Some homes worth less than their copper pipes

[alf]

There is an imbalance in the Force...

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2527885420080401

By Jason Szep

BROCKTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Shards of broken glass outside the basement window of 31 Vine Street hint at the destruction inside the three-story home.

Thieves smashed the window to break in and then gutted the property for its copper pipes -- a crime that has spread across the United States as the economy slows and foreclosed homes stand empty and vulnerable.

"They cut it here and then pulled it right out of the wall," real estate broker Marc Charney said, pointing to broken plaster near a wrecked baseboard heating system in the 2,774-sq-ft home in Brockton, Massachusetts, a working-class city of 94,304 people.

Similar stories are unfolding nationwide as a glut of home foreclosures coincides with record highs in the price of copper and other metals.

Real estate brokers and local authorities say once-proud homes coast-to-coast are being stripped for copper, aluminum, and brass by thieves. Much of it ends up with scrap metal traders who say nearly all copper gets shipped overseas, much of it to China and India.

In areas hit hardest by foreclosures, such as the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, copper and other metals used in plumbing, heating systems and telephone lines are now more valuable than some homes.

"We're in an incredibly unfortunate time where the nonferrous metals commodities market for scrap is at an all-time high. Houses are getting stripped pretty quickly once they go through the foreclosure process," Cleveland city councilor Tony Brancatelli said.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I read a story the other day that some particularly brazen copper thieves have been stealing the copper wire used to power highway lights along the recently-completed stretch of the 22 freeway here in SoCal. I drove on it last night and sure enough, pretty much the entire length of freeway is dark now.

Gotta' love it.

Got to admit, those guys must be resourceful/motivated to cut down wiring on a FREEWAY.

[968rz]

Last year around here they got a service trunk (must have had a crane) and stole the AC units from the mall roof for the cooper. No one noticed a thing, and this was during the day.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

A couple of job sites have been on had the same problem (guys would go up at night and gut the RTUs for the copper & other valuables, then leave the rest).

RTU = RoofTop Unit, FYI.

Big problem in the construction industry right now.

[jkarolyi]

They were tearing down an old building at the University where I work. Some of my co-workers spent an entire weekend of hard work stripping the building of copper with permission from plant management. I thought they were silly to spend so much time doing that, until I saw the $8000+ check from the recycler! Turns out the building had tons of copper piping and a copper boiler.

[Zeke]

Hey, that ain't all. Apparently if you have a Toyota SUV or other high-off-the-ground vehicle, your cat is not marked and the precious metals inside are worth a hundred bucks on the barrel head at the unscrupulous "recycler." They are disappearing in droves out of big parking lots like malls... in the daytime!!! More cover noise.

[Brian 162]

Someone stole 16 catalytic convertors from service vans on a weekend where I work.

[Wickd89]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

A couple of job sites have been on had the same problem (guys would go up at night and gut the RTUs for the copper & other valuables, then leave the rest).

RTU = RoofTop Unit, FYI.

Big problem in the construction industry right now.

I agree.

I'm in telecom and we get tons of copper stuff stolen weekly. Really sad because they typically do more damage than the value of what they steal; isn't that always the case.....

[look 171]

Originally Posted by milt

Hey, that ain't all. Apparently if you have a Toyota SUV or other high-off-the-ground vehicle, your cat is not marked and the precious metals inside are worth a hundred bucks on the barrel head at the unscrupulous "recycler." They are disappearing in droves out of big parking lots like malls... in the daytime!!! More cover noise.

that happen to one of my guys over the weekend. Why Toyota? He talked to a muffler installer, they said toyota and Nissan trucks are the most common.

Jeff

[911boost]

We have been selling some new wireless alarm type devices to a couple of the tel com companies, and upping coverage for some facilities to combat the copper thieves...

Bill

[Porsche_monkey]

A company nearby lost all their spare bronze bearings for a very large press. Bearings were several feet in diameter and hundreds of pounds. Probably $25,000 bearings sold for $5,000 scrap each.

They don't store large bearings outside any more.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Yep to that too - at my old office (we did a bunch of work for AT&T) we had a case where guys actually dug the grounding rods for one of the switchgear facilities right out of the ground.

I guess we should blame the rising price of crystal meth for this.

[NICKG]

Originally Posted by milt

Hey, that ain't all. Apparently if you have a Toyota SUV or other high-off-the-ground vehicle, your cat is not marked and the precious metals inside are worth a hundred bucks on the barrel head at the unscrupulous "recycler." They are disappearing in droves out of big parking lots like malls... in the daytime!!! More cover noise.

this is huge in areas like baltimore, cleveland and may metro areas...I sell 2-500 cats a month to replace these cut outs...
if you have a jeep, van or just about any kind of vehicle that you can slide under..it is fair game.
I sold 50 units to 1 shop to replace a lot of NEW (had like 5 miles) enteprise rental vans in atlanta...I love this as I make $$$ of selling the replacements.

oddly though we scrap 500-1500 cats a month here as defects...we sell them to the scrap guy for 5 each...I keep saying we should get more..but they don't care

[jorian]

We lost our internet connection because thieves ripped apart a station in my neighbourhood.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Can you imagine how much easier it would be if these people got.........jobs? They're obviously not lazy.

Happened a lot here recently, several schools and city athletic fields got hit. Lots of work involved to remove copper wiring from baseball field light poles, and some nerve required to hack into live power boxes.

[Seric]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Can you imagine how much easier it would be if these people got.........jobs? They're obviously not lazy.

It's easier to come to work high if you just steal stuff

[Mo_Gearhead]

QUOTE: "Can you imagine how much easier it would be if these people got.........jobs? They're obviously not lazy."
___________________

But usually VERY Stupid.

A company I worked for was broken into. First they broke into the mechanics shop area, took the tools they needed, then broke into the main bldg.

Inside the main bldg. was a vault. Vault was approx. 12' X 15'. Walls were all lined with metal filing cabinets (full of paper!). The door was one of those huge, bank types: steel-faced on all sides, probably 10-12" thick, (insulated) with a huge 'steamship type' wheel that (after turning the dial combination correctly) you spun, to move all the internal gears and the moving locking pins from the framework.

They (2-3 guys?) literally peeled the front off (half way down) that 8 ft. tall steel door, using nothing more than large chisels and sledge hammers taken from our shop. It looked like a sardine can lid.

Once in the vault they found/took ...nothing!

The cash box (which probably had less than $3K in it was locked in ONE of the many filing cabinets. They never opened it!

They finally pried open a soft drink machine in a hallway and probably left with less that $20 from it.

Sheriff assumed they probably worked HARD, pounding on that VAULT DOOR for 4-5 hours to open it.

Perhaps they thought we were a bank?

It was an electrical utility company. LOL

[onewhippedpuppy]

I'm waiting for one of these morons to fry themselves on a few hundred volts. That will be amusing.

[madmmac]

They can't get jobs because they can't pass a drug test.

[Mo_Gearhead]

QUOTE: "I'm waiting for one of these morons to fry themselves on a few hundred volts. That will be amusing."
________________________

Has happened before ...will happen again.

As someone mentioned above, if they don't actually kill themselves (utility thieves) they can endanger the utility 'system' and the linemen. Hundreds of thousands of utility poles use copper grounds (running up the length of the pole) ...when they remove those, it can cause many problems.

PS: Voltage is in the thousands! We had idiots climb into the bus work in substations! (Poof)