All You Damn Thieves, You Bloody Scrap Metal Collectors... I'M MAD

I've noticed a big increase in these leaches stealing metal in my neighbourhood as the price of metals has increased. I see people collecting out of the recycle boxes and they steal the only money making part of the waste the city uses to fund the whole program.

Last week the copper ground wires for the cable systems of local apartment building were cut and stolen. The ground wires for the hydro poles are being cut off at night and sold for a couple bucks in scrap.

DAMN IT !!!!
THOSE GROUND WIRES PROTECT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF EQUIPMENT YOU FOOLS.............

It will now also cost thousands of dollars for all these wires to be replaced.

How much did you get for it you waste of human skin, a couple bucks ???
Go try and rip off a power line some time, the jolt might knock some sense into you, or at least remove you from the genetic pool.

That car garage in the lane that you stripped the old aluminum siding off, well that belongs to an elderly woman on a fixed income. She's lived alone for years since her husband died, but she manages to keep the house up with help from neighbours.
You not only destroyed her garage, but you broke her heart. She has no way to pay for new siding and she's lost a little more security in being able to live an independent life in her own home. Stealing the little brass bird off her outside hose tap was a particularly nasty touch.

An entire house was burned to the ground recently because one of these inconsiderate idiots cut the brass valve off a fire hydrant. By the time the Firemen were able to run long lines to the next nearest hydrant the home was fully involved and there was nothing they could do.
The couple dollars some jerk sold the valve for as scrap cost someone their home and all their belongings.

This is not just a problem in my community, but seems to be going on everywhere.
Here's a few links that point out a growing problem.

www.google.ca...

Thieves are stripping churches of valuable metals at the rate of more than one church a day to cash in on scrap prices kept high by heavy demand from China.

Ecclesiastical Insurance has received 500 claims in the past 14 months, totalling £750,000. Many are for repeated thefts from the same churches.

Since 2005, thefts of lead have trebled and copper thefts have multiplied by 10, Ecclesiastical said.

Criminals have stripped entire church roofs, stolen bells, and ripped lightning conductors from spires by tying them to trucks and driving away, wrecking historic masonry.

Recycling firms pay about £900 a tonne for lead and £2,700 a tonne for copper.
www.independent.co.uk...

Dozens of 150-pound manhole covers stolen in Long Beach are apparently being taken to recyclers by metal thieves.

About 50 of the cast-iron lids have been stolen in the past eight months, 17 of them last week.

Long Beach Water Department spokesman Ryan Alsop says the thefts are apparently the work of a team. The 20- to 24-inch wide manhole covers fetch about $10 apiece when sold to metal recycling companies.

Two motorists whose cars were damaged when they hit an open manhole have filed claims with the city.
www.sfchroniclemarketplace.com.../n/a/2008/05/06/state/n075837D48.DTL

Metal thieves steal submersible spotlights from Saginaw fountain
by Jean Spenner and Sue White | The Saginaw News
Friday May 09, 2008, 9:01 PM

While city and state lawmakers look for ways to put teeth into laws against stealing metal and selling it for scrap, thieves wrenched out 12 submersible spotlights from a lighted fountain at the center of the Andersen Enrichment Center's rose garden.

"These light fixtures are made of some kind of metal. We think it's copper," said Lisa Hall, manager at the center, 120 Ezra Rust in Saginaw, adding that the thieves struck between May 2 and early this week.

The metal, and the price it brings when sold for scrap, most likely was the attraction, she said. A light also is gone from a smaller fountain in front of the center, Hall said. It is unclear when that light disappeared.
www.mlive.com...

In all the miles of roadway in this state, and all the jokes about them, no one saw this coming.

Unfortunately for state and local officials, no one saw anything going, either, and that makes this a bit of a mystery, as well as a madcap moment in the movie comedy starring the state of New Jersey.

The mystery involves guardrails. Several miles of them. The aluminum rails have been disappearing in the dead of night on such heavily traveled highways as I-80, I-78 and State Routes 46 and 19.

