a heapin helpin of habaneros tucked into the sandwich center works wonders. . . .

the_wiggle

@hippytyre: Most people are funny about milk, so using the same logic as this article she could wash out a week old carton and transfer fresh milk into it, clean out the used one and save it till next week. Ect

Klopfer123

Nobody ever throws anything away in our refrigerator. I kept a baggie in there for 6 months, as an experiment (riiiight). When they do clean out the fridge, they send out a warning first.

elsifer

I used to work in an office where the custodial staff had a habit of "grazing" our lunchroom after hours. Adding a generous helping of a strong laxative powder to a peanut butter sandwich seemed to solve the problem. I would assume that cayenne pepper would also work...

btw, I would never intentionally bait anyone this way, but if someone eats a clearly-marked item that doesn't belong to them, I think the karmic accounts balance nicely.

dwardio

I love it! If the thief gets wise and starts eating the sandwiches, just let one get really ripe at home, and bring it in. Keep the SOB guessing.

elsifer

This has an added bonus: people that would never think of stealing your lunch will now throw it away for you. Genius!

edosan

@hippytyre: Fill it up with buttermilk for a week or two.

Letsgohokies

Hehe, I quite like that idea. My girlfriend needs a method like this to stop people drinking her milk at work. Does anyone have any ideas?

hippytyre

Clever although this would also lead to the sandwich being thrown away accidentally...

jarhead

@four12: woof!

LesterGaze

Make a nice, tasty looking meatloaf sammich out of canned dog food. The smell isn't obvious when it's refrigerated.

four12

this reminds me when someone kept taking things off my desk. i bought some chocolate turtles and melted exlax on top of them. they looked good too. the day i set them on my desk we had an outing and my boss and his mindless follower both said, "i don't know what i ate but it sure gave me the $hitz". i was rolling knowing i caught them...

MuglyTheWorm

or you could put a padlock on your lunch bag... i'm the type to put locks on everything though... can never be too careful!! :p

pinkskittles

Noone else has mentioned the [office culture] pun

andyj76

I'd be careful about letting people eat bad or drugged food. You never know if someone might have allergic reactions or have some sort of health problem! You don't want to end up killing a co-worker/classmate!

spunky_fuffy

When I was in high school, everyone would steal my lunch during P.E. by the time I was about to eat it, it was gone... So I decided to leave a couple out in the sun one day before (smell was pretty nice, like roasted bacon and just replaced the lettuce), and the next day, a few people were throwing up in track, the couch said they were fit enough for running and were sent to the nurse.

Only I knew what was going on...

VakeroRokero

it is amazing that lunch theft is such a problem. i feel fortunate that this doesn't happen at my work place.

Now if anyone has ideas for making people wash the communal dishes they use rather than throwing them in the sink to sit, lets hear it!

JonGrant

rat poison.

Problem solved.

balls187 upside yo head

@spunky_fuffy: If they have a life threatening allergy or some sort of health problem they really shouldn't be grazing other peoples food...that's just dumb.

ice_cold_irony

"Hot Pockets are totally the car radios of the communal freezer."

[www.passiveaggressivenotes.com]

MercuryPDX

My boss, at a job a long time ago, kept having the Coke-Cola's in his lunch bag replaced with generic brand cola. That used to tick him off no end. We never did figure out who was doing it. -- Ron Larson

YeiMilda

LOL! Ya if I saw that in the fridge I would immediately toss it out. That is just gross.

AlexPDL

No one steals my lunch rat poison for the coworkers has some merit though.

rtipping

You could always write on the outside of the brown bag "Specimen for Dr. Chan. Collected early morning." I guarantee no one will go near it. In fact, you might even have the whole fridge to yourself.

LeeHunter

@hippytyre: Just tell her to keep her shirt buttoned up, and she should be fine.

MCWHAMMER

I'm with balls187. I've only had my lunch stolen once, but it was when I used to work 12 hour shifts at night, and had no way to get anything to replace it. That made me want to recreate the "hammer to hand" scene from the movie Casino.

