Oh no!
Twisted Staten Island teens are resurrecting the “Kool-Aid Man Challenge,” which wreaked havoc locally and across the country at the start of the pandemic.
The destructive TikTok challenge requires teens mimic the popular Kool-Aid commercials, in which the bright-red drink’s pitcher mascot bursts through walls and fences.
The challenge often requires participants yell out, “Oh yeah!,” the Kool-Aid Man’s catchphrase before hurling themselves into fencing.
Staten Island’s Ben Helwa said he paid for costly repairs to his home in Eltingville, after a bunch of Kool kids busted through his fence earlier this month, NBC New York reported.
“I didn’t find it so funny waking up finding out I have big cost ahead to repair my fence,” he told the outlet.
Helwa said the teens can be seen in surveillance footage using a flashlight, leading him to suspect they filmed their shenanigans.
A group of vandals also ran through a fence in Prince Bay in the borough on Monday — and cops said it was the third reported incident in the past few months, the outlet reported. It’s unclear if the same group was responsible.
The Kool-Aid crisis kicked off around the nation starting in 2020 — with a staggering 15 cases reported to Omaha, Nebraska cops at the time.
Idaho man Richard Phillips was among the 10 to 15 homeowners targeted in his town of Caldwell in 2021.
“What in the world goes through these kids’ minds to drive around so late at night and have the thought process of ‘Oh, I’m going to destroy someone’s fence?’ ” Phillips told KVTB7 at the time, noting his house was hit twice in a few week span and cost him thousands” to repair.
In 2021, at least four incidents were reported in Westerleigh on Staten Island. And at least five separate Kool-Aid challenge related cases were reported to Suffolk County cops in a two month stretch in 2023, with some arrests being made.
In New York, inflicting property damage over $250 is considered third-degree felony criminal mischief.
The NYPD did not return a request for comment.
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