Has anyone EVER heard of something like this happening?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

Some friends of mine in Atlanta went up to their cabin for the first time this year this past weekend and upon getting there they discover that somebody had taken their garage door, the aluminum siding on the garage, the iron railings on their deck, their gutters and downspouts, their BBQ (but not the gas tank, wooden handle and the stuff inside was dumped) even the chimney for their wood stove off the roof!

They drove to the next three cabins along the road and found two of them in roughly the same condition, another cabin that was stripped had two ATV's left untouched, but an entire aluminum shed taken.

This was in South Carolina,

I have never heard of anything like this happening before, and neither has their insurance agent!

[KitchenWitch]

1. No but I have heard of former tenants advertising on Craigslist

that the house they previously rented was going to undergo renovation, so come get everything for free.

House ended up almost totally gutted.

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. It's getting to be a problem here

Metal theft. They sell it to recyclers.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. the recyclers must be in on it right?

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. Dunno

In terms of knowing what's going on but not saying anything, I'd imagine so.

But a smart recycler wouldn't take a whole mess o' stuff like that because it's obviously hot. And a smart thief wouldn't try to unload all his take on one recycler.

[Random_Australian]

15. The first five times I read and re-read this, I could not work out if it was comedy or not.

I've decided you meant this seriously... in which case something is very out of place about this whole thing.

It's not often I say this, but Americans not from the government are weirding me out.

Ah well, cést la vie.

[Maine-ah]

16. up here too.

a couple of boat builders have been ripped off recently. There's a bit of money in it, and especially if the can get their hands on copper.

[Nicole]

3. Yes

I've heard of houses near here being stripped of aluminum. Thieves have figured out it pays better than picking up coke cans.

[Lex]

6. Instead of the Iron Giant landing from outer space,

it was the Aluminum Giant?

[StarryNite]

7. In Phoenix it's copper

that's disappearing. Copper wire and copper pipes are disappearing from all over. Parks, schools, etc.

[Arkansas Granny]

20. It's been a problem in our area, too. A lot of it disappearing from

new construction sites. Several people have been electrocuted while stealing electrical wiring.

Do a google search "copper theft electrocution" and you get a lot of hits from all over the country.

[Whoa_Nelly]

8. Never heard of it before now, but google this!

*WoW*

metal theft from homes

http://tinyurl.com/3544uu

[AmyDeLune]

9. Meth Addicts

at least it is here. Bridge railings, now power cables. The saddest one I heard of was a sculpture stolen from a woman's yard; it was made by her late mother out of, basically, pot-metal; completely worthless as scrap but priceless in sentimental value.

[mark414]

14. most likely my guess too

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

25. That is what the police said,

His wife stuck around to deal with the police and insurance issues, the officer told her that "most of the local white trash are in on metal theft to pay for their cracker crack" and that the local scrap dealers time their processing for the times the meth addicts are most likely to bring in their loads and that any evidence is destroyed and on its way to market within hours. The scrap dealers are completely in on the theft, but he said unless they could park a cruiser outside every single scrap yard in the Southeast there isn't much they can do to prosecute as once it is melted down just try proving ownership.

He also said that meth makes him nostalgic for the crack epidemic, apprently some of the meth addicts are so brazen they will start pulling metal off a home on a busy street while the residents are inside. He suggested they get a gun since if the meth addicts come back the police are 45 minutes away.

The officer said they expect to find alot more summer homes that have been stripped and would be suprised if some of them were even still standing. He told her that they were fortunate and that they got off pretty easy since the inside of the house was untouched.

Unfortunately one of their neighbors is in for a real suprise since they couldn't be reached and are apprently overseas,

[Little Wing]

27. Yep

The answer is to electrify everything.

[Monk06]

10. Fly by night builders or Travelers. That stuff isn't worth crap for scrap.

[Nicole]

12. It adds up.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_5779408

"Two weeks ago, investigators with the county's Rural Crime Task Force arrested three Manteca men on suspicion of stealing thousands of dollars worth of copper wire from farms and businesses — recovering several receipts indicating one had recently sold $15,000 worth of wire to a Bay Area recycling company."

$15,000 is pretty high dollar crap.

[Monk06]

13. That's copper. Per lb aluminim siding isn't worth it. But for a $10 ball of crack ??

[jobycom]

11. It's aliens, dude!! They eat the stuff!

No metal being is safe anymore!

[alarimer]

17. People are starting to put their A/C units behind cages

because apparently people are stealing the copper. Evidently it's pretty scarce right now for some reason and fetching a lot of money.

[Quakerfriend]

18. The ease with which this stuff can be sold on ebay is part

of the problem.

[Blue Diadem]

19. Yep, was on the news a lot for a while, occasionally we still hear about it.

I think it was last summer/fall that a man was killed attempting to remove a wrought iron railing/porch support from a vacant home at 3-4:00am. People heard the sounds, then the crash..the guy died. He was stealing metals for scrap.

The ones we hear about most are aluminum and copper. Houses have been stripped of siding, but mostly we've heard about the building sites getting hit for their copper. Wheels of wire, plumbing etc seem to get taken the most.

I can't imagine your friends shock. Glad they have insurance to cover it.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

26. I have heard of people breaking into abandoned houses to get old non-enviro toilets,

but this was the first I had ever heard of people literally tearing every piece of exposed metal off a home,

[tk2kewl]

21. they're lucky that their plumbing wasn't ripped out of the walls too

[lildreamer316]

22. Does their homeowner's ins. cover it?

Lord, I hope so.
That suuuuuucks.

[joneschick]

23. I had a customer yesterday

they purchased a home with lots of original stained glass and built-ins---they went on vacation after the mortgage closing and came home to a stripped out home. They found the stained glass buffet doors online at some Ohio auction house. They went and got them! She was in my store looking for replacement hardware. :shrug: Some older neighborhoods are getting hit for copper gutters, etc.

[Gormy Cuss]

24. Copper theft , yes. Knew people who did that years ago.

They weren't drug addicts. They were just thieves. This was in the 1970s and they'd steal the copper piping from vacant houses. Of course then there was less aluminum on houses and both aluminum and steel were cheaper -- the resale value wasn't that good for those metals.

[Kat45]

28. Someone's been stealing toilets from restaurants in an area around here

They go into the restaurant bathroom, and can have the pipes/fixtures that they want (I think something to do with the lever) in seconds and be out the door with them. The restaurant owner doesn't know until a customer comes out of the bathroom asking 'where's the toilet'?

[Xithras]

29. Yep

Hazard of owning a vacation home. Out here in California it's big business...there are copper theft rings that monitor the MLS services and the rental lists looking for newly emptied properties. There was a house around the corner from me that literally lost ALL of its internal piping and wiring two days after going on the market. Thank god the owners still had insurance.

My cabin has been robbed more times than I can count. My siding hasn't been taken yet because it's redwood, but I lost my aluminum shutters, aluminum screen door, and my freaking aluminum mailbox last summer.