Sharing a neighborhood pool is one thing, but stealing from nearby residents crosses a line.

What would you do if visiting kids kept taking towels and sheets from your clothesline?

After polite warnings failed, one apartment resident prepared a trap designed to make the message stick.

See how this itchy little lesson unfolded.

Scratch that itch.

“I lived in one of a six-pack set of apartments situated in a quiet beachside town, partway between the beach and the local caravan park.

Living so close to the caravan park proved to be far less problematic than I expected it to be with nearly all the residents behaving themselves.

There was one problem…

Except for the kids…

Over the long Christmas holiday season (I am in the southern hemisphere, so it’s summer) the kids would eventually notice there was a swimming pool at the rear of our complex and work out they could jump the beach-side brick wall on their way back from the beach in the evenings, have a swim to wash the sand and salt off themselves then leave through the gate to walk down the drive way and arrive back to their caravan refreshed and clean.

This didn’t actually bother me too much, because they were usually trying to not draw attention to themselves so were quiet and secretive and by the time they’d discovered the free pool it was nearing the end of the holiday anyway.

They were getting sick and tired of this.

Then one year one of the kids must have been a return visitor because they were into it right from the start and within a week I had kicked them out a couple of times because they were just being noisy and destructive.

But they just got worse.

We lived in the rear most apartment we started noticing our beach towels we’d hang up after a swim started to go missing overnight. Then we made sure we brought them inside in the evenings.

Then we actually lost a set of bedsheets one night, and a couple of the other residents were also losing towels. We did find a bunch of towels that looked suspiciously like ours on a communal line at the van park, so it was obvious what was happening.

We’re only halfway through the holiday season at this stage, so it was time to nip this in the bud.

First stop, the thrift store and bought some old towels.

This was gonna be painful…

Second stop, the local surfboard manufacturer. “Hey mate, mind if I wipe your fiber-glassing benches and floor down with these towels?” He did one better, he emptied his fiber glass bin onto them.

Third stop, home, where I hung the towels up on the clothes line.

Two mornings later, I woke up and noticed the towels were no longer on the line. I went for a walk and retrieved four of them scattered along the road to the van park and dumped them in the van park bin to avoid collateral damage.

As expected, no more towels went missing that season. But even better, they either stopped using the pool completely or were at least respectful enough that we never noticed.”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person chimed in.

Another individual knows all about this.

This Reddit user was impressed.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who takes advantage of an inexhaustive HOA-approved plant list.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This resident covered thrift-store towels with fiberglass scraps and left them outside for the young thieves to steal.

After the towels disappeared, nothing else was taken and the unwanted pool visitors either stopped coming or finally learned to behave.

Those sticky fingers received an even itchier lesson.