In Oisterwijk someone is fed up with it: the newspaper is regularly stolen from the letterbox. The newspaper steal was filmed and that photo is now on a poster hanging on a lamppost at Lidl. Passers-by call the man ‘an idiot’, ‘sad’ and ‘out of his mind’.
The wanted older man is very recognizable on an A4 sheet of paper. He can be seen pulling a newspaper from the mailbox while holding an umbrella. “What an idiot,” say Tonnie and Conny when they see the poster. “If someone steals, they can put up a much bigger poster.”
“That man should just be locked up.”
‘Who is this man? Don’t you have any idea what you could give him as a gift for his birthday?” can be read on the poster. The creator has an idea: a subscription to the Brabants Dagblad. ‘He regularly steals ours from our mailbox, and we’re actually done with that.’
Mimi sees the poster hanging. “I think it’s scandalous that someone steals the newspaper, but I also don’t understand why you look for the thief through a poster like that.” She herself is not bothered by a newspaper thief, even though the newspaper does not arrive every day. “Then we will receive two newspapers in the mail the next day.”
“That man should just be locked up,” says a man who calls the poster ‘hilarious’. The man lives a little further away in an apartment complex where they also suffered from a newspaper thief years ago. “The newspaper often sticks out of the letterbox and then it is stolen from us or from the neighbors.”
Ultimately, they managed to catch the thief themselves. “We went to post at half past five in the morning and then we caught the thief.”
“Then you’re not in your right mind.”
“Sham,” is Luc’s first reaction. “And what a confrontational poster. That’s what you get with all those doorbells, of course. Not quite GDPR proof, I think, but that man won’t file a complaint,” he says with a laugh.
Paul thinks it’s strange. “Strange that someone steals newspapers and strange that someone makes such a poster for this.” He does not recognize the newspaper thief. “That man must have no money and still want to read something.” Not everyone is that gentle. “Then you’re not in your right mind. Who steals from someone’s mailbox? Pick it up, quickly,” says a woman who hurriedly walks into Lidl.