You would expect for thieves to steal money, cars and other valuables, but in the Shaw neighborhood of D.C., a resident said someone stole a bucket of compost from the front of his rowhouse - and it is not the first time it has happened.

It's not only a popular trend, but people are incredibly serious about their composting. Urban gardens are spreading throughout the District, but more and more people are choosing to compost at home. As benign as your table scraps may seem, there is always a possibility that a criminal may want a piece of your rotten food as Greg Kourosh found out.

"It's flabbergasting and perplexing," he said.

One man's trash is another man's treasure - that old adage was especially true in his case.

"It was very deliberate, which I thought was very odd," said Kourosh.

His surveillance camera at 5 a.m. captured a vehicle's hazard lights flashing in front of his home.


"It was almost like a heist," the homeowner said. "Like she knew what she wanted. She planned it. She drove up, grabbed it and left."

She stole a bucket of compost filled with rotting vegetables and rotting meat used to eventually make fertilizer.

After years of stolen packages outside his home, Kourosh decided to get security cameras, which are obvious to see on the front of his house. Yet, the compost thefts have happened twice to him in two months.

"We put extra labels on it saying [it was] compost. Not trash. Private property. Don't take."

The surveillance video of the theft has taken off on social media with people equally perplexed. There is one common question for the compost thief - why?

"Nothing has ever come of any of my police reports for stolen packages, so I thought it was even less likely that they would find this person taking a $20 bucket with some vegetable scraps in it," said Kourosh.

This environmentally-conscious resident is hoping the next time he is on his phone checking on his security cameras, his compost bucket will make it back where it belongs.