Carly Swim was working from home on September 8 when she ordered lunch to be delivered to her doorstep in Idiot’s Hill, a residential neighborhood in Denton. She picked it up from her front porch like she always does when she orders from DoorDash.
A few hours later, a man making some repairs to her house told Swim that more food was waiting on her porch. It was a DoorDash order from McDonald’s: a Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries, and a drink. The bag was still sealed.
This wasn’t hers, she thought. She already had lunch. Swim posted on her neighborhood’s Facebook group to ask if the food arrived on her doorstep by mistake.
Two hours later, the same worker let Swim know she had another DoorDash delivery. It was the same meal, but with a different drink. She went to Facebook again to let her neighbors know she got a second, unsolicited meal.
“The worker must have thought I was really hungry,” she says.
In the weeks since Swim’s surprise deliveries, there have been unwanted deliveries of McDonald’s bags from DoorDash filled with cheeseburgers, fries, Quarter Pounders, and Egg McMuffins. Idiot’s Hill is a neighborhood bound by Sherman, Windsor, University, and Nottingham drives in Denton. (The Morning News has a story about the name of the neighborhood, which is either a joke because of the college professors who moved there in the 1980s, or that its sandy soil meant that anyone who purchased a home there was an “idiot.”)
The meals usually include an entrée, fries, and a drink. The neighborhood and its Facebook group can’t make sense of it. Swim estimates there have been about 20 or so this month, with the most recent delivery on September 21. That one had an Egg McMuffin.
“We’re all kind of laughing at each other,” Swim says. “But I guess there’s a little part of you that’s hoping you’re not laughing at somebody getting scammed.”
Swim is referring to another perplexing case of unwanted deliveries in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood. The Los Angeles Times reported a street was flooded with undesired Uber Eats orders from McDonald’s and Starbucks earlier this year. Some residents received dozens of orders, according to the L.A. Times.
The paper speculated that the unwelcome orders could be some sort of elaborate prank funded by a T.V. show. The other reason could be more sinister: criminals testing the validity of stolen credit cards. Still, why is it only happening in this neighborhood?
Swim says she fears another unsuspecting recipient may call a phone number they think is DoorDash support, only fall victim to a scam. A resident recently tried to intercept a DoorDasher to get the phone number that placed the order, Swim says. It was a New York number that went unanswered, according to the neighbor.
A DoorDash spokeswoman said Tuesday the team is investigating the source of the orders to Idiot’s Hill. It’s also unclear which McDonald’s the orders are coming from. McDonald’s did not respond to a request for comment.
“But I guess there’s a little part of you that’s hoping you’re not laughing at somebody getting scammed.”
Carly Swim
Lyssa Kittelson joined the neighborhood Facebook group just a few months ago. At first, the posts about the DoorDash deliveries began slowly, she says. Neighbors inquired as to whether the orders were being delivered to the wrong home. Kittelson says she didn’t tell her husband about the issue because she thought the issue wasn’t worth mentioning. But then it kept happening.
“One day I was out of town and my husband called me when he got home from work, and he was like, ‘There’s a McDonald’s on the on the porch.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’” Kittelson says. “So I sent him all these screenshots of the group because he had no idea what was going on.”
In the bag was a Big Mac, an order of small fries, an order of medium fries, and a medium orange Fanta. In the photo, the sticker says the order should be delivered to “DoorDash.” Kittelson says her husband probably would have eaten the meal had ants not beaten him to it. The bag sat unattended for hours before her husband found it; DoorDash allows drivers to leave the orders outside the home.
“That’s why I think it’s not somebody’s actually doing it on purpose because it’s just sitting here getting wasted and a lot of people aren’t even able to eat it,” Kittelson says. “And I honestly don’t think I would eat it because I’d be too afraid.”
Swim says she didn’t eat the two Quarter Pounders that were delivered to her house. She was anxious about whether the food had been tampered with. She’s hoping the deliveries die down at some point, but there are a few neighbors—like Kittelson—who are growing concerned about the source of the deliveries and why they chose this neighborhood.
For now, it’s good for a laugh.
“I hope that it’s just a fluke for a little while and then it tapers off like any good joke,” Swim says. “I told everybody yesterday that I’m going to laugh if anyone dresses like a burger for Halloween.”
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