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Package thief unwittingly steals box of cat litter in San Francisco

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

Cameo Wood, a film director in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood, had enough of thieves rushing to her doorstep to make off with her delivered packages.

It had gotten worse in the three months leading up to Christmas, when she says around 50 packages were stolen. On Dec. 23 alone, 11 boxes were taken.

Wood met a breaking point when medication for her cat, worth around $1,000, was lost to thieves. She walked to her cats' used litter box with a scooper and emptied the contents into cardboard Amazon delivery boxes. Then she put it on the porch and waited.

"I was cleaning my cat box; my cat was sick," Wood told NBC Bay Area. "I thought this would be really nasty to put in a package and leave for people."

She didn't end up waiting long; between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, she says, six boxes full of used litter were snatched but unsuspecting criminals.

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"You see, my cat is sick and on antibiotics, so the litter box smells especially terrible," she told Bustle. "So, I decided to put my cat's stinky poop in the extra boxes and place those boxes on my doorstep."

Wood says she wasn't the only one targeted in her neighborhood. Fifteen other residents on her street similarly had packages stolen. She's now looking into getting a locked drop box for packages, but she hopes her surprise packages sent a message to those who stole her mail.

"I feel sort of bad these people are in a situation where they are stealing," she told NBC. "But I also hope they look at packages a little more circumspect and don't think we're easy pickings here."

Package theft is all too common around the U.S. Just this year, other jilted online shoppers retaliated against thieves, filling packages on their porch with cat litter and dog food. In one instance, a crafty homeowner got creative, and rigged a decoy package to fire off a 12-gauge shotgun blank when picked up.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.