Photo by Kathryn Fink.

Let’s call it CSI: Doggy Park. Frustrated by the number twos left behind by man’s number one best friend, one condominium board in Annapolis has begun using DNA samples to suss out which dogs (and really, which owners) are responsible for leaving their waste behind.

The Capital Gazette reports that board members at the Park Place Condominium complex are cracking down with the help of canine DNA tests, after emails, meetings, fines, and security cameras didn’t do the trick. Testing cost $2,500 and about 20 owners have provided DNA samples of their pets so far.

“If there’s an incident where someone hasn’t cleaned up after their pet, then we would take a sample of that so it can be matched,” Jeanne Fisher, the condo’s general manager, told The Capital Gazette. “If they can be matched, then there would be an automatic fine for not following the policy of cleaning up.”

Park Place isn’t the first to do this kind of diligence—a “very small minority” of community associations have used DNA testing in this manner, said CEO of the Community Associations Institute Tom Skiba, according to The Capital Gazette.

We’ve yet to hear of any D.C. residences that have taken this step (please get in touch if you have), but that doesn’t mean Washingtonians haven’t made their own kind of stink when it comes to poop scooping. Here are some solutions they’ve found:

1. Medley of security cameras and public shaming

Longtime Tenleytown resident Marcello Muzzatti bought security cameras for his home using a rebate program through the D.C. government designed to help catch criminals. He’s since developed an interest in one particular crime: not picking up dog waste, which can carry fines ranging between $150 and $2,000.

He posted footage to YouTube in March 2017 a video of a person walking his dog, who then does its business on Muzzatti’s lawn. Muzzatti sent an email to the neighborhood listserv that said, “Hey *sshole! Its not bad enough that your dog sh*t on my lawn you looked around to see if anybody was watching … Enjoy and please let him know he is welcome to stop by and pick up his dog sh*t whenever he wants!”

He didn’t report the incident to police, instead deciding to leave the pile of dog poop on his lawn. “It’s still on the lawn,” he told DCist the next day. “I’m still gonna print up a poster of them and put it on the lawn. I’ll leave it there. I don’t care.”

2. Throwing a bag of poop?

This one still boggles the mind. Here’s an email from the Cleveland Park listserv in March, courtesy of Popville:

8:15 this morning I was retrieving my supercan to put it in the garage. 2600 block Woodley Place. A middle-aged man in a red jacket walking his black and white bulldog dropped a bag of dog waste in an already emptied supercan.

I picked it out and chased after him to inform him We do NOT do that in this neighborhood, and take it with him.

He of course was obnoxious and refused. I threw it trying to hit him in the head. (I’m obnoxious too).

A police cruiser happened to be coming along, asked them to catch up with him. Of course they’re not much interested.

I do have photos of him and his dog I am happy to share with you. Do you know who this is? Where he lives?

For what it’s worth, the Cleveland Park listserv has long debated the ethics of putting one’s dog poop in another person’s garbage, and predictibly, commenters were divided and often incensed. Here’s the most intense reaction, from an anonymous commenter:

YOU ARE TREASPASSING ON MY PROPERTY when you put your wrapped dog shit in my trash can and I will have you arrested, or find where you live, have every homeless drunk PEE and SHIT and PUKE very close to your property. Drunks are always walking up from Connecticut Ave. late at night and I see them throwing up, peeing and shitting frequently. I would love to watch you scrape off the bottom of your $800 Ferragamo loafers after stepping in fresh, “steam coming out of it”, diarhea, dog shit. Or step in some drunk’s PUKE!!! Nothing worse than this!!

Someone responded, “All the angry anonymous posters really need therapy.
Chill out, folks. The supercans are not actually in your homes to smell them up.”

3. Just get a lottery ticket

Who can forget D.C. Lottery’s response to the woes of stepping in a pile of waste. Just buy a D.C. Lottery ticket, of course! Skip the CSI shenanigans and get filthy rich instead.