Talking with a family member who owns and/or leases warehouse space for his business brought up this new kind of theft that is big now due to the high price for scrap copper. Apparently, thieves are breaking into "abandoned" buildings, new constructions, etc and stripping them of all copper - both copper plumbing and copper wiring. I sat there with my jaw hanging open when he was telling this (he has a flair for dramatic story-telling )...but then googled it and guess he was telling the truth....is this a problem in your area? In addition to being illegal, it is apparently dangerous as well.

USATODAY.com - Copper thieves get killed cutting into power lines

Yep, there was a story on the front page of our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago about thieves stripping copper from vacant houses and new construction.

Years ago, one of the relatives on my father's side died. The family was fixing up the deceased house (to sell, I think). They left one night, came back in the morning and found the copper pipes were stolen.

I have not heard of those types of problems here but they did do some expose of people stealing from new home construction lots. People would take appliances, cabinets, building supples, landscape items, etc. One person even stole the sod/lawn.

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yes and some other kind of metal - alumimum? we had a stadium nearby where large, heavy new benches like long bleachers..made of some silver color metal were ripped out of the ground and stolen, probably for scrap, they had cost over 20K

It's happening in our area, too. Just a few weeks ago, two men were killed in our area trying to steal copper and were severely burned. There's a commercial running on our stations (don't know if it's nationwide or not) but it's about people who have died being heros, dying of cancer and then the last one is a guy who died trying to steal copper. Just trying to get the message out that it's really dangerous.

My son lives in GA. One of his friends was telling him about the place where he worked. It hadn't gotten very warm yet and the owner turned the airconditioning on. It didn't work. So he went to roof. Someone had stolen the insides out of the air conditioners and left the outside sitting there. They were huge, so that whoever took them had to have had a crane to remove them. That would be gutsy imo.

Yes very common Dad's a construction worker and he finds things that have "walked off" alot

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Copper stealing, bathtubs in new houses, stain glass windows, etc, has been going on for as long as people build houses and buildings. About 30 years ago, we were thinking of removing our stain glass windows in our livingroom because people were stealing them when people were not home or asleep. My dh's boss had his extra large bathtub taken before it was put in his house. My friend had a tree fall on her house but did not want it put in the paper or on the news because they had a house filled with antiques. My dh helped her husband remove a 6 foot stain glass window and store it so that someone would not steal it. By the way, they lived in the house as it was being repaired (with no kitchen). They stored many of their antiques while work was being done.

It's very bad where I live, too. Nearby is a large subdivision and they have little faux gatehouses at the entrance. A few months ago, someone had stolen the copper roofs off the little gatehouses! Also I've heard of theft of various parts at cell towers and stuff, too.

I agree with the poster who said some of these thefts are quite gutsy. (stupid, too)

Suzanne

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Had forgotten that before I moved up here tere was a a guy trolling the freecycle boards, when someone would post something like Curb Alert dishwasher at such and such address, the guy would go and get there before a freecycler that wanted it did and would cut the cord off of it for the copper and leave the rest of the dishwasher sitting there without the cord

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OMG that's just too much! The nerve of some people.

cj/

Heard about it? Heck we're living it here in NW AZ and S NV.

If you google the LVRJ you will find all kinds of stories about power outages due to cooper thieves and at the beginnging of summer when people were starting to have roof top (mostly commercial) air conditioners serviced they would find them gutless. About a month ago we had a several hour power outage because some guy was stealing the cooper grounding wires from power lines by wrapping the line around the bumper of his truck and pulling the wire away from the pole. Seems one of them snapped off the bumper and sprang back into the power lines and caused a major outage.
I noticed too that in some of the more remote areas if an older trailer house has been abandoned the aluminum siding is ususally missing. We usually atribute that to the meth users.

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After two guys were electrocuted from stealing the copper a few weeks ago that I mentioned in an earlier post, would you believe our newspaper had the nerve to print a front-page article about one of the guys and it was a 'poor guy' article about how he was only trying to feed his family and he would never steal anything, blah, blah, blah...... !! Let's just say the newspaper got some letters to editor about that one!!

yep..it happens with new constuction a lot around here They have went to using flex tubing instead of copper and lots of things now

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About 20 years ago, my brother had a cabin cruiser that he had purchased used and it needed rewiring. He is good at that, so he bought the wiring and rewired the boat. It took him a few weekends while the boat was in a storage facility. As soon as he was done, he went back and found someone had stripped out the new wiring. He was mad but it had to have wiring, so he he wired it again. They stole the wiring again. About then, he gave up and moved the boat.

it is bad here too. There have been a lot of big churches stripped of the copper gutters. One church had a big cross taken. We have had many articles about it in our newspapers. They have gutted out some very nice homes.
They steal those vases from the cemetary and sell them.

I want to know what kind of place would buy them from the thieves?
I don't know anyone that would happen to have a Cross or a dozen or so of those vases to sell! we have to blame the buyers too.

I am sure most of the thieves cut it up with a zagsaw or something, you would never know what it used to be. That is what happened on a jobsite up here. An antigue fountain was destroy when a person cut it up and sold it to a scrape metal place. Thank goodness they did find the person and he is now in jail.

You can make some money off of copper. My boys work with a plumber who lets them keep the scrape copper from a job. Last time they drove to a scrape metal place they got a check for 1200.00 to split.

Copper theft is heavy here too, a big part of it is due to meth users. There has been talk that the scrap yards are going to start requiring that the person who brings in the copper or whatever to have a contractor's license or something to show why they would have that type of material.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a local food bank was hit and lost TONS of food. It was the copper pipe from the refridgeration units. It happened late Friday night and they did not know until Monday morning.

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I just seen the same thing on the news involving a food pantry and refrigeration units in Detroit

Suzanne

Here they not only take any copper wiring & plumbing lines, but leave the water on, so when the owner discovers his pipes are missing, the house is usually flooded also, so there is water damage to the property, plus a huge water bill.

Like others mentioned, a few people have been electrocuted doing this. I can't feel too bad, since this takes another thief out of the gene pool.

In this morning's police blotter in the paper, there was a story about someone stealing 3 brand new air conditioners that had been delivered for a shopping center. They hadn't been installed yet, as they needed a crane to lift them onto the building. I wondered if they will try to sell them as air conditioners, of strip out the metal to sell it.

We put in a new furnace this last fall. My husband took almost 2 tons of scrap metal to be recycled. Because of all the thefts, you have to show proof of who you are & be able to explain why you have metal to recycle.

It's a horrible problem here with not only the copper but, aluminum as well. About 2 months ago, my DH (a builder) had all the aluminum he had sitting on site (actually in the customers garage) stolen. They also took the aluminum ladder and jacks, the aluminum break and a couple other things that could be cashed in.

Heck I have never heard of this!!!

There is a new neighborhood built right down the road that was using lots of copper as accent around the windows, dormers etc. I'll have to check and see if it is still there.

Happens a Lot!! DH works for a cell company and repairs the equipment at the cell towers. Frequently the thieves will cut the wires running up the inside of the towers (some of them are over 200') and then take the wires away. The wires are coated in a black plastic insulating system with copper running inside and weigh a ton! I don't know how they do that but you must be crazy to risk the climbing, cutting of "live" cable, and then hauling the stuff.

600K++ wow - that is a lot of $$$ check out this story about people dressing up as utility workers to steal it!

http://www.9news.com/news/local/arti...?storyid=76031

My Dad's work trailer was hit at a local work site. My son's stepbrother was arrested earlier this year for stealing anything he could recycle for money.

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