'Who steals trees?': Video shows man casually stealing trees from front yards in Houston
Stealing trees is uncommon, so a Houston neighborhood was baffled when they discovered a random man was uprooting saplings and leaving holes in peoples' front yards.
Surveillance video from a north Houston home on Aug. 22 caught the man walking up to a random sapling in broad daylight, and then yanking the young tree until it pops out.
Moments later, once the man had yanked out the previous tree, he went for another in the same area. A security alarm scares the man off before he can take the second sapling. The security video then shows the apparent owners of the homes the man trespassed on putting the saplings back into their yards.
Watch the mysterious Houston tree thief in action
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'Like what? You stole a tree?'
A separate video obtained by ABC13 Houston captures a different angle of the man's actions, and a woman is heard asking him, "Why are you taking the tree?" The man responds, "I'm straightening it up."
Multiple holes were found in the neighborhood where trees had been stolen, the TV station reported.
"Once the, 'Somebody took my stuff' moment passed, I was like, 'Who steals trees? Like, what? You stole a tree?' I don't understand,' Kelly Kindred, a homeowner in the neighborhood, told ABC13 Houston.
Kindred would text her neighbor, Olivia Topet, who ran to try to apprehend the tree thief.
"I started running after him. I caught up with him a couple blocks away. He had put the tree in a grocery cart and then he went and he hid behind another tree that was still in the ground," Topet said, per the TV station. "I said, 'You can't steal our trees. He looked at me and said, 'I'm sorry ma'am I'll put it back,' and then he ran away.'"
'Shrubs, trees, maybe nothing is safe'
During ABC13 Houston's interview with Topet, she realized her bushes were gone.
"Shrubs, trees, maybe nothing is safe, I don't know," she told the TV station. "I feel like I scared him, but I'm 100% sure he's doing this somewhere else. Probably right now."
Homeowners in the neighborhood have not reported the tree thievery to Houston police because they do not want the man to be arrested or punished, they only want him to leave their property alone, ABC13 Houston reported.
USA TODAY contacted Houston police who are looking into reports of tree theft in the area.