Nebby post alert: Drive-by fruiters return to West View

In Pittsburgh, locals call being nosy and gossipy “nebby” and Pittsburghers looooove to be nebby. And while nebbiness used to be confined to water coolers, neighborhood meetings, or chats on the porch, modern-day nebbiness can now be found online.

The nebbiest posts are usually found on Nextdoor.com — a social media site for sharing neighborhood happenings that is sometimes filled with paranoia — but nebby posts can really be found anywhere on the web: Facebook groups, Twitter, and even online comments and reviews.

Pittsburgh City Paper is setting out to collect the best, craziest, and non-offensive nebby posts from across the region, and will be sharing them on a regular basis. According to Pittsburghers on social media, some of the more memorable posts over the years have included: someone filing an official noise complaint and calling the police over a neighbor's wind chimes in Garfield, a Pittsburgh racoon causing a ruckus after getting drunk off fermented berries and crab apples, and someone allegedly leaving random fruits in a neighbor's yard in West View, aka a “drive-by fruiting.”

And it appears the drive-by fruiters have returned.

According to an Oct. 4 post on Nextdoor, the “West View Fruit Gang” has returned, and instead of just leaving random citrus in people’s yards, they apparently are launching smashed avocados in yards and patios. (Yes, technically avocados are fruits.)

“Oooookay neighbors, I’m getting REEEEAL sick of the West View Fruit Gang and I need some advice as to next steps. You may remember my posts back in March about finding random fruit in my yard - lemons and clementines and a pear, scattered around the treeline or the front yard. Well, starting over the summer, I have started finding SMASHED avocados UP ON MY NEW DECK, and it is not okay.”
The neighbor says that the fruiting was kind of fun at first, and just harmless little fruits in the yard, but now the issue is serious and they are worried the fruiters are using special produce weaponry.

”When it was whole fruits in the yard, it seemed like a silly little weird mystery. But this….this is becoming property damage. Whoever is doing this is either using a potato gun (likely) or coming on to my property to somehow launch them up onto the deck,” wrote the neighbor. “Either way, these overly ripe avocados are smashed and its pieces scattered all over the deck. It's leaving residue on my composite decking that is not coming out and I am so frustrated over it.”

Attached to the post are photos of an exploded avocado and some green and brown residue on the deck. As people do on social media, the neighbor pleaded for help. And by now, they have apparently installed cameras to catch the fruiters in the act.

“My question to you all is - what actions can I take here? I don’t have cameras - yet (delivery 10/12) but even then they don’t continuously record so who knows if I’ll get anything,” wrote the exasperated resident. “I’ve talked to my neighbors and no one has seen anything … do I call the police? I mean that seems ridiculous but I’m not sure what else I can do? Any ideas (or similar occurrences) are welcome.”

CP is going to keep sharing the best nebby posts when we find them, as often as we can, but we also would love our readers to help. If you come across a funny, interesting, or particularly nebby post, please send it our way to [email protected]. We will remove any identification information from the post. (Please don’t send any racist, transphobic, or otherwise offensive content, we have no intentions of amplifying those.)