This bag idea is stupid, though. All it takes is for the bag to be handled; any shifting would make it obvious that the green coloration was on the bag, not the sandwich. And in retaliation, the scumbag would-be thief might not take the lunch, but spit on it (or worse) instead.

I can easily imagine myself doing the same sort of thing people have mentioned above--putting little "extras" in sandwiches. Except that rather than a laxative, I'd put feces in there. (Yes, I'm serious.)

leftist

@spunky_fuffy:

It would be unfortunate. There is, however, the school of thought that if they have an allergy, maybe they shouldn't be swiping food from others on the chance they might eat an allergen. I've never had these issues, but I don't think I'd make it my responsibility to protect the health of the food thief.

jupiterthunder

Store milk in a Nalgene bottle instead of in the carton, and let people see you drink straight from the bottle once or twice - after that it should be safe.

Alternatively, dye your milk strange colors - apparently bright green milk (food coloring) turns people off from drinking it.

jb008

Sounds like a good way to have your lunch thrown out.

I solved the problem by getting a mini-fridge for my office. No everyone can do that, but if you can it works great. I can also keep my own sodas, iced tea, pineapple cups for my nutritional afternoon snack, etc. There wouldn't be room to keep all that in a shared fridge.

Wayne Goode

Place dead rat in refrigerator, tear small holes in corners of boxes and rip small holes in clear bags (including this one) and rip off corner of sandwiches near holes. Cleans out the whole fridge.

Particularly fun to use on those small fridges in coworkers offices.

eljefewatson

I would say place a small GPS tracker in pill form in the sandwich, but then you'll just be led to the toilet after a few hours.

hotmeatinjections

so its just one bag you need to wash and re-use or a box of disposable bags?

lethaldose

I eat bland "bodybuilder food," so I don't foresee anyone ever stealing my lunch. However, if there's one thing to know about thieves, it's that they are clever: they'll see right through the green splotches on the plastic bag.

Show them you mean business by putting a luggage lock on your lunch bag's zippers. That, or track them down and regulate.

elgilicious

This would never work at my office. People are actually quite courteous and we're good friends with the cleaning staff, so we take it upon ourselves to clean up our own messes most of the time.

Then again...someone did steal the tomatoes and cucumbers off of my salad once. Just the tomatoes and the cucumbers. It was very, very strange.

purplesun

have fun finding your lunch having been thrown in the garbage by the cleaning staff!

aidan.cage

@JonGrant: sign: dishes left unattended will be thrown away. get office manager to approve it. done.

worked for my mom. we didn't have any of these issues at work, but we did have a who cleans out fridge issue.

goodywitch

In my old workplace, the fridge got cleaned out once a week after-hours. Everything got thrown away, including bowls, plates, lunchboxes, EVERYTHING. I got a desperate call from a co-worked asking me to retrieve her plate because she went on vacation and forgot to take her food home.

brainswarm

someone used to steal my pb&j sandwiches everytime when i worked for best buy so i would simply put exlax or smushed habaneros in them after a while and then enjoy seeing someone run for the nearest bathroom lol

clownsscarepeople

I did this when I worked as Customer Service Rep, since my lunch disappeared everyday. I know it is disgusting but the trick worked.
During a busy lunch hour I spit in my lunch container infront of everyone there. (Lots of people witnessed my act). Then I put it back in the fridge with the label "I spit in it so don't eat". (Actually I was not going to eat that food anyway, I already had a separate lunch box sitting in the fridge) Word got out in the whole company of my act. So no one ever touched my food.
Someone asked me if I spit in my food everyday, and I said "YES" (Actually I never did).
So try this trick, it worked for me

saddal

I think the question that needs to be pondered is: Why is food theft in offices so rampant? Seriously...in a workplace, I can't imagine these people are too poor to afford food so...are there just THAT many kleptomaniacs out there?

