Everyone loves a good mystery when it's confined to the internet, but when said mystery happens in your own yard, it isn't quite as fun.
Residents in one neighborhood are on alert after a rash of mysterious actions took place on their street in the middle of the night. They've dubbed the unknown perpetrator 'Edward Scissorhands' — an appropriate name, given that the guy is all about pruning trees.
An otherwise quiet suburban neighborhood is grappling with a mystery in their midst: some guy who walks his dog in the middle of the night (not weird) and trims a few trees along the way (very weird).
"I was talking to my wife Emily and I was like, 'Hey, we had a storm last night,'" resident Jerry Balkenbush said. "She was like, 'Oh no, that's Edward Scissorhands.' And so I was like, 'Uh, what?'"
The mystery man is known to go for walks at about 3 a.m. with his dog, who's off-leash.
"He starts trimming the tree and admiring his work and kind of stepping back. We really just want him to stop doing this," said resident Danny Thomann.
Trees do need trimming and this guy is trimming trees, free of charge. But sometimes he goes too far.
"Sometimes he'll just take a little bit, but then in other people's trees he'll take massive gobs," said Ashley Thomann.
There's more at stake than just the beauty of the trees. There are also homeowner's association fees to pay in this neighborhood. "We're all liable for those trees per our HOA, so if something happens to the tree, everybody is paying hundreds of dollars per tree to replace them," explained Thomann.
"People in the neighborhood were talking about it and it seems like he was just hitting certain streets," said Emily Balkenbush. Given his unpredictable routes through the neighborhood, it's tough to anticipate where he'll hit next.
It's easy to see both sides here: on one hand, homeowner's associations are terrible. On the other hand, Edward Scissorhands isn't hurting anyone (apart from trimming a little too much from time to time). It seems like he's a guy who just loves pruning trees.
A police report has been filed, but given the scarcity of evidence — just a few grainy surveillance videos — it seems like Edward Scissorhands will need to be caught red-handed in order to be stopped.
Should Edward Scissorhands be caught so the residents can understand him better, so maybe he can learn to love? Or should he be allowed to do his rogue late-night pruning in peace?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
h/t: CBS News
