Entitled neighbor uses casserole as a ‘peace offering’ after being discovered as the neighborhood package thief, HOA and community blackball him: ‘The casserole did not help…'

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    Country man sitting on his home's front porch wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat looking concerned.
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    I'm going to tell this story from the beginning because the beginning matters for understanding why I have absolutely zero guilt about how it ended.
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    I moved into my house three years ago. Nice street. Quiet. The kind of neighborhood where people wave from driveways. My neighbor Gerald, directly across the
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    street, introduced himself within the first week, helped me carry a bookshelf inside, and spent twenty minutes telling me what a great community it was.
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    Gerald was lying. Not about the bookshelf. That part was genuine. But the community part was complicated by the fact that Gerald had apparently decided that my front
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    porch was an extension of his personal shopping service. It started small. A package marked delivered that wasn't
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    there when I got home. Then another. I assumed porch pirates. random people, not someone I knew. I contacted the senders, got replacements, moved on. This
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    happened four more times over two months and I started to get suspicious but had no proof and no camera. I mentioned it to Gerald casually one afternoon.
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    He shook his head sympathetically and said the neighborhood had been having problems with "outside people" coming through. He seemed genuinely concerned.
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    He suggested I get a camera. Reader, I got a camera. It took eleven days. Eleven days after I installed a clearly
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    visible doorbell camera Gerald walked across the street at 2:17pm on a Wednesday, looked directly into my camera with the energy of a man who had made a terrible miscalculation,
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    picked up my package anyway, and walked back to his house. I watched this footage approximately forty times.
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    I knocked on his door that evening with my phone showing the video. Gerald looked at the footage. Gerald looked at me. Gerald said and I need you to understand he said this
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    while looking at a video of himself "that doesn't really look like me." I stood there for a moment processing the fact that Gerald
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    was attempting to gaslight me about footage of Gerald. I told him I'd be keeping the footage and went home.
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    A casserole in a ceramic dish with someone cutting into it and serving themself some food
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    The next morning there was a casserole on my porch with a note that said "from the neighborhood" in handwriting I recognized because Gerald had written his
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    phone number on a piece of paper for me when I moved in. The casserole was actually pretty good. That's not relevant but I want to be accurate.
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    What happened next I planned carefully over two weeks. Our HOA has a monthly meeting that Gerald attends religiously because Gerald is the kind of
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    person who has opinions about approved fence heights. I submitted a formal agenda item titled "package theft and security concerns" and I showed up with a
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    printed timeline, screenshots of my delivery notifications, the camera footage on my laptop, and a very calm demeanor.
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    I did not name Gerald in my presentation. I didn't have to. Gerald was sitting four seats away watching footage of himself steal my packages in a room full of our neighbors while I
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    explained that I had filed a police report and would be pursuing the matter formally. Gerald did not say a word for the entire meeting. He left before
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    the refreshments. The police report resulted in a formal warning. Three neighbors came up to me afterward and mentioned packages
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    they'd assumed were lost. Gerald has not made eye contact with me since. His wife waves though, which I find fascinating.
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    The casserole dish is still on my porch. I keep meaning to return it. I don't.

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