I lived in Malaysia as a kid and Chinese friends of ours had a mango tree in their front yard. Jannet and Paul were both uni teachers. Under that tree was a large pot painted black with yellow spots, and they never had a peice of fruit stolen.

That pot was BAD JUJU
There was also a burglar getting around, now this bloke was magic and turned himself into a shadow. The only way to catch him was to hit the shadow with a solid length of cane (I kid you not)then he turned into a person and couldn't move. Now to combat this Malay shadow, Jannet gave mom some pig skin to hang on the doors (he's Islamic see)and we never got robbed, of course bars on the windows and doors helped to