YouTuber Mark Rober got sick of having his packages stolen off his porch. If it’s happened to you, you know the helpless rage this triggers. So Mark fought back with the most ingenious thing we’ve ever seen.
He engineered a fake package that looked like it contained an Apple HomePod. Inside, however, was a bunch of incredibly fine glitter, a motor to fling it, a cannister of fart spray, and four wide-angle phone cameras to catch the thieves’ reactions.
Because this thing was so foul to open, every thief ended up tossing it out of their car or home within moments of triggering the trap. Mark would follow the GPS and pick up his baby, resetting it for the next criminal to pounce. If you want to skip the backstory and jump to the sweet revenge, it begins at 5:43 below.
We also love that the creator chose a particularly funny return address: the McAllister home from “Home Alone.” The package was also addressed to the movie’s thieves: Harry and Marv. But real-life porch pirates don’t usually inspect packages before stealing them. They just grab and run.
So beware, all you would-be bandits. The next package you grab could be a massive headache, courtesy of an ingenious engineer.