By Tim Binnall
An Ohio antique mall is at its wit's end over a mysterious and troublesome individual who keeps pouring cooking grease on their front door. According to a local media report, the strange situation started on the morning of January 14th when the proverbial phantom first struck the entrance of Eclectiques Antique Mall in the Columbus suburb of Clintonville. The vandal followed up with a second visit in mid-February before going dormant for months until a third incident occurred last Thursday. Fed up with being targeted by the troublemaker, the antique mall turned to social to detail the curious case and call on the public for help.
"Three times now, in the middle of the night, someone has poured cooking grease down our front door," Eclectiques Antique Mall explained in a Facebook post on Friday. Given the very specific nature of the incidents, they understandably indicated that "we have almost certainly ruled out this being a random occurrence. To that end, they theorized that the perpetrator "is someone in our community, living close by." Expanding on this unsettling thought was store manager Jeff Mayo who mused "this is speculation, but I do think it's someone we know." That said, he expressed mystification over the matter since "we don’t really conflict with people. If this is something someone is mad about, it’s something they’ve kept" to themselves.
Regardless of the mysterious miscreant's motivations, Mayo lamented that the greasy incidents are "the ultimate inconvenience. It’s almost like they’re thinking, ‘What's the most I can do without damaging or hurting anything.'" As such, the antique mall shared security footage of the vandal in action (seen below) and asked any neighboring businesses or residences to check their security systems for the specific dates when the ne'er-do-well struck in the hopes of possibly unmasking the phantom. Although they have reported the matter to the police, the business is skeptical that authorities will consider the case a high priority, leaving Mayo to observe that "we just want it to stop, we’re not thinking justice or revenge."