[eric_b]

First you had to worry about crackheads peeling the aluminum siding off your house, now you need to be concerned about Mo ripping off the Catalytic converter from your car. Primarily for the Platinum, apparently these pups are fetching ~70.00 bones at the scrap yard.

Local piece from where I live, thought it was relevant

"Thieves Steal Vehicle Parts In Dane, Columbia Counties"
http://www.channel3000.com/news/14355528/detail.html

[WisJim]

I have heard that metal thieves are stealing stainless steel bulk tanks out of dairy farm's milk houses, due to the high price of scrap. In some parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota it is getting to be a real problem.

And, of course, people are taking their empty 1/4 and half beer barrels to the scrap dealers instead of returning them for their deposit. Another reason the price of beer is going up. A barrel that costs the brewery $90 to $140 sells for $50 to $70 for scrap, but the beer distributors refuse to charge more than $20 or $25 deposit on them. Hurts the microbreweries and small regional breweries most, too.

[strider3700]

around here we mostly hear about the phone wire and electric wire vanishing. We did have one guy think outside of the box and he stole all the brass info plates at various parks in town. It wasn't the hardest for the scrap yard to identify him since it was all over the news and he just smashed them into pieces.

[mattduke]

get's you

[yesplease]

Not to mention Rhodium...

[Twilight]

BBC on metal theft.

Note that churches are getting hit badly, I guess some things don't change in a thousand years around here.

I have to say though, the problem is not particularly visible as at this time the increase in thefts is being driven by metal prices alone, not by economic hardship. The problem is probably as bad in a recession. Now when we get the two conditions coinciding, that should be interesting.

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
We buy corn at a MFA coop. The coop has a giant scale for weight trucks before and after filling with grain. On Saturday mornings the farmers have to wait in long lines because so many trailers are pulling in with scrap metal to get weighed. Scrap is so high, and the MFA scale is the only scale large enough to do a proper weight. They have started 4.00 to weigh a scrap load.
Farmers with large irrigation systems are having parts and pieces of metal stolen from their irrigation systems.
Thieves are also unbolting and stealing manhole covers.
My feeling:
We ain't seen nothing yet!
Pheba

[Twilight]

Thanks for that.

But won't the trucks get weighed for payment at the scrapyard? Are the traders using agricultural scales to obtain a "second opinion" to make sure they don't get cheated by the scrap merchant? If so, someone could charge extra for the service.

[frankthetank]

We were at the park here in La Crosse today and i noticed an old canon. I'm pretty sure its solid brass or copper (its greenish). I can't believe it hasn't been nabbed.

[smallpoxgirl]

I was in Victoria, BC over the weekend. I passed a construction site that actually had a sign "No copper wire or pipe are kept on site." Guess it's gotten pretty bad there.

[Bas]

there have been a couple of cases of massive bronze statues being stolen from musea grounds in this country.

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'I') was in Victoria, BC over the weekend. I passed a construction site that actually had a sign "No copper wire or pipe are kept on site." Guess it's gotten pretty bad there.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', ' ')Victoria in winter will be extra bad because the countries homeless work their way there because the climate is so much better then the other options in Canada.

[Rabbit]

In my spare time I create web sites for businesses. I just finished a web site for place that just stated making a keyed compression plug to try and reduce copper wire theft. Here in Fresno people are steeling copper wire right out of the ground at farms.



http://www.copperkeeper.com/

[neok]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Rabbit', 'H')ere in Fresno people are steeling copper wire right out of the ground at farms.

[abelardlindsay]

1. Chinese plumbing manufacturer buys mortgage backed securities

2. Mortgage backed securites are used to fund loans for borrower

3. Borrower Gets Loan for house

4. Contractor gets copper tubing installed by plumber in borrower's house

5. Plumber buys from plumbing supply company in China

6. Plumbing Maker pays scrap dealer for copper

7. Scrap dealer buys copper from thief

8. Thief steals from vacant house defaulted on by previous borrower from step 3.

9. go back to step 1.

[IslandCrow]

A little more of this, especially if it hits the electricity supply system, and I will have to bring forward plans for going off-grid (or at least have an off-grid back up system. [Any desperate banks out there willing to give me a loan for this???]

[Twilight]

SFGate: Copper probe nets 140 suspects

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SFGate', 'S')an Jose and Santa Clara police have arrested more than 140 people after a yearlong undercover investigation into copper theft turned into a sting that nabbed everyone from alleged car thieves to a bombmaker who created explosives triggered by cell phone, authorities said Wednesday.

"We just thought it was going to deal with all the copper that was being stolen," San Jose police Officer Jermaine Thomas said. "Soon enough it went from copper to guns, then stolen vehicles and then drug transactions."

[BigTex]

I was watching No End in Sight about the military adventure in Iraq and a soldier said he saw buildings where the concrete had been sledge hammered by looters to get the steel rebar out. That kind of vandalism is not easy to repair.

[Twilight]

Wow, that has to be the worst quality concrete in the world. But I get the picture.