Either way it's not cool. My sandwich stays in my locked briefcase since I have blood sugar issues and well...if I don't eat, bad things happen.

shatteredmindofbob

What about you bring your own Icebox, keept it with you in the morning and have nice chilled & save lunch?

wormz

You could always load your sandwiches up with exlax for week.
I'm sure you'd notice who's been eating them...

ThaMofo

Take a bite out of the corner of the sandwich before putting it in the bag.

simonca

@Letsgohokies:
@Klopfer123:

Good ideas :D

@MCWHAMMER:
haha, I'll suggest that to her ;)

hippytyre

A product like Benefiber is better than Exlax because it doesn't have a taste and mixes better with pretty much anything (including liquids -- such as milk). It isn't quite as effective on the outtake, but enough of it should trigger a similar reaction. And there shouldn't even be too many issues of allergic reation since it is just dietary fiber.

SQLGuru

@saddal: That reminds me of a joke. If I saw that, I'd take a sharpie and write on your lunch "So did I".

rossruns

Store your food items in (unused) medical containers. Some grapes in a urine specimen cup = no worries.

Diet-Orange-Soda

Reminds me of something I did in college. I didn't have a fridge, so I used the common one on my floor's lounge to store bottled drinks, like Jones Soda or Clearly Canadian. One of my floor-mates raided the fridge rather frequently and took whatever he saw fit, even though he flat-out denied it when asked. I got sick of him taking my stuff so one day I took two empty Clearly Canadian bottles and filled them up with salt water. Then I screwed the caps on really tight, so if someone wasn't paying attention they'd think it was sealed when they opened it.

Fast-forward a few weeks, and I'm playing cards in the lounge with a few people on my floor, including the suspect. I told one of my friends about it beforehand and had arranged for him grab the drink out of the fridge and take a drink in full view of everyone. As he opens it and pretends like he's going to drink, we hear: "DON'T DRINK IT, IT'S SALT WATER!"

I don't think he ever took any of my stuff again the rest of the year.

KLV

@hippytyre: Hehe, I quite like that idea. My girlfriend needs a method like this to stop people drinking her milk at work. Does anyone have any ideas?

Potentially illegal: Buy a carton of strawberry milk and put pepto bismol in it, along with strawberry drink mix.

Definitely legal: Buy her a small thermos and write her name on it with a sharpie, then keep milk or other drinks in it. If nobody can see the contents and know whose it is, they might not try to take it.

P_Smith

@hippytyre: Noooo, no! What you do is put green, blue or another color food coloring in it... Hee hee. I used to do it ALL the time to roommates in college for April fools day.. Ahhh all the free milk I could drink...

nvrau

I believe if you have people at your work flat-out stealing your lunch (not drinking your drink or eating your yogurt, mind you), you may have a bigger issue to deal with than this article suggests.

AKthe47

I experienced a similar situation so I just went ahead and got a mini-fridge for my office. Problem solved!

Jrsy

@rossruns:

Sorry, you were first.

Porree

@saddal:

Normally, the reaction on a label saying "I spit in it so don't eat" is, that you'll find the note "Me too!" afterwards.

Porree

We occasionally have a rash of lunch-thefts here.

It's most likely that if someone grabs the wrong lunch (there are a lot of similar white plastic bags in the fridge), they just don't bother to put it back.

It's unbelievable in my workplace that they're apparently that hard up that they have to resort to theft to eat.

dragynphyre

I guess I'm uncreative... I just got a small lunch cooler so I wouldn't have to use the break room fridge.

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

If you are a manager, just fire people you find stealing lunches. If they dishonest enough to steal from their friends and coworkers, you don't want them working for you.

If you are an employee, report thefts to management. If they don't respond then quit. You don't want to work for a company that doesn't respect you.

Ryan Fisher

This reminds me of the travel pouch made to look like soiled underwear.