The disappearances, which were first reported on Wednesday in The Record of Hackensack, have been noted from Paterson to Irvington. Aluminum facing has been painstakingly removed and the bolts holding it to posts sawed off, leaving stretches of stumplike posts lining the roads.
query.nytimes.com...

This is really getting ridiculous and has to stop. It's not only causing injury, damage and money, but it's really pissing me off.




End Of Rant.......

Recently in St. Louis County, thieves stripped the copper piping from the natural gas system in a house. It exploded. Now, a dozen additional homes have been rendered unlivable. Jerks.

The scrap dealers should be held accountable just like pawn shops.
They should keep a record of what comes in and ID people that bring in things like magnesium or aluminum car rims and stuff that is obviously stolen. People even take catalytic converters off cars around hear.

The profits are too good for scrap dealers to care right now, and there are very few laws to stop them from buying from anyone that drags a few pounds of metal into the yard.

I have several neighbors that collect scrap on a regular basis and one drags home any air conditioner she can. When she takes them apart she bleeds all the freon into the air when she cuts the lines to get the copper.

In the fairly developed and not-so-poor SE Asian country I'm staying this is everyday occurencies. Any house not attended for more than 24 hrs will have power suply cords cut down.

Not only that, on roads covers for manholes are removed on a regular basis. Needless to say a serious risk to traffic. An even greater risk is the removal of the plucks/nails that hold the rails to the sleepers on the railroads.

Because of the shape of the economy this is a nationwide epidemic...

Copper Theft Blamed for Key Largo Fire

The man investigators say is responsible for starting a fire at an abandoned casino is fighting for his life. Authorities say he started the fire while he was trying to steal copper from the building. It happened at about 7:00 p.m. Monday night at the old Key Largo Casino on Flamingo near Paradise.

The suspect may not make it. He's still in critical conditions with burns to over 80-percent of his body. Fire officials say this is proof that not only is stealing copper a crime, but it's also dangerous too.

Scott Allison with Clark County Fire says the suspect came with his tools and equipment primed and ready. He broke into the Key Largo and tried to steal the copper wiring out of the power box. What he didn't know was that the power was still on.

Copper theft near Whitesboro

WHITESBORO, Tex. -- Another copper theft has been reported north of Whitesboro at Sandusky and Brumlowe Road. This time, it cost Union Pacific Railroad about $5,000.

Someone stole several wooden spools of the copper wire, took the wiring, and dumped the spools.

The railroad estimates it was a total of more than 3,500 feet of copper, which can sell for around $4 per pound.

Two accused in failed copper theft scheme

Two men were charged Friday in connection with a burglary in the 300 block of North Sixth Street, St. Charles police said. Mario Gomez, 33, of Elmwood, was charged with felony theft, attempted burglary, burglary and felony criminal damage to property after he was caught stealing transformers, copper and scrap metal from the property by an undercover officer who had posed as a security guard, police said.

Gomez was arrested when he returned to the property for more scrap metal, police said.

When I was out on the street, I was working for a temporary labor agency, contracted to a buisness putting up a new courthouse. I went around behind the electricians and picked up every single bit of scrap wire they cut (and were going to throw away) and I stripped the wire. After a while I had enough copper to turn in and I used it to buy a used laptop computer.

Copper theft is rampant because of the state of the economy. The worse problem is, is that all of this copper reportedly is being shipped overseas to China.

In one instance where I used to live in Florida, thieves actually got so bold they cut off a copper return off of the back of the local police station. (you could say they had brass ones for that move)








[edit on 5/14/2008 by whatukno]

Another theft across the street from me that happened last night.......

Someone cut two heavy protective screens off of stained glass windows of the Church. They then smashed the glass that was installed in 1924 so they could rip out the lead that held the glass pieces in place.

They destroyed two beautiful windows for a couple bucks worth of lead, and sadly, with such a small congregation the Church will probably never be able to restore this piece of history and those windows are lost forever.

