Roofs Disappearing

[454PB]

There's a short article in the latest American Rifleman about the escalating price of lead and copper causing roofing problems on the churches in England. Seems thieves are stealing the lead sheeting they use for roofing....to the tune of 1000 church roofs!

[shotstring]

If the price of metals keeps going up, we aren't going to recognize the landscape anymore. They are already stealing manhole covers and children's playground equipment for the recycling money and now you can add catalytic converters taken off of new vehicles for the same reason. I remember when to save money on good steel, a fellow might make a good knife out of an old leaf spring but pretty soon if a fellow wants an old leaf spring, he may have to save up for one.:violin:

[Castoff]

454 PB
It is not only in England. Commercial Property managers in the US are experienceing the same problem. Theives are stealing the metal in an unoccupied building and selling it. This leaves the propery badly damaged and often, from a cost effective point of view, worthless.Cities like LA, New Orleans , New York , Miami and many , many others, both large and small, are hard hit and hard pressed to cutail this.
Are our homes next?

[Blammer]

anyone wants to steal metal out of my house I'll happily donate a few 230gr pieces of lead they can carry home or where ever they can get to....

[sundog]

Blammer's going, "go ahead, make my day!" Castle doctrine at its best.

[Leftoverdj]

Old, old news. Folks have been stripping roofs for ammunition about as long as there have been guns. It was extremely common in the English Civil War of the early 17th century. The Roundheads not only needed the lead, they hated the established church. In the early 20th century, it was a common crime in Ireland. Not only was the lead of value, but stripping it was a blow against absentee landlords.

[nicholst55]

Down in Baltimore it's street light poles (a VERY professional, very well organized criminal ring); up here in the outer 'burbs it's copper air conditioning lines from homes and office buildings under construction; also catalytic converters.

[Navahojoe]

I recently helped my wife's Aunt to move into a new, to her, house. We had the electric turned on and stove, ac, water heater and several wall plugs wouldn't work. No electric, because no wiring to plugs. Thieves has stripped out all copper wiring to the 230 Volt plugs.
regards,
NavahoJoe :castmine:

[Char-Gar]

My church has copper gutters and downspouts. The thieves has already taken the down spouts, but could not get to the gutters. A local Catholic church has removed the bells from the tower to do some repair and the thieves took the bronze bells.

[No_1]

Theives have been tearing the a/c units from occupied places apart around here to get the coils, tubing and wires from them. It is never ending....

R.

[JSnover]

We'll see an increase in thefts as the scrap prices rise but it's not a recent phenomena. Forty years ago in Detroit I knew people who would strip buildings for scrap. Asked what they did for a living; "I work nights."

[mtgrs737]

In Wichita, Kansas theives are stealing the copper wire form undergound conduits that run the baseball diamond lights. They hit 5 or 6 parks in a night, to the cost of thousands. It is becoming a huge problem in the home construction industry there too, go home after a days work and come back the next day to find that you have lost ground and copper wire.

[PatMarlin]

I got 2 more 5gal buckets of Big sized wheel weights for $10 each yesterday. Kinda felt like steeling since I paid double that the week before.. :roll:

[georgeld]

Hell, you guys haven't heard the latest about Pueblo CO huh?

Copper theive's have been ripping off the railroad's wire along the tracks.

Copper wire from street light poles, vacant houses and even some where the people are gone to work during the day.

THEN: a bunch of places, I'm guessing at least 50, yes, FIFTY house's the copper plumbing has been ripped out and the water left to flood the buildings until someone happens to come along and find it.

Two I've read about neighbor's discovered it after seeing water running out of the vent holes in the foundation from the crawl space.

IF that don't deserve a public hanging nothing does.

Sheriff was just quoted in the paper: "These guys are not stealing to feed the family, they're stealing to feed their drug habits".

[PatMarlin]

Crank.. :roll:

[UweJ]

We had some foreigners out of the former russian republik visit our high voltage transformer building at the edge of the woods ,trying to tear out the copper wire at night.
Police and coroner got them out the next day, AFTER the voltage was turned off.