HGTV personality Mina Starsiak Hawk is fighting back against porch thieves after catching one of them on surveillance camera stealing packages. In a series of videos shared to her social media on Sunday morning, the Good Bones star revealed how one thief, in particular, kept stealing packages off her front porch and did it again the night before while always leaving the gate open. Fed up with their stealing, she decided to take action by pulling a prank on the unsuspecting thief with a unique response they wouldn’t see coming until now.
While speaking with local NBC news affiliate WTHR in Indianapolis, Hawk revealed that while she and her husband get “packages all the time,” the last two weeks, they have “four stolen,” and enough was enough. “Sometimes it’s been baby pacifiers, not going to be super exciting when they get it. But it’s frustrating nonetheless because it feels invasive,” she said. “I do have a camera that’s readily visible and caught them doing it every time because we see the gate open. And we’re just kind of sick of it. So that’s typically my answer, just, you know, let’s find the humor in it and if they’re gonna mess with us, we’re gonna mess with them.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
In the Instagram video shared by Hawk over the weekend, the 36-year-old revealed prank boxes with a surprise inside — even sharing a sneak peek of what the box contains most boldly demonstrated through her toddler son, Jack‘s frightened reaction. In the video, alongside the caption, “trying to raise some tough boys and girls in the Hawk house,” alongside a bicep emoji, Hawk approaches Jack with a box that alludes to the assumption of a glamorous gift like a watch or some jewelry. However, when Jack opens it, a toy spider crawls out very fast, alarming the young boy. Hawk, shrieking over the gift as well, admits it “genuinely scared” her.
As Hawk tells WTHR, the box containing the surprise inside was just one of many prank boxes bought on Amazon. “I bought a couple [of] pranks on Amazon, and I got a box that like a spider jumps out of, and I also got the mega-size glitter bomb which has not come yet,” she said. “So if whoever’s taking our packages sees this, just forewarning that’s what’s gonna happen.”
With the surveillance footage catching at least one thief taking their bait last week in a reaction posted to Instagram of elation from Hawk as she shares the exciting news with her husband Steve Hawk, she goes on to tell the news outlet that as soon they “wrapped up the package and put it on the porch that night,” it was stolen. “Unfortunately you can’t see the reaction, but hopefully got the message, I don’t know,” she said, adding how she is certain the contents of the box worked as well as intended.
Sharing the video to her Instagram Stories also meant fans reaching out with ideas, some of which were very unique. Admitting she received “hundreds of messages” that suggested she dig those “poopy diapers out of the poop pail” or digging up her dog’s poop and adding it into a box, Hawk laughs over how appears fans have tried it all as well. “We did try to put poo in a box once but it rained, and so that uh, did not shake out, so we abandoned ship on that.”
While Hawk did file a police report after the first theft, she hopes the pranks will make the culprits reevaluate their choices before hitting her home. “You might get a spider. You might get a glitter bomb. You might get baby poop. I don’t know! I’m sure this got him a little bit and I hope eventually they’ll stop,” she said.
Mina Starsiak Hawk can be seen on Good Bones every Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ET on HGTV, with all episodes also streaming on discovery+.