The worst case I heard of lately was the theft of a large brass water valve to the water supply at a kidney dialysis center while it was in full operation.

Patients were rushed to other facilities none too soon.

Totally insensitive with disregard for human life.

Here in Georgia, scrap metal dealers keep a log of each delivery they receive. Well they are supposed to anyway. I imagine much gets by without being logged.

reply to post by dizziedame


In London (UK) Every single day.the Tube(trains) are shutdown at points because thieves stole the wiring honestly our Governments should make it law that the collectors provide location of metal find and the rendering plants provide the names and drivers licences of the people who bring them metal.This is a fact there is no honest metal collector ,no honest rendering plant .

Hahahaha! I hope you're not gonna be mad at me for saying this story.

I don't collect scrap metal for recycle because it pretty much is a waist of time. You gotta really be hard up to waist your whole day scrapping up a few dollars.

I did find a moblie home park that was bought out and they were moving out all the mobile homes because the land was going to be developed. Well, they weren't taking the aluminum skirt to the homes with them and that gave me a uhaul truck full of aluminum. It cost me like $25.00 to rent the box truck and three hours to load the truck of skirts from 50 mobile homes. The cash return was $564.00! I was able to register and insure my van on time that year.

I mean it was really weird and too easy. You look at the lot and you see just piles of skirts and dug up ground!

That's the only time I made an effort to recycle outside of just throwing my bottles and cans in a separate container for the city to pick up!

Originally posted by Country Soul
The scrap dealers should be held accountable just like pawn shops.
They should keep a record of what comes in and ID people that bring in things like magnesium or aluminum car rims and stuff that is obviously stolen. People even take catalytic converters off cars around hear.

The profits are too good for scrap dealers to care right now, and there are very few laws to stop them from buying from anyone that drags a few pounds of metal into the yard.

I have several neighbors that collect scrap on a regular basis and one drags home any air conditioner she can. When she takes them apart she bleeds all the freon into the air when she cuts the lines to get the copper.

That's exactly what I would say.
It's not just the people stealing it, but those paying for it.
Why isn't anyone asking..
"Where did you get this?"
Especially if they are FREQUENT visitors.

a couple of months ago i awoke early for work to discover no water out any taps.

i went out the front to investigate, only to discover some Ahole stole my front tap.

you see my front tap is standing on about 2 feet (knee high) length of copper pipe which comes out the ground.
they turned the water off and snapped it off at below ground level where there was a weak join.

what kind of desperado's steal $4 worth of copper pipe.

YEAAH!! if i gets me another 100 of these copper pipes i can pay for my crack habit today instead of stealing old ladies handbags as they leave the ATM's.

police said there was a spree of that exact sort of theft in the general neighbourhood.

Me and my roommate collect aluminum cans for scrap, because we go threw alot of them. Then just split the profit 50/50.

But thats about all I've done when it comes to scrap metal.


And I do agree that people need to start asking where they got it, but I doubt thats gonna happen with the way the economys looking.

Their not going to start doing that because the more metal they get the more money they make, And I doubt the gov. views this as a major proplem.


So exepct to see more storys like this in the future.

reply to post by anxietydisorder


Pikey's .....They get every where

There is a huge copper theft problem in Minnesota, basically what is happening is Minnesotan meth heads are stealing copper, scrapping it, and using it for drug money.

So I think it's part of the rising drug problem, at least in Minnesota.

these #ing guy stole scrap worth 20000 n early put me out of busisne these #ing gilberto redo lives in toronto his phone is 4165582145

They strike again....

I ordered two fridges to be put into apartments that I was having renovated. I stored them in the basement while the workers were doing work, a locked basement that only 12 tenants have access to with keys to get to the laundry room.

One of my tenants went to the basement and cut the electrical cords, removed the copper freon lines off. They basically destroyed two good fridges that I now have to replace.

During the process they also released all the freon into the basement. :shk:

Sounds like it is someone you know and I would suggest putting a camera in that basement.

It seems they will steal anything for money..
www.nytimes.com...