{"id":3290,"date":"2026-02-14T09:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T17:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=3290"},"modified":"2026-02-14T09:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T17:02:39","slug":"the-great-toilet-paper-heist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=3290","title":{"rendered":"The Great Toilet Paper Heist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the world shut down and everyone else started baking sourdough, my wife and I bought a collapsing cottage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know. Standard pandemic behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our friends were panic-buying hand sanitizer, we were signing papers on a place that looked like it had lost a fistfight with 1973. The deck was so thoroughly rotten, I fell through it the first time I walked onto it \u2013 not \u201cit cracked under my foot,\u201d \u2013 completely<\/em> through it.\u00a0 (This is NOT hyperbole.)\u00a0 The carpet was that plush, luxurious style you find in the average IRS lobby. The bathroom \u201cfan\u201d was an open window (looking onto the neighbor\u2019s porch).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we had a dream.  We would turn this run-down little gremlin of a house into a charming Airbnb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we painted. We hammered. We replaced things that should have been replaced during the Reagan administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the remodel, I read about my options to operate the cottage.  Should we be insane enough to host it ourselves?  Meet and greet?  Change the sheets?  Scrub the bathtub?  I read a blog post from a woman in Atlanta who personally ran an Airbnb.  She warned: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlan on spending more on paper products that you might expect.\u201d  She noted that guests often stole all the toilet paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, I scrunched up my face and thought, really?  Then I laughed. Surely, she was exaggerating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We came to our senses and hired an Airbnb rental service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to our stopping by to visit the place right after a checkout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The place looked great\u2026 until I entered the bathroom to address a \u201ccode red.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empty holder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empty \u201cfour-roll\u201d toilet paper stacker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not even the half-used roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a toilet paper rapture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These people didn\u2019t just take the extras. They took the emotional support roll. The one currently on duty. Who removes a half-used roll like, \u201cYes, I\u2019m scraping this place bare\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We renovated an entire cottage, installed new floors, upgraded appliances\u2026 but the real threat to our success?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toilet paper bandits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We renovated an entire cottage, installed new floors, upgraded appliances\u2026 but the real threat to our success?<\/p>\n

Toilet paper bandits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[1100,1101,18,532,33,19,92],"class_list":["post-3290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","tag-airbnb","tag-toilet-paper","tag-funny","tag-humor","tag-laugh","tag-lol","tag-oregon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jocularious.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Toilet-Paper-Thief-3.png?fit=1024%2C592&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3290"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3296,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions\/3296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}