Ah, the good old “fight fire with fire” defense. Guaranteed to work 100% of the time at least 50% of the time! The other 50% are for when things spectacularly fail and everyone gets burned, wildfire style.

But today is one of those days that it worked. A man got his car broken into and robbed – by a neighbor, of all people – so what does he do? He slips into his house and robs him right back. With the help of the police, no less.

More info: Reddit

It turns out that you shouldn’t steal, but not because of karma, rather that you may get robbed blind yourself in revenge

Image credits: Bastian Pudill (not the actual photo)

A man took it to the petty revenge community to share a story from his 20s about how he robbed his robber right back

Image credits: u/BigTex380

Image credits: Matt Lemmon (not the actual photo)

A sketchy guy, famous for petty thievery, lived in the poster’s duplex, so he knew exactly where to look after his car had some stereo equipment stolen

Image credits: u/BigTex380

Image credits: Mitchell Luo (not the actual photo)

Instead of calling the police pronto, the poster tried a window, which budged and labeled the items that were his with a handy marker, along with some extras

Image credits: u/BigTex380

When the thief came back, the poster rang police and got his items back and some of the thief’s, hopefully teaching him a good lesson

Before we get into the story, keep in mind that this happened about 20 years ago – the poster is at least 43 years old and this from his early 20s. Things were probably a bit wilder and policing wasn’t as strict as it is nowadays in the 2000s, so it makes somewhat more sense why everyone is so lax in this story.

The original poster (OP) had a SUV with a removable soft top (different way to say convertible top) which looked like easy pickings for a thief. The thief, in this case, was a scumbag neighbor, taking mostly stereo player paraphernalia.

According to Statista, there were about 400 reported car thefts per 100k people throughout 1999-2006 in the U.S., compared to the 200-ish reported from 2010 onwards, so if full-blown thefts were this popular, it’s likely that petty burglaries like this were also quite big.

So, the OP, just like any regular ol’ person would, goes over to a known scumbag’s place – that neighbor we mentioned – and just takes a peek inside to see his stuff strewn around the apartment.

What’s next? Call the police? Nope, not yet.

First, OP manages to open up the apartment’s window, hops in, and labels the stuff that really belongs to him with his name or initials, and just to send a message, he does it to several more items that don’t belong to him, for good measure.

Image credits: Darya Sannikova (not the actual photo)

After setting up something that could totally be shown on Prank TV with a hidden camera, OP rings up the police. From there it was a simple explanation of “my items have been stolen by this guy, don’t believe me? Well, my name is still on them.”

Thus the poster not only got revenge for his own items, but a little extra, hopefully teaching the guy not to mess with people’s stuff. Although considering the guy was a “wannabe gangster” and even likely had illicit substances with him at the time, I’m not sure it was the smartest idea to pull a stunt like this. You can’t know if someone won’t escalate to get back at you.

You may be a little crazy and ready to hop through a window to get back at someone, but what if they’re a degree crazier? The 2000s were a different time.

Some of the “choice” items mentioned that OP got to keep were a couple of basketball jerseys, which he found only fair, as the scumbag had stolen one from him.

If you’re wondering why the police were so chill with this, it apparently was because they had solved it civilly, instead of coming to blows or pressing charges. It probably helps that they were in a rural town at the time.

The neighbor was also prevented from trying something again or retaliating against the guy by being sent to jail for an unrelated reason.

This wild story collected over 18k upvotes in the petty revenge community, where many essentially said “if this is real, then you are the man!”

Share your own thoughts about the story in the comments below! Do you think OP has embellished it a bit? Heard of something similar in your time? Let us know.

The commenters enjoyed the vengeance, saying that the poster is a boss if the story really did happen

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