My mate used to nick copper wiring from construction companies back in the day. But this has to be a bloody record. A sodding bridge? Seriously?
Metal thieves
- Thread starter farmkid
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My mate used to nick copper wiring from construction companies back in the day. But this has to be a bloody record. A sodding bridge? Seriously?
Funny to see this bumped today... where I live we have a communal bins area at the far end of the complex. The last couple of times I've dumped my rubbish there, I noticed a lot of rubbish strewn about there, but assumed it was just animals getting into the bins. Apparently not!
Two people have been seen on the CCTV entering the complex during the night and emptying out the recycling bins, rooting around for metal and other items they can then sell off. While I'm sure no-one would care if they left the place neat and tidy, the mess they leave behind causes problems for residents and the bin men, and extra costs for clear-up and so it's led to the police being called in! There's now extra CCTV and big signs warning of a police surveillance operation, all designed to deter the thieves from returning and rooting through our garbage. Hopefully they'll find softer targets elsewhere and leave us alone.
Both of these are happening here right now, as well as a third....
People living in homes that are being foreclosed on here are known to remove and sell all of the piping and electrical wiring in the home before they are kicked out by the lender.
I'm impressed with the sheer boldness of the scheme. In another life these two would have made fine bankers.
This 'metal thieviery' sounds like a terrific way to make some money on the side. How does one go about it? Metal is heavy, surely you'd need a truck or something to move it around. Then what? Do you have to melt it down into ingots a la gold?
Probably the most "common" type of metal thievery is people steeling copper pipes/wiring from construction sites.
Surely copper piping isn't worth that much
It's cheaper to recycle copper, and pretty much any metal, than it is to mine it. Copper is currently selling for around $3.40/lb. If you come across a construction site with a lot of copper piping and wiring laying around you can make off with a pretty good amount of money for very little work.
I believe that, however, most places where you'd go to sell it are more cautious these days about accepting copper that looks to be in good condition but I'm not sure what laws or systems that could be in place to prevent or police such a thing.
My brother works for TWC and there's been a few times where he was called out to guard or repair a box or something that had copper wiring stolen from it and there's more than a few security camera videos out there of people getting electrocuted trying to steel copper out of live power boxes/wires.
People who're steeling scrap metal aren't going to care a lot about how much they're going to get, $20 worth of copper stolen every other night or so could probably satisfy a meth/coke/alcohol addiction.
You'd think, but the bozos that I mentioned upthread that have been rooting through our bins have apparently been arriving and leaving on bikes (probably to keep things quiet, though the bins are far enough away from anyone's home that I doubt the noise of a car/truck would carry anyway). Now, admittedly, I don't know whether they had trailers attached to the bikes too, but still, it seems the cost/weight ratio can't terribly awful.