One couple in South Philadelphia finally had enough of porch pirates stealing their packages off the front stoop.
So they left those thieves a package of their own — with the help of their French bulldog.
Travis Giarraffa and Lauren Goffredo said in an interview with WTXF-TV that they have been dealing with the porch pirates for months.
In one particularly brazen incident, a thief nabbed a box of toilet paper — right in front of their eyes.
Goffredo said the thief “walked off with a big thing of toilet paper.”
That gave her an idea.
“So last night, he’s like, you know, I got to clean up all the poop in the yard,” she said, apparently referring to Giarraffa.
Giarraffa added, “This is Louie. He’s our poop machine French bulldog.”
They boxed up Louie’s waste, put it in a box, and waited for the thieves.
Sure enough, at 4:00 a.m. early one Wednesday morning earlier this month, the thieves decided to strike.
“It was probably disgusting. It was stinky and gross and a lot and I shook it to make it all dirty in there, so if they even put their hands, it’s all over their hands,” Giarraffa said.
For neighbors dealing with similar issues, Giarraffa offered her help — and Louie’s help — in warding off porch pirates.
“If you need some dog poo for a package, hit me up. We have a whole dog poo dumpster out there,” he said.
Giarraffa and Goffredo are far from the only people in the City of Brotherly Love who aren’t feeling the camaraderie promised in their hometown’s nickname.
The Philadelphia Citizen reported in November that the city currently has the nation’s second-highest rate of package thievery.
In 2024 alone, package losses amounted to a staggering $450 million in Philadelphia.
New York City has the worst total amount of package theft, with about $950 of losses for residents that year.
But while the typical New Yorker lost $113 in 2024 from porch pirates, the average Philadelphian lost $290.
The Philadelphia Citizen noted that Congress tried in both 2022 and 2024 to pass legislation making porch piracy a federal offense.
Right now, it’s only a federal felony if the U.S. Postal Service — a federal government entity — delivered the package, while states handle theft from private carriers.
Pennsylvania enacted a law in 2023 increasing penalties for porch thievery — with the lawmaker who sponsored the bill noting that in some cases, seniors have had their medicine stolen, or parents lose the only holiday gifts they can afford for their children.
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