In Ohio, one household tries the proactive approach to preventing Halloween thuggery:

(We’ll have to wait to hear back from our submitter Darcy to see if it worked.)

related: Jerk-o-lanterns

Lisa from Toronto doesn’t try to hide the fact that this note was, uh, not exactly undeserved. “On a long weekend in Grand Bend, my boyfriend squeezed into a parking spot which partially placed his front tires on the edge of someone’s lawn,” she says. But if Lisa and her bf lost any sleep over their vehicular faux pas — and I’m guessing they didn’t — it seems like this note, which Lisa called “amazing,” would more than make up for it. Okay!

Writes our submitter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: “A woman in my office was recently relocated to a new cubicle, apparently against her will. I don’t really know her, but I guess now I know not what not to use as an ice breaker!”

related: Really, enough about the weather.

Cait spotted this artful example of parental passive-aggression “in front of a very, very wealthy residence” in New York’s East Village. “I get that ripping up the flowers was a douchey move,” Cait says, “but this seems a little over the top.”

To which I’d add: Um, yes. (They had me at the first semicolon.)

Meanwhile, across the globe, another 4-year-old was given a similar learning experience. In Australia, however, they don’t bother beating around the bush.*

*Apologies. Bad pun intended.

related: To the person who stole my flower (sniff)

Michael is a music teacher in New York, and one of his students, Aleks, a clarinet player with 15 years experience, recently moved to the city to start his master’s degree. “Coming from Ohio, he had no idea what he was getting into when practicing clarinet in his apartment in Queens,” says Michael. “Now he knows.”

related: Buskers & broomsticks

Sara says her sister in Waxhaw, North Carolina stumbled upon this personal inscription at a rummage sale of donated books.

Here’s a synopsis: Basically, our writer Robert starts out by giving himself a gold star for selecting such an “interesting” Christmas gift, then lets Leah down easy with the old “God told me I could do better” excuse, and finally peaces out with “So…see ya on christiansingles.com!”

Why Leah would want to part with such a precious gem, I have no idea.

related: The “Next to Marry” List

“I was walking by a local café and this two-page, handwritten rant stopped me in my tracks,” says our submitter in Montreal. “I was so disturbed I went home and returned immediately with my camera, just in case the owner suddenly got sane (or had some sense talked into him) and decided to take it down. This is someone who should clearly not be dealing with the public.”

related: The Sushi Nazi

Well…lots of stuff.

And yet, somehow, the employees at this office in Edmonton still can’t quite make TP happen. (Maybe wrestling grizzlies is more their forte?)

Perhaps a visual aid (like this one from a Los Angeles apartment share) would be helpful?

Or maybe just a bit more encouragement would push someone over the edge?

(Probably not, though.)

related: Five approaches to TP maintenance