WATCH: Las Vegas homeowner pranks package thieves with dog poop

Eric Burdo was tired of the spate of porch thefts in his Las Vegas neighbourhood, so he did something about it and wrapped up a surprise for would-be thieves.

“One day I kind of just thought about cleaning up the [dog] poop and putting it in a box and that’s what I did,” Burdo told KTNV.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "One day I kind of just thought about cleaning up the [dog] poop and putting it in a box and that's what I did," Burdo told <a href="http://www.ktnv.com/news/homeowner-speaks-out-about-putting-poop-in-a-box">KTNV</a>.

Burdo put the prank package on his porch on Sunday and four days later it was gone.

Burdo’s security cameras captured a young man run onto his porch, grab his package and run away with an accomplice.

“Hopefully they won’t do it again and they learned their lesson,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Hopefully they won't do it again and they learned their lesson," he said.

In California, the Rancho Cordova Police Department is also using decoy packages to catch would-be thieves.

By stuffing boxes full of fake consumer goods and a tracking device, they leave them on porches in the neighbourhood with the hope that they will be able to catch a thief with a decoy.

“We’re trying to make it look as much as we can like it’s any other package that got delivered there,” Deputy Matthew Deaux told NBC News.

“The more that people know that we’re doing this, the less likely they are to do it.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The more that people know that we're doing this, the less likely they are to do it."