One of the joys of the game is to leave gifts for neighbours outside the doors of their houses. Unfortunately these are often picked up by someone else. I think there are now a few players who spend their time cruising through neighbourhoods looking for things to pick up.
Since there is already a programmed area outside each house where gnomes (and pumpkins) can be safely left, why not make it so that anything dropped in this zone can only be picked up by the home owner or the person who dropped it? Then we could leave little surprises for our neighbours and know that the gift would still be their when the intended recipient arrived home!