ALDER COURT — A white cargo van parked on Linden Way occupied the full attention of the Alder Court Neighbors group chat for six consecutive days this week, generating 412 messages, two hypothetical timelines, and one flyer, none of which noticed that the van's owner was reading along.

The owner, 54-year-old chat member Dale Pruitt, responded to the first 31 messages with a thumbs-up reaction, which several residents interpreted as agreement that something was wrong.

“Dale was one of the first to engage, and he was supportive,” said Marjorie Keel, who opened the thread Monday with the words “Anyone know whose van this is??” and a photo taken through her kitchen blinds. “At the time I felt we were building a coalition.”

By Wednesday, the discussion had matured. One resident noted the van had “no windows in the back, which is a choice.” Another reported that it “seemed to be getting more parked.” A third circulated a spreadsheet of the vehicle's position relative to the nearest storm drain.

By day four, three residents had drafted a sternly worded flyer, which was revised eleven times in the chat before being abandoned over a disagreement about whether to use the word “kindly.” The final draft read, in part, “To Whoever Owns This Van: We See You. Kindly Move.”

Pruitt, a retired HVAC estimator, continued to react to messages throughout. He gave a heart to a message proposing a neighborhood meeting, and a laughing face to a post speculating that the van was “casing the block for a very patient burglar.”

“I thought it was a bit,” Pruitt said. “Then I thought it was a bigger bit. Around day three I realized everyone was serious, and by then I'd already reacted to so much that stopping felt like it would raise questions.”

Dr. Renata Oyelaran-Fitch, a senior fellow in applied porch studies at the Institute for Suburban Epistemology, said the episode is textbook. “A group chat cannot ask a simple question, because a question implies the answer might be simple,” she said. “Once a van enters the thread, it becomes the property of the thread. The owner is, at best, a witness.”

Matters concluded Saturday morning, when Pruitt posted a photo of his own driveway, in which the van was clearly visible, along with the message “lol that’s mine.”

The chat fell silent for 40 minutes, a record. It then resumed with a question about why Pruitt had not said anything sooner.

“He had every opportunity to speak, and he chose emoji.”

“He had every opportunity to speak, and he chose emoji,” Keel said. She added that she does not feel foolish, but does feel “misled by a thumbs-up.”

As of press time, the group had moved on to a new concern: a recycling bin that had been out since Thursday. Pruitt reacted with a thumbs-up.