Home Depot says it will remove a Halloween decoration of a creepy Peeping Tom character from its Canadian stores following complaints from an Ontario woman that the item makes light of predatory crimes against women.
The $29 decoration, dubbed the Scary Peeper Creeper, features a lifelike male figure in a dark hooded sweatshirt with his hands cupped against his face as if he is peering into a window. The item is intended to be attached to a window with suction cups and, as its maker puts it in a promotional video, scare the bejeezus out of people when they open a set of blinds or curtains and see it.
Two reviews on the Home Depot website both give it five stars and say it does exactly what the manufacturer claims. “Scared the you-know-what out of my wife when I put this on the kitchen window,” wrote one reviewer. “It looks so real and life-like.”
After spotting the decoration in her local store in Markham, Ontario, however, Breanne Hunt-Wells contacted CBC News to complain. The Creeper is “inappropriate and makes light of a real-life, sinister issue that women face in our society.”
“I fail to see the humour in it,” Hunt-Wells said in an interview on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning show. “It makes light of a very serious crime. Voyeurism is a crime in Canada.”
After being contacted by the CBC, Home Depot immediately took steps to remove the item from circulation in its stores.
“We agree that this is not in line with our core values, and when we heard, took immediate action and are currently in the process of removing this product from our assortment,” Home Depot spokeswoman Emily DiCarlo told the CBC.
“We’ve reached out to advise the customer of our actions and apologize. We’re sorry for any offence that was caused,” she added.
