'TP'-ing a Friend's House?

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‘TP’-ing (Toilet-Papering) a person’s house is an act of vandalism, I suppose. But, how immoral is this action, especially if it is done to a friend’s house, and thus is committed as a prank or joke, without maliciousness?

And furthermore, would it be even worse if such an action was illegal in your community?
 
Chesapeake said:
‘TP’-ing (Toilet-Papering) a person’s house is an act of vandalism, I suppose. But, how immoral is this action, especially if it is done to a friend’s house, and thus is committed as a prank or joke, without maliciousness?

And furthermore, would it be even worse if such an action was illegal in your community?
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well I don’t know, some seminarians tp’d my sister’s house once. One of our neighbors called the cops and an officer showed up and asked if my sister knew them and she said yes, it was ok, and the cop laughed and left.
 
I’m not sure I would call it vandalism, since it does no permanent damage. I suppose if there were a law against it in a particular community, one would have to avoid it, but otherwise, it’s just a joke.

Betsy
 
Chesapeake said:
‘TP’-ing (Toilet-Papering) a person’s house is an act of vandalism, I suppose. But, how immoral is this action, especially if it is done to a friend’s house, and thus is committed as a prank or joke, without maliciousness?

And furthermore, would it be even worse if such an action was illegal in your community?
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After your joke is over, will you own up to your responsibility? Will you promptly and completely clean up your mess so that your neighbor’s house is in an as good or better state than it was before your prank? If not, you have committed a malicious act of vandalism.
 
baltobetsy said:
I’m not sure I would call it vandalism, since it does no permanent damage…
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The permanence of the damage is not at issue. An act of assault, for example, that left no permanent harm would still be assault.
 
If someone TP’d my house, I’m not sure I’d be all excited and happy about having to spend my day cleaning it all up.

I also don’t get the “joke” - it seems stupid and senseless, to me.

“Oh, yay, let’s go mess up someone’s yard with soggy toilet paper, and make them have to clean it all up.” Yeah, sounds like great fun. :rolleyes:
 
Can you imagine St. Paul TPing your house?

If the answer is yes, then go for it.
 
Maybe it can be called “benign vandalism”.
My Scouts had wanted to TP my house, but needed transportation. So they asked me to drive them to my assistant’s home:D .
My assistant was amused and had no doubt about identity of the “papertrators”. Then because there had been an acute shortage on the last backpacking trip (no KwikiMarts on the back side of Mt. Whitney!), most of it was carefully collected, rolled up and saved for future outdoor adventures:cool: .
 
Things that cause hardship to others can’t be right. Yet, I think there are cases when pranks may be, if not OK, but neutral. I have pulled a few pranks in which the “prank-ee” was very amused and no harm was done. One involved pink flamingos. Humor is one thing, maliciousness is something else.
 
Our house has been TP’ed 4 times, but only because my teenage DD has helped in TPing others. Last time I had her & all her friends clean up the mess, the TPing miraculously stopped :cool:

First time was funny, then it just got aggravating. But no damage done.

One prank we had was much worse. Several kids filled a big empty garbage can with water, then leaned it against our front door. Rang the doorbell & ran. My 8 year old opened the door & 55 gallons of water crashed in all over her & inside the house. :eek:

Filed a police report on that one, that was just malicious & damaging. The police told me several other nearby houses were also hit.
 
We used to do a bit of TPing when I was a kid. I think the generally accepted etiquette was that that if your house was TP’d you cleaned it up. Then of course you were free to do a pay back, and that person would have to clean up. The exceptions to this were if a parent was really upset, then everyone would assist to get it all cleaned up ASAP.

Once I had been the recipient of a very thorough and elaborate job of Tping, with the added bonus of the little styrofoam balls from a bean bag being emptied out on my front lawn to spell out HA HA in large letters. I didn’t have time to clean it up since I had plans to go with friends to the beach. I called the boy who I suspected was the culprit and he came and cleaned it all up while I was gone.
 
The original post inquired about the morality of the action, so we have to look at the intent and knowledge of the perp.

If the perp. doesn’t realize the cleanup effort that must be made (especially with **wet **TP; I’ve got some experience there…) and has no malicious intent, and helps to clean up after being informed that it’s really quite a job, that mitigates the culpability of the action.

You’d figure that most kids have an inkling that somebody has to clean it up, though…so most likely nobody’s really able to claim ignorance…except maybe a 6 or 7 year old who went along with some older kids to TP a house.

So, it would be difficult to imagine circumstanes where a, say teenager, would not be morally culpable in TPing someone’s house.

A bit different if it’s a “friend’s” house, they kind of expect it and you all have a good laugh as you clean it up.
 
In our area it is tradiition to TP all those on Varsity Teams the night before the HS Homecoming. Everyone kinds of likes it because you get to see who is on a Varsity Team. Clean up is really easy, TP is biodegradable so you really just have to hose it down really well. We;ve had our house TPd several times.

The flamingo thing is done by a neighboring parish as a fund raiser for the youth group. You donate a ceratin amount of money, give the address of the home you want to flamingo, and the kids do it late at night. They leave it there about a day and then come colllect the “birds” for the next house. They also leave a sign stating that it was done by the youth group of St…parish.
 
A bit different if it’s a “friend’s” house, they kind of expect it and you all have a good laugh as you clean it up.
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May not be that funny if there is a “For Sale” sign up for that house. Need to think about possible consequences as well as ability to laugh it off.
 
Joannm said:
The flamingo thing is done by a neighboring parish as a fund raiser for the youth group. You donate a ceratin amount of money, give the address of the home you want to flamingo, and the kids do it late at night. They leave it there about a day and then come colllect the “birds” for the next house. They also leave a sign stating that it was done by the youth group of St…parish.
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This is harmless and useful. I will propose something like this to those looking for fundraisers. But, the flamingo activity I refered to in my post had nothing to do with an organized fundraiser. I will leave it at that.
 
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