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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.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
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Originally Posted by John1960
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.
alot of the builders around here in Colorado are using something called Plex Plumbing, instead of copper now. It is a very thick plastic pipe that can be bent.
A friend of mine discovered a couple of young men removing scrap copper from a new job site. When the thieves were confronted one of them struck my buddy with a length of pipe. Well he tried to hit my friend. My friend is a 6'1" 210 lb ex soldier. Before his boss pulled him off the thief the thief was on the floor beaten senseless. I figure he was pretty senseless to attack my friend in the first place.
Power companies across the country have spent a fortune in the past couple of years since the price of raw copper went from about $1.25 to over $3.20 per lb. Most have had to beef up their storage yard fences, gates and locks where reels of copper power cable are stored, and hire more security guards and put in motion detector alarms and web cams. Some large copper power cables contain 5 lbs of copper (more than $15) per foot. Two 1000' reels of this stuff brings over $30K. Power companies have hired private security people to stake out metal recycling centers, and will pay nice rewards to recycling centers that turn in information about people who bring in reels of power cable. Theft of raw materials will become an even bigger problem as more thieves become more creative.
In Detroit they steal wire, pipe, baseboard molding, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, any from of metal, flooring, even bricks from the foundaiton.
Antique yellow pine baseboard sells for $16/foot. Clean used bricks sell for more than new bricks becuase people like the look of them. It is a racket.
Sometimes the houses fall down because so much stuff is stolen from them.
Some would be crooks get electrocuted trying to steal wire that is still connected to the ower grid.
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