Student Pranks

NZPA reports on a student prank in Christchurch where 100 letters, bearing Christchurch City Council and Westfield Riccarton Mall logos, were delivered to about 100 houses in the Riccarton area informfing them their homes would be demolished so the mall could double its size — adding a foodcourt, hypermart, ice skating rink and 950 extra carparks.

This got me thinking about capping week stunts from ages past. One very similiar happened in 1984 when a friend of mine wrote on fake Auckland City Council letterhead to a few hundred homes nearby a park in the heart of Remuera. There had been a lot of debate about what was going to happen to the park, and the letter informed them that it was going to be turned into a Marae with an on-licence until 1 am. The uproar was hilarious (this was heartland Remuera in the Muldoon era) – especially as rumour has it one elderly resident put her house on the market.

Other capping day stunts whioch come to mind (sonme may be urban legends) are:

* The Massey student who stole a bus full of Japanese tourists to enter it into the lost and found contest

* The Dunedin students who stuck notices on parked cars advising chemical sprayed on the street meant their tyres needed to be checked and to bring them into the Council

* The Vic Uni students who told some workmen that students were going to dress up as Police to try and fool them as a capping stunt and then told the Police some students were pretending to be workmen so they could dig up a road.

* The Auckland students who put dry ice into some 44 gallon drums, spray painted hazard symbols onto the side, and then had the drums fall off a truck in the CBD.