“You guys got forked.”

“Excuse me?”

My son had just walked in with a big grin on his face. And I was surprised by his language.

“Who forked you guys?”

Then it dawned on me he really did mean forked — he was talking about the dozens of plastic forks scattered across our lawn.

“Oh, that. We got TP’d last night. We got hit last weekend too.”

I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up the streams of toilet paper dangling from my pin oak.

My daughter, Julie, was the target of this week’s raid.

Along with the streaming tissue and forks, the pranksters had left funny remarks and inside jokes on her car windows.

“I heard they’re coming back. And I want to catch them,” Julie said.

Wireless sentries

I don’t like doing electrical wiring.

So I wondered if there were any remote-controlled wireless devices that might offer to help catch — or maybe discourage — the nocturnal raiders.

Technologies available include X10 modules, which use the existing wiring in your home; radio frequency devices and infrared devices.

One of the interesting ones I found was a Ninja robotic camera mount system (www.X10.com).

For about $80, you can get a nice little package: a XCam2 wireless color camera, a swiveling camera mount you can put on a roof and software to control them over your home computer or remotely over the Internet.

The software lets you, through a 2.4 gigahertz radio frequency signal, move the camera position up, down, left and right to see in a 240-degree by 130-degree sweep.

It wirelessly will transmit live images to your TV or computer.

Sound security

If you don’t already have an angry Rottweiler in your back yard, you can go the high-tech route and buy a Robo-Dog ($60 at www.X10.com).

When a motion detector is tripped, a computerized barking dog alarm goes off. Then three seconds after the dog barks, a light gets switched on — simulating someone getting up to see why the dog is barking. (Listen to the bark.)

Seeing the light

Without cover of darkness, would-be TP perps often lose their bravado — at least that’s what I remember.

At www.X10.com, I found the “Dual Floodlight Motion Detector,” which flips on dual floodlights. It can be set up to activate indoor or outdoor lighting or sound remote chimes. It also allows you to control any other lights in the home.

I also found a Remote Control Security Light ($250 at www.smarthome.com) that mounts on your roof. You can swivel the 100,000-candlepower light 370 degrees by radio frequency remote control from up to 200 feet away.

Shooting back

One 13th-Century method of repelling invaders was to set up a moat around the home castle.

You can use the same concept — without getting in trouble with the zoning board — by getting the Scarecrow Water Spraying Animal Repeller (about $42 at www.smarthome.com).

It hooks up to a garden hose and uses a 9-volt battery to power an infrared motion sensor.

When a squirrel, a skunk — or even a toilet-paper-carrying teenager — trips the detector, they’ll get hit with a three- to four-second burst of water that will carry 35 feet. You can adjust the spray from a 10-degree to 360-degree arc.

Retribution

Julie was looking out our front door, partially hidden in the shadows, when I got home.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I think there’s somebody out there,” she whispered, giggling.

After I went in, I heard our dog barking. And Julie quickly ran out the door, yelling “HEY!”

In a few seconds, Julie came back inside, laughing.

“I caught them!”

In a few minutes she got on her cell phone.

Then she hurried down to do some instant messaging.

“Dad, I’m going out for a while.”

“Where?”

She just grinned impishly.

I had a feeling someone else might be considering their own wireless security system.