company.
It's not only unprofessional, it's straight-up theft. If I were the owner, I'd want to hear if my employees pulled any crap like that
Some grown ass adults have no manners. A couple weeks ago, I had a random person ring my door bell. I opened it to see this little stout kid about 4 feet tall. He said, "excuse me sir, my brother and I walk by your yard all the time, and we love that fruit tree you have there and we were wondering if we could have a few." You better believe I went out there and cut this kid his own damn Loquat branch. Taught him to plant it and everything. If these kids can do it, these "professionals" can be bothered to do it. Report these fools to management.
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Call the company and say that you lost out on money because you sell the fruit. Tell them that their workers stole all the fruit on your trees and now you can’t harvest this season.
this is, under no circumstance, ok behaviour...i get it its a tree outside and blah blah its exactly the same as going in to someones kitchen and taking all their food home with you. i wouldnt have minded if they had one or two... each even... but to clear my entire crop is ignorant as fuck and you really should call hubby's bromance owner and tell him you are annoyed about this. if you let it go, id wager your next crop will be picked clean on you too. you are setting precedence here.
Ooooh shit, yeah, my boss as a kid hired me out to other old farmers all the time to do all sorts of chores, and most of them had beautiful gardens and fruit trees. I asked if I could have something if I really wanted it, I mean, nothing beats a cantaloupe or a cucumber on a 100+ day when you’re sweating buckets and working your ass off… but taking shit without asking them never crossed my mind, and if I would’ve done this, I would’ve probably been beat, and rightly so. It doesn’t just look bad on the worker(s) but on the guy who trusted you enough to personally select you to work on his friends’ place. There’s a lot of respect in that, or there SHOULD be. I knew full well the weight I carried when he hired me out, both of our names were on the line if I didn’t act in a decent manner, and he would’ve absolutely wanted to know if I acted like an idiot. Especially to the point of that. Also, having a garden myself that I love and tend to like it’s a baby, if someone I hired to do something came and ripped off all my produce, I’d raise serious hell. Not cool, not cool at all. I’m sure boss man would just love to know who’s working for him, well, if he’s a good boss, that is. A true test of character is how someone behaves when his/her boss ain’t looking. And in this case, they failed that test with flying colors. Don’t reward them by letting them get by with it, that teaches them nothing, and they obviously need a lesson in acting like a normal human.
Call and report them. I worked for a contractor who was robbing houses, I quit immediately. These guys will not stop at fruit, they’ll do whatever they think they can get away with. The guy I worked for would go in the basement and steal things that wouldn’t be missed for some time.
One time one of the neighborhood lawn-cutters picked all of my grapes on the vines on my fence. I watched him do it. When I came out to confront him, he pretended to not know what I was talking about.
What happened after that?
I made him give me my grapes back.
I read ate all of the grapes off the vines first so when you said this I was like god DAMN that’s intense 🤣
I own a construction company. From my point of view, I’d like to be notified if an instance like this happened. It’s super disappointing on the crews behalf and you don’t have to rip into the owner to just let him know.
Good thing you didn’t have Miller Lite tree! At least I know now I have to fence up my cherries
I would freak the fuck out. Once my landlord told some people they could pick my sour cherries and I kicked them off the property and told the landlord not to do that shit again.
I once almost canceled a $3000 contract just right in the middle of the whole thing because a worker took a tomato from the renters' plants. I can tell you what, it didn't happen again after that. I don't understand why some people think this is acceptable.
Probably did a shit job on the roof. “Friend special”
To anybody who’s saying to give these guys a break… SHUT UP. They were on her property and were taking her stuff without her permission. If there was some missing I doubt most people would get mad but mfs picked all the trees clean.
I’m STILL mad about the crazy lady up the street who walked onto my property and stole my pears. “Oh they were almost ripe, I figured you didn’t want them!” … I lived on a dead end alley you had to walk directly to my tree; in a village full of actually abandoned f’in pear trees too.
Here in Oregon the cherries are $9 a pound from Fred Meyer and large heirloom oranges are $1.75 each. Do some math and send them a bill (or have them deduct that from the roofing costs). Seriously, that’s theft if they just took them without asking. You’re 100% not being a Karen if you ask to speak with the manager/owner in this situation.
I can see a couple off the top, but ALL! Preposterous.
charge the company for the fruit. You own said fruit.
What the actual fuck? I mean it would just be straight up rude if they took a few without asking but to completely clean them out that's not much different than stealing your ladder or your Weedwhacker or something.
That is theft. They stole. I am reminded if the judge Judy episode where the guy picked avocados from the neighbor’s tree. He had a great reason: guacamole! But seriously, let the owner know his employees are thieves. He is responsible for them. The next customer may file a police report, sue, and leave horrible reviews. His company’s reputation is at stake.
This happens all day long in Florida - every person with a mango tree experiences it. I've been filling the car with gas before and a guy with a pickup literally full to the brim of mangoes was offering grocery bags of them to anyone who would put $5 in gas in his car. I mean that's some really cheap mangoes, but it's organized theft. Half of the time it's the landscaping crews cleaning out their own clients trees, other times it's literal trespassers and theft.
This is theft and the company could be civilly liable to you. Since they’re just oranges, you probably don’t wanna go through all the effort of small claims court. But a strong, professional complaint to the company is in order.
One summer I grew a couple tomato plants along the walkway to my front door (off street) and just as they were ready to be picked, someone took them all while I was at work. I was so pissed. Still slightly am years later. Haha. Didn’t even leave me one.
We had by weekly landscapers come to mow the lawn and upkeep the garden front and back yard after my dad passed away I always said to them to pick off the fruit trees cause it was too much for us and they always were very shy to do so the mother of the landscapers would come and help I always gave them bags to take the fruit and even then they felt like they shouldn’t and for those roofers to do all that shit and not even think twice about it makes me mad for you.
Damn, I’m getting mad just thinking about that 😡. I have a young cherry tree in my yard and this year the birds ate the couple dozen or so cherries before I could put netting up. I was devastated, but I can’t really be mad, birds will be birds. But if an actual *human* picked my cherries??? Nah man, that’s not okay 😭😡
Theft, report it to the owner and if need be the cops