Mississippi neighbourhood terrorized by mashed potatoes

STUMPED BY SPUDS

Randomly placed bowls of mashed potatoes are terrorizing residents in a Jackson, Miss., neighbourhood after several locals found bowls of the white goop nestled in mailboxes and cars.

Belhaven locals have no idea who is stuffing the starchy sludge around the neighbourhood, but one resident theorized it could be a prank by alumni from a local school.

“As I walked out of my door, my neighbour said, ‘What is that on your mailbox?’ And I said ‘Umm … It looks like a bowl of mashed potatoes. I have no idea what this is,’ ” Michaela Lin told local news station WLBT. “Thankfully she told me that her friend on Facebook found a bowl in his car this morning, so then I thought ‘Oh, this is happening a lot today?’”

Then it clicked for Lin. Other mashed-potato victims were either current or former students at the neighbourhood school.

“I feel like there has to be a connection there,” Lin said.

Another Belhaven resident said that until the mashed potato mixup, she had yet to see any strange, quirky things going on in the neighbourhood.

Some, however, worry the bowls aren’t merely a practical joke, but rather they could harbour something sinister: poison.

“Some people were thinking maybe the mashed potatoes were poisoned to kill animals,” said resident Sebastian Bjernegard, who discovered his own potatoe’d porch when scurrying out for work at 7 a.m.

“I didn’t taste it. I have a three-second rule, so I didn’t touch it, but some people were worried,” he told news station WJTV.