Food Theft

[cindybubbles]

I found a thread on CS.com about someone who threatened to tamper with food to get back at a food thief. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the link, since it was about food tampering, though.

However, I'd like to know your stories about food theft and what you would do or what you did to combat it. No food tampering, please, of course!

Thanks.

[Kuari]

I started using an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack so I could keep my lunch at my desk when I worked at desk jobs or places with lockers. And when I have had physically active jobs where I did not have a desk or locker to use and had to put my stuff into the fridge, I have used lunch bags with two zippers and padlocked the two zipper pulls together.

[NecCat]

The guys at work are vultures, and will eat anything that's not nailed down. (To be fair, they all share out their lunches too, but they usually all bring crap lunches). Anything I want to keep to myself I keep in my lunch bag in the cardboard box tampons came in. For some reason they never think to look in there

[cindybubbles]

When I worked in an office, I would bring in sandwiches that don't need refrigeration. As for fruit, I don't mind them not being cold and crisp as long as they aren't too mushy.

I also don't mind warm pop, and I never brought liquid tea; just tea bags and Splenda. Anything else I got, like milk, I got from the office, but not before asking whose stuff was whose so I wouldn't steal it from the office fridge.

[wolfie]

I recall reading about some guy who had a well-deserved reputation as a "chili head". He'd gladly give people a taste of his stuff if they asked, after giving them an honest report of how spicy it was.

His candy snacks went missing, so he bought some more from an online source. Those went missing too, but it was the last time anyone stole his snacks. I guess the food thief didn't like the jalapeno jelly beans.

[MadMike]

As a moderator, I have to clamp down on any discussions that involve food tampering. However, as a human, I figure if someone gets sick from stealing food, fuck 'em.

That being said, this is the closest I ever came to any sort of food tampering: For some reason, I never acquired a taste for coffee, so I get my morning caffeine from sodas. And since the vending machines at my job are a rip-off, I bring my own from home. I bring two every day -- one for in the morning, and one for lunch, which I stick in the fridge for later.

For awhile, my lunchtime soda kept vanishing. After it happened a few times, I got tired of it and decided to do something about it. Before I stuck it in the fridge, I shook the hell out of it. I wish I had access to a paint-shaker, like Bart Simpson did with Homer's beer as an April Fool's prank, but I think I did OK.

That one did vanish, but that was the last time it ever happened. I only wish I could have seen the resulting Dr. Pepper shower when the thief opened it!

I guess the food thief didn't like the jalapeno jelly beans.

As a lover of spicy foods, I'd probably enjoy something like that. But I wouldn't take it unless it was offered to me.

[AccountingDrone]

I lived in a rental house, with 3 bedrooms. I moved in with my BF when one of his roomies moved out. We were perfectly happy to pay for the whole place ourself but there was a stupid clause in the lease that allowed the landlord to shove someone into the third bedroom of his choice if we didn't find a person of our own. This guy turned out to be a deadbeat - he paid first and last month rent as usual, and for the 4 months he was there he didn't pay anything else. He also snuck our food - and on one weekend he siphoned out half a tank of gas from my car. [I went out and immediately bought a locking gas cap. Solved that little problem.]

So Dan decided to screw with him. Dan liked chocolate milk and would occasionally buy the premade grocery store stuff. So he came home with a box of chocolate ex lax, and a new half gallon carton of chocolate milk. When the roomie was out, he put half the box of exlax in the blender with about half a cup of hot water and hit puree. He chugged a glass or so of the unadultrated chocolate milk and then mixed in the liquid exlax and put his glass in the sink and ran some water in it. Ever couple of days he would swish a little of the doped chocolate milk in a glass, put it in the sink and run some water in it. After about a week of this, the roomie came in one morning and was complaining about the damned stomach bug that was going around .... of course we commiserated with him but admitted that we were just fine - you know, cast iron stomach and all. Then we abused him with homemade itching powder squiffled through his bedding and clothing that got him thinking he had lice ... thankfully the landlord managed to finally get him evicted ... but I have always checked my leases before signing them to make sure the landlord couldn't screw me like that ever again. It is hard enough finding good roomies in ones pool of friends, having some total stranger dumped on you sucks ass.

[Ginger Tea]

Shared house with shared kitchen doesn't mean shared food. Sadly not everyone got the memo.

Little bits here and there caused me to only buy ready meals and forget what little cooking skills I had, it was a bugger to go to make something to find the key ingredient gone, then a few days later after popping home via the 24 hour Tesco to find that after replacing that something else is missing.

One guy has a fridge-freezer in his room that he was gifted by the old tenant in one of the many rooms he's been downsized to due to lack of rent.
The woman who moved into his old room went and spent £50 on food and came back from work to find nigh on all of it gone, it wasn't a case of someone ate it that day, I guess you could, but everyone who lived in the house knew who it was and he denied it.

I did notice though when I was first getting ready meals that one particular flavour was prone to vanishing and I did originally intend to keep one in my room for a few days to spoil (as long as it didn't look/smell that way) then put it in with the others when I next bought some, I never did that, but I do wonder if he would put 2 and 2 together and leave our food the fuck alone.

[victory sabre]

No one is stupid enough to steal my food at work, they would get a crazy, spicy meal, and they know it.

However, when I was in college, and not a chili-head yet, I did have my food stolen in a rental house on a constant basis. It got so bad that I finally had to put the fridge in my room, just to keep my food safe, and yes, that was with the landlord's permission, there was another fridge upstairs.

[Lace Neil Singer]

A friend told me about this; didn't happen to her personally, but she was joining in the laughter. Basically, someone kept stealing this girl's Lactofree milk out the fridge and she was really annoyed about it. She was lactose intolerant and so could not just take some of the staff milk. She was putting the amount she needed in a container, which clearly had her name marked on it, so it wasn't just someone making a mistake. This didn't happen every day, just every so often but it bugged her cuz the person was obviously going to the fridge and just grabbing it to drink, cuz she sometimes found the empty bottles in the bin.

Fast forward to the lactose intolerant girl going on maternity leave then returning to work. She pumped milk at work, and cuz the food thief had continued their thievery to welcome her back, she stuck some of her breastmilk in the container instead of the lactose free milk. Yes, the one that kept vanishing. It did that day, and she casually announced in the staff room afterwards, "Oh, someone took my breastmilk."

No-one ever took her milk again. XD Of course, breastmilk can't harm anyone, but there is a bit of a squick factor for some people, and obviously the thief was one of them.

[MadMike]

There was a company-wide email that was broadcast awhile back, and I really wish I would have saved it, because it had me laughing. It mentioned that "something" was taken from one of the company fridges, and the person it belonged to was "concerned" about the person who took it. It "may have looked like chocolate milk", but was actually some sort of medicine that contained, among other things, a blood thinner.

I don't remember the exact wording, because it was a long time ago. And I don't know if it was really what they were saying it was, but I thought it was pretty damn funny.

[cindybubbles]

Reminds me of the poster I saw somewhere in CS.com or googling food theft.

The person was asking the food thief to please return their immuno-suppressive pills. Pills that the person needs to stay alive, but would do terrible damage to healthy food thieves!

The person then ended with this: "If you don't return my pills, then, I hope you enjoy cold and flu season!"