Discuss Detroit » Archives - January 2008 » Copper thieves, aluminum thieves, etc. « Previous Next »
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 821
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008 - 11:34 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What can be the next big industry in Detroit, robbing gold fillings from the residents?
How much lower can some people sink?
My brother was working construction in the city and spoke with a guy who he said noticed people taking the siding off a guy's house while he was at work.
Fortunately, he scared them away before his neighbor's house was stripped clean.
It's amazing how enterprising people can be when they don't have regular jobs. Any suggestions on the next big money maker?
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Viziondetroit
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Username: Viziondetroit

Post Number: 1584
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008 - 12:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

A few blocks away from me a house has a light on the corner of the back and side of it and the places where it does not shine, the aluminum siding has been stripped... this is an occupied house WTF man.
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Hamtragedy
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Username: Hamtragedy

Post Number: 128
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 2:50 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The lead-glass windows in this town are disappearing at an alarming rate.

The black market for Detroit's architectural features is huge, whether it's the stonework-limestone (notice the many buildings missing "something" between the brickwork), statues(the 50 plus gargoyles from the Book Cadillac disappeared ten years ago, wound up in Chicago), or the Tiffany Peacock Windows (usually found in stair-way landings) or just the bevelled floral pattern lead glass in so many french doors and front windows of so many Detroit homes.

Apparently we don't need them anymore.
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 5678
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 3:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Some whoring/drug-dealing neighbors suddenly moved out a few days ago and a few aluminum siding members were missing on the house they lived in. The neighbor next door put a hasp and padlock on the doors in case they tried to sneak back in...
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Bulletmagnet
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Username: Bulletmagnet

Post Number: 1150
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 5:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Let's not forget the manhole and catch basin covers that go missing all the time. The city (or locals) will put tires in them in luau of barricades.
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56packman
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Username: 56packman

Post Number: 2135
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 7:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hammytragedy--the Lions did not disappear from the Book-Cadillac, they were from the Lee Plaza hotel on West Grand Boulevard, which lost all of its windows, the copper roof, decorative stone pieces on the exterior
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Jrvass
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Username: Jrvass

Post Number: 589
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 8:06 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

True story: There are 3 mausoleums built into the earth at the cemetary at White Lake Rd. & Dixie Hwy. A grandchild broke into his grandmothers coffin in their mausoleum, and stole her jewelry to sell for drugs.

Sick SOB.
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Ongowwah
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Username: Ongowwah

Post Number: 22
Registered: 03-2008
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 8:57 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why not just get edison to put live current through all aluminum and metal on vacant dwellings?
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 823
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 9:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Someone would file suit that their civil rights were being violated (or some other bs claim) and win.
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Norwalk
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Username: Norwalk

Post Number: 237
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 10:06 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The house next to me in Hamtramck was empty for 3 days. I tried to keep my eye on it. I came home from work one day and the back door was kicked in As it turns out someone stole all the radiators and the furnace . Now who is going to buy this house.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 5854
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 10:34 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Perhaps some of these scrappers need to start collecting lead in their torsos as well. When the police show up to find out what happened, the neighbors can stand around scratching their heads with "stop snitching" shirts on.
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Jiminnm
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Username: Jiminnm

Post Number: 1623
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 11:16 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This is not a recent phenomenon. The gutters and downspouts were stolen off my parents' house and garage so many times in the '80s that they decided to not replace them until they moved out of the city.
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Ggores
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Username: Ggores

Post Number: 35
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 11:32 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

yeah, and someone done gone and went and trew my sneakers cross the telephone line! peoples kazy.
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Anniedawg25
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Username: Anniedawg25

Post Number: 10
Registered: 02-2008
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 11:56 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

this is happening everywhere it seems.
I lived in Albuquerque New Mexico before Detroit, and theives were hitting up all the homes under construction and would even go so far as to steal from the local Home Depot / Lowe's by walking out with huge rolls of wire worth thousands.....thinking they could get away with it.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 5855
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 11:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was at my local ACO, and a cop was there because some jackass tried stealing some copper elbows from the pipe section. Now, if the store is selling them for 50 cents, and the guy stuffed a bunch in his pocket, how much can he really be expecting to sell them for?
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Sparty06
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Username: Sparty06

Post Number: 64
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 1:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Copper and aluminum theft reminds me of bubs and his pal from "The Wire"
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Detroitpetanque
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Username: Detroitpetanque

Post Number: 87
Registered: 09-2006
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 4:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Is the metal "scrap" being sold locally? Or is it put into shipping containers and sent somewhere else?
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Detx
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Username: Detx

