‘Just disgusting;’ Concerns surface after obscene ‘ding dong ditching’ pranks in Bellbrook

BELLBROOK — Some Bellbrook residents are concerned after reports of kids leaving obscene posters on front doors and cars.

They do this after knocking loudly and then taking off in the middle of the night.

One such instance was caught on a neighbor’s video doorbell camera and then posted on social media.

It happens in an instant.

The video shows what appears to be a teenage boy running up to the front door, taping a paper on it, knocking twice and then running back to a car in the street.

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Joe Burns showed News Center 7′s John Bedell the spot where he found a poster taped to his car Sunday morning, with obscene language and images.

“Some pretty vulgar stuff... turn around and look, and there’s another one on the front door,” Burns said.

Burns said he woke up to a loud knock at his front door around 2 a.m. Sunday.

After the discovery, he drove around the neighborhood and saw he wasn’t alone.

Just down the block, Jean Elting said she found similar posters taped to the back windshield of her car and her front door Sunday morning.

“It was just disgusting,” Jean Elting said.

Her neighbor reported the same thing.

“It really did look like kids that had nothing to do and were just goofing around,” Elting said.

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Bellbrook Police Chief Stephen Carmin said his department is currently not investigating because no one has made a formal complaint.

“I’ve heard this is part of a Tik Tok challenge that’s been out for quite a while,” Carmin said.

If homeowners want to pursue charges, Carmin said it would involve looking into the possibility of curfew violations and trespassing.

Aside from that, Carmin shared his biggest concern with the trend — someone getting hurt.

“The safety of the child coming onto somebody’s property at 2, 3, 4 in the morning -- just their own safety. We would hate to have another duplication of the incident that happened down in Cincinnati with somebody being injured by a firearm thinking this was possibly a burglar,” Carmin said.

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