Image credits: Torinounchi/Makuake.

It is true that humans can go to any extent to protect their belongings. However, a man based out of Japan went a bit too far after he put bird poop stickers on the seat of his bicycle.

According to a report published in Unilad, Motoki Reoga of Saitama, Japan, came up with this idea to reduce the chances of his bicycle being stolen. The 29-year-old’s basic concept is that there will not be too many thieves out there who would rob a cycle which has bird poop on it.

The Japan-based man devised these stickers as a part of his studies in Kansei Design at Chiba Institute of Technology. The said sticker also got him a prize of excellence.

In order to put his theory to test, Motoki carried out a social experiment. He put a thousand bikes with poop stickers on the street without even properly locking them. Even after a period of five days, none of the bikes with the stickers were stolen.

The inspiration to come up with such an idea was the high theft rate of bicycles in Japan. As per research done by Motoki Reoga, one bike is stolen every 15 minutes in Japan. He mentions that out of the 35,395 stolen cycles in 2018, 42% of them were locked properly.

In order to carry out this social experiment, he raised funds through crowdfunding. The 29-year-old man had put a target of 200,000 JPY, however, he had exceeded that and was able to raise a sum of 450,000 JPY.

On crossing the target, he said, “Thank you for your help. This is the real tree of the Bird Poop Project. All returns have been shipped safely, and the first crowdfunding is over! I am very pleased to have achieved great success with the support of many people. Thank you very much!”