The Great Cricket Caper: When Petty Revenge Gets Under Your Skin (and Floorboards)
There are college pranks, and then there’s the level of diabolical ingenuity that turns a group house into an endless nature documentary. Imagine living in a house where, at random intervals, the faint yet unmistakable chirp of a cricket echoes through the halls, the kitchen, and even beneath your feet—yet you can never quite find the source. Welcome to the saga of “Cricket Chirps,” a petty revenge story that recently set Reddit abuzz.
It’s a tale as old as college housing: two clashing factions, one lease, and a finale that blurs the line between creative mischief and outright villainy. But as the Reddit community quickly made clear, there’s more to this prank than meets the ear.
Let’s set the scene. Our protagonist, u/teiguemac02, lived in a college house with ten other guys. Over time, the household split into two camps: the self-described “bigger partiers” and their more studious, less raucous housemates. The party crew insists they were “completely reasonable”—out the door by 11 pm, always cleaning the living room every week. But tensions simmered. The other group, according to OP, “still wasn’t satisfied, resentment builds. They were honestly just straight up judgmental and passive aggressive…with varying levels of social superiority complexes.”
The breaking point came at lease renewal time. The quieter group had the numbers, so the partiers were forced out. That’s when our soon-to-be-ex-resident decided to make his final mark—by turning the house into a never-ending cricket concert. Armed with cricket chirp noise makers from eBay, he hid them in “every tiny, obscure nook and cranny”—behind the stove, inside the radiator, under the stair carpet. Each device was set to a different chirp, at random intervals of 10-20 minutes. The effect? A haunting, unsolvable puzzle for his former housemates—one that could only end when the batteries finally gave up.
It’s the kind of prank that’s as clever as it is maddening. But when the story hit r/PettyRevenge, the community reaction was swift, brutal, and—let’s be honest—hilariously insightful.
“Let’s be honest,” wrote u/BAT123456789, racking up over 170 upvotes, “most people don’t live for years with the same large group of people for more than a year in college. They sound completely reasonable and you sound truly awful, and you’re the one telling this story.” Ouch. The sentiment echoed across the thread: maybe, just maybe, the “reasonable” party crew wasn’t as considerate as they believed.
Others chimed in with the practical realities of shared living. “11pm is late as hell when you’re trying to study, have an early class and are exhausted,” noted u/BrokenBotox, highlighting the classic college tension between fun and focus. Cleaning the living room “every week”? Hardly a badge of honor, as u/GNav dryly pointed out—“If it’s legit 5 on 5…the place should be getting cleaned almost daily…they just got tired of OP’s shit.”
Some commenters took aim at the ethics of the “revenge” itself. “This isn’t petty revenge. This is dickhead behavior,” declared one. Another, u/neityght, didn’t mince words: “Minimal consideration for anyone else. Real ‘lads’ in the worst sense of the word, with a juvenile attitude towards life, as evidenced by your childish prank that may well last long enough to annoy the next lot of tenants.”
Then there were those who saw the humor and creativity—if not exactly the morality—of the prank. “Jimminy, the cricket version of the annoy-a-tron. Nicely done,” quipped u/CoderJoe1, referencing the infamous geek prank device. A few even shared their own tales of subversive sound-based sabotage, from hidden chirpers on office porches to Annoy-a-Trons tucked in impossible corners. “Better than hidden shrimp in a curtain rod any day,” added another with a nod to pranks of yore.
But the real consensus? The vast majority agreed: this was less a masterstroke of revenge and more a case study in why some people just shouldn’t live together. As u/Eatar wryly summarized, “Time proved that we didn’t live well together…so when the lease was up and we were going our separate ways, I generously decided to free them up of any guilt they might have felt for asking me to move out, by proving to them it was the right decision.”
What’s fascinating is the split in tone between the few cheering pranksters and the overwhelming chorus calling out the deeper issues underneath. Reddit, rarely shy about groupthink, delivered a rare moment of clarity: a prank can be funny, but context—and empathy—matters. It’s one thing to pull a fast one on a close friend; it’s another to torment ex-roommates who just wanted a quiet place to study.
So, what’s the takeaway from the Great Cricket Caper? Maybe it’s that the best revenge is moving on (and maybe learning to compromise on the party schedule). Or maybe, as some commenters suggested, it’s just proof that “you’re the asshole” can be the most honest—and necessary—verdict of all.
But above all, the story is a lesson in the eternal dance of roommate relations: communication trumps chaos, and sometimes the loudest sound is the one you leave behind.
Have you ever been the victim (or perpetrator) of a prank gone too far? Or did you survive a roommate war with only minor scars? Drop your best (or worst) tales in the comments below—the chirping is optional.
Original Reddit Post: Cricket chirps