Do you have raccoons?
I’m surprised that anyone would be surprised this happens, anywhere. If pumpkins are left out on Halloween there is a good chance they are smashed or gone. It’s not like it’s The Purge, it’s tradition more than evil. It’s sad if they picked them from your yard or took your wee one’s prize selection, but if they are accessible, it is always a risk.
Not trying to be unsympathetic, but imagining them ending up all over the school courtyard is actually funny to me, like a senior prank. Then they have to deal with the rotting pumpkins in a few days. I get it is wrong yadda yadda yadda, but kids could be doing/vandalizing a lot worse. They are kids!
Having a Ring doorbell and scaring them if they try to take it could be funny.
@atomom: Don’t know where you live, but I know that raccoons, opossum and porcupine will all eat pineapple…
Opossum is probably the one.
I would keep quiet and make a plan for next year, involving tracking devices and video recording, etc. Maybe with an arrest record the miscreants’ Harvard application personal statement can start with “Yes, I stole a pumpkin, but I am worthy of a second chance”.
Wow! That doesn’t sound like a very Catholic behavior for the school’s students.
I didn’t realize you could leave out pumpkins and not have them stolen. Doesn’t everyone assume their Jack-o-lanterns are transient beings?
True. Every year I wonder if they will outlast the pranksters and critters.
When we put out our pumpkins a week in advance I asked my husband how long before you think they will be gone or smashed. This treatment of pumpkins has been going on since the beginning of time. I tried to teach my kids right from wrong and absolutely would be unhappy if they did such a thing ,however, if they did I would be just as unhappy if someone made a huge deal out of it. Especially when you know that it for the school prank. It’s just a pumpkin.
If I lived in your area, I would have a few extra pumpkins so the kids could take some for their tradition then I would have my extras to put out on Halloween.
Not encouraging the behavior but not a big deal in my opinion. Kids can and do much worse things.
I’ve never had a pumpkin stolen.
Teens at the Catholic school are still teens!!! This story could have easily been told saying “local school” rather than “parochial school”.
Some people coat their pumpkins with Vaseline so they are hard to pick up. I put mine on the grass and anchor them with a garden stake. Tricks go both ways.
The vaseline has been key in keeping my pumpkins from being “taken” by squirrels the last two years. Vaseline and then a quick spray of hair spray. Also gives them a nice sheen and seems to deepen their color a bit visually.
Suggested topic for religion class in the Catholic school on 10/30: The Seventh Commandment.
I’d look at it as a way to clean up the Halloween decorations. The bunnies and squirrels make a mess of the ones left on the porch.
When I went to Catholic school we always had Nov 1 off so no one would have done this prank.
Out of curiosity, I’d be tempted to put out an extra pumpkin next year with a card that says “Our gift to the students of XX High. Thanks in advance for leaving the other one here for our neighbors (kids?) to enjoy. Happy Halloween!” You never know. Sometimes playing along helps.
I haven’t had pumpkins smashed, but our squirrels can be aggressive.
Our local high school collects pumpkins on November 01 for compost rather than put them in the landfills. Isn’t that a better idea?
I’ve never had a pumpkin stolen or smashed.
I apparently take vandalism and theft, even of pumpkins, more seriously than some of my fellow CCers. As far as I’m concerned, it just shows a complete lack of consideration for others.
Soon some of them will graduate to smashing mailboxes or shooting at your windows with bb guns. (The latter I have experienced.)
We have never had a pumpkin stolen by a human. We have had them eaten by squirrels. I am pretty sure that human thieves would leave less of a mess.
I think that if I lived near a school with a tradition of stealing pumpkins, I wouldn’t mind the tradition. However, I would tie one down with a ground anchor just to have a little fun with the local students. I might try the vaseline idea also.
I don’t buy the idea of a “tradition” of stealing pumpkins as some harmless thing. I think they are a bunch of brats. If they want to fill their courtyard with pumpkins–which is a fun idea–let them spend their own money buying them and their own time carving them.