Johnay

Friend of mine had a problem with the milk stealing in college, so he stuck a label on the bottle "if you drink this milk, you'll be sorry". Milk disapeared again, he put another label on it "I told you you'd be sorry. I peed in this bottle". Lukily for him, the theif got the message and stopped. When I was told about this, I was thinking he was lucky the theif didn't return the favor.

We solved the milk problem in our college house by initiating a milk co-op. Milk was communal property, and bought on rotation. Nobody forgot because if it was your turn, and the fridge was empty of milk, you were sure to get a rude awakening by the first person up in the house.

englishman

I worked at a law firm where one of the PARTNERS would help himself to the lunches or anything else that was in the fridge.

I doubt this would've deterred him.

jswilson64

Pretty sure if I saw this, it would be headed for the trash can.

OnlineITPro

I remember years ago we had a big problem with people stealing lunches. But -- turned out it was just some random person from off the street who would check doors in the building to see what they could get into. Took us a while to figure it out, and then we started locking the breakroom door.

opheliac9

how about pins? anyone tried pins?

VakeroRokero

You could just make a crappy sandwich that no one wants to eat.

Anything involving carbonated mayonnaise should do.

kangaroo

@kangaroo: I prefer the method of using brownies made with chocolate flavored Ex-lax. :)

screaminscott

Would the social stigma be worth it? I would look at an officemate weirdly if he took a rotten sandwich to his desk for lunch. Explaining it could get tedious and would defeat the point of the bag.

meganab

@hippytyre: I forget where I read it, but you can put green food coloring in your milk. It won't affect the taste, but most people will be freaked out by green milk and won't bother it.

Another trick would be to reuse a soymilk container for regular milk. Most people are still freaked out by soymilk nowadays, though if you have a lot of "health nuts" at work or people who would be willing to drink soymilk this won't work, obviously.

merkuri

Would be interesting to see what the law thinks of all the ideas to "get" back at food takers. Willing/knowingly adulterating food with the idea that another person will eat it is a class E felony. Know of somebody going thru that now.

Boom0711

that's genius right there.

BiZarRroBALlmeR

If you really want to find out who's stealing your lunch (and get them back), put laxatives in the food (not too much, you dont want to kill them). Then sit back and watch the fireworks. Do this a few times and eventually the person will be so paranoid that the food contains laxatives that they will never touch it again. Problem is, they might do something gross to your food.

-MasterMind-

So...one day a moldy sandwich just shows up in the office fridge and we're just supposed to believe that it's authentic. Don't waste your money. A food thief is going to have a pretty good idea of what is in the fridge from day to day, since they are taking stock and choosing what to take.

Byrd_Brain

One thing that could be improved on this idea is to actually use food coloring to color the bread itself. I don't think there would be any change in the way the sandwich tastes (haven't done this, but would if people steal my food).

lucrosus1

I would do someone a favor and toss it in the garbage.

Oh, wait...

ericshmerick

I once heard about someone at my work whose margarine and juice always got used/stolen. So they did what anyone would do... put epsom salts in the margarine, and spat repeatedy into her juice. The next week she posted a note about it on the fridge. Nobody touched her food after that.

Natnie

Hmm... I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned peeing in a lemonade bottle. :P

JaredR

Did anyone remember the book "Dear Mr. Henshaw" by Beverly Clearly? (Newbe

After several frustrating attempts to catch the lunch snatcher, schoolboy rigs a lunch box alarm.

posting on literature blog
[hheathworldlit.blogspot.com]

amazon
[www.amazon.com]

mzwarg

It's nice to know that "Dear Mr. Henshaw" is relevant to the next general of lunch-mongers, although I personally prefer the classic doorbell alarm lunch box.

poetrea13

My wife has had a problem with work food theft lately... I told her that I would put some spoiled food in there to teach them a lesson... though I'm unsure of the legality of such a move, especially if the person gets really really sick.

gurana

People that would never think of stealing your lunch will now throw it away for you. Genius!

Sarahuk