Post Number: 139
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 7:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The lengths people will go to to avoid a hard days work...
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Ggores
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Username: Ggores

Post Number: 36
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 8:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

look at it this way. there's not much money to be had in the copper elbow fitting, or the "fifteen pounds of aluminum siding" hustle. however, a rock on the street can go for as low as ten bucks a pop (and no, I do not). three or four people work the day, add up their change at the end of that day, and then spend the night celebrating their earning. on the other hand, you can rip out copper plumbing from a house under construction.. take it to the scrap yard, and maybe pick up a cool 500 bucks. this, you could say, is "real" estate.
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Rid0617
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Username: Rid0617

Post Number: 4
Registered: 03-2008
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 11:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

We're having the same problems down here. We have an additional one. Thieves jack up your car, use a saws all and cut your catalytic converters off while you sleep and sell them for the platinum. You find out when you crank your car up with the new straight pipes.
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Huggybear
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Username: Huggybear

Post Number: 318
Registered: 08-2005
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 7:45 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Is the metal "scrap" being sold locally? Or is it put into shipping containers and sent somewhere else?

It ought to be self evident that the destination of Detroit's architectural elements, at least the metal ones, is reuse as trinkety garbage sold at discount stores. When you're buying those $1 stereo cables at the dollar store, you're probably using the Lee Plaza's water pipes in your living room.

Seriously, though, for the nonmetallic stuff, why don't we think about banning the resale of architectural ornaments? If the "harvesting" of these elements is causing such destruction, if the scrappers get paid little, and if the antique shops are dealing in stolen property at a high margin, then it is time to consider cutting off the trade altogether as socially undesirable. Putting architectural ornaments in a landfill is not as irresponsible as landfilling plastic bottles, paint cans, or TVs; the stone, glass and wood parts of buildings are relatively inert. And there is nothing made of those materials that cannot be duplicated. We're not running out of rock, silica, or trees, either.

Of course, the other alternative (and one that is only posed half facetiously) is to take shots at people you see scrapping. Does any prosecutor in the area have the stones to prosecute someone for shooting out a scrapper's tires? Sprinkling star nails around their pickup trucks?
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 831
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 8:32 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Trespassers and looters shall be shot on sight" might just do the trick. Who's gonna take away the bodies?
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Viziondetroit
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Username: Viziondetroit

Post Number: 1594
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 8:34 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"When you're buying those $1 stereo cables at the dollar store, you're probably using the Lee Plaza's water pipes in your living room.
"

^this made me chuckle and sad at the same time.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 1276
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 9:18 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just imagine the theft rate on electric cars should they become prevalent. Thousand pounds of copper and or aluminum.
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Spacemonkey
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Username: Spacemonkey

Post Number: 316
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 10:46 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The answer is to put vinyl siding on your house.
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Diehard
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Username: Diehard

Post Number: 441
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 12:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If they would only stick to stripping the lightposts, while the current is live... the problem would be solved, and the streets would smell like a steakhouse.
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Spacemonkey
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Username: Spacemonkey

Post Number: 319
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 1:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually, it's been noted that when humans burn, it smells like ham cooking, not beef. That's what emergency crews have said of plane wrecks and other disasters.
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 836
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 2:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How about a big pork roast?
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Huggybear
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Username: Huggybear

Post Number: 319
Registered: 08-2005
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 8:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

"Trespassers and looters shall be shot on sight" might just do the trick. Who's gonna take away the bodies?

If you shoot them, other scrappers will descend, like sharks eating other sharks, just to get that 1/2 oz of lead out of the dead bodies. Maybe they would even tear up the surrounding ground to find the empty shell.
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Magnasco
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Username: Magnasco

Post Number: 251
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 8:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just heard from someone living in New Center that they had their catalytic converter stolen in the middle of the night. He didn't know until he went out and turned the car on and the sound scared him.
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Barnesfoto
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Username: Barnesfoto

Post Number: 4923
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 10:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

a national problem:
http://www.latimes.com/news/lo cal/la-me-fire1apr01,1,4170070 .story
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 845
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 8:24 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Freep has a story or two about this on the editorial page today. We're starting to look like a third world city. Pretty soon those bearded do-gooders will be taking donations for deprived and forgotten down and out Detroiters much like the fly infested regions far away.
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Spacemonkey
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Username: Spacemonkey

Post Number: 325
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 8:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bearded do-gooders? Who are they? Are they the arch enemy of President Bush's bearded terrorist "evil-doers"?

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