[woodguru]

Okay, this is an example of who's hiding in a dumpster not being a problem among other examples.

I had a car parked by my business building in an industrial area, and the wheels got ripped off. I come into work and it's on junk rims with the wheels gone.

Well this has me a bit PO'd, so I replace the BBS wheels and leave it for bait figuring those who got my first ones wouldn't be able to resist another set. I'm sleeping on the couch in my office, sleeping light when I hear a noise. I come running out the side door and hear the dumpster lid bang closed and figure I have my thieves dead to rights.

I'm crouched in my best battle stance with a Python pointed at the dumpster and I yell out "come out of that dumpster, NOW". The lid opens and this poor little completely scared senseless guy pokes his head out with his arms up.

I can still hear his terrified voice saying, "don't shoot me, I'm just a poor dumpster diver looking for cans".

I sheepishly told him I'm not going to shoot you for stealing cans, as you were, there's a lot of cans in there. I had about 60 employees so that dumpster always had a lot of soda cans in it.

The moral of that story is that it's awfully easy to start projecting your defense situations where they aren't warranted. I gotta admit to feeling incredibly stupid.

No preaching needed here, I'm pretty much aware of all the things wrong with what I was doing, including the baiting of thieves. I did learn lessons as I went along.