posted by Mike Madison at 10:42 PM /
A sharp-eyed neighbor emailed me with the news that according to the Lebo police blotter , thefts of copper downspouts are on the rise. A quick check of the blotter suggests that something is indeed going on; our copper is disappearing.
My correspondent speculated that illegal drugs are the culprit. I don't know about that one way or the other, but a Google search suggests that copper prices are simply going through the roof; demand in Asia, not demand for drugs, is the driver.
There's a bad free trade/globalization in here somewhere, but it's too late and I'm too tired. At least Mt. Lebanon isn't alone in its suffering.
My correspondent speculated that illegal drugs are the culprit. I don't know about that one way or the other, but a Google search suggests that copper prices are simply going through the roof; demand in Asia, not demand for drugs, is the driver.
There's a bad free trade/globalization in here somewhere, but it's too late and I'm too tired. At least Mt. Lebanon isn't alone in its suffering.
6 Comments:
Count us in as victims. We had a 2' section of downspout stolen today. Our neighbors had much larger sections stolen.
2 men, unremarkable looking, in an equally unremarkable van hit our street. Believe it or not, I actually saw them when I returned home after dropping off my daughter at school and visiting the grocery store. I just didn't realize they were thieves.
Oh yeah, I've chained an underfed pitbull to a tree in the front yard.
From all accounts, it appears to be drug-related activity. Contractors and the like are not out snatching up downspouts, gutters and pipe for their next project. The demand for copper is way up, thus driving the cost of copper through the roof. Drug addicts and petty criminals have discovered they can avoid the riskier person-to-person theft and still score an easy couple hundred bucks by grabbing downspouts, pipes and wires from empty homes and office buildings after hours. In the past several years, they have fed off of deserted industrial buildings (go look at any abandoned building in The Strip). However, since those areas have been picked clean they seem to be becoming more bold and are venturing into residential areas. I've even heard of some twisted meth addicts stealing the bronze and copper markers off of the headstones of decesased veterans.
Generally, scrap dealers - like pawn shops - work with local police to catch the criminals and deter this type of activity. However, it is increasingly likely that the cost of these metals in the marketplace is giving many scrap dealers reason to look the other way.
This is only a part of a bigger picture. Collecting scrap metals has become a competitive late night business. Dozens of pick-up trucks piled high with metal cruise the city and the suburbs on trash nights looking for anything large and metal. In some parts of the city there are four or five trucks in a row cruising streets every night.
This is from the Mt. Lebanon Web Site.
**Note: Eleven instances of copper down spouts stolen from residences since August 20, 2007. In some of the incidents, two male actors were seen. One actor knocked on the resident�s door, under some ruse, while the second actor removed sections of copper downspouts from the house. The two male actors are described as white males, thin build in their 20s. One vehicle description was a blue SUV. Residents are asked to be vigilant for suspicious vehicles and/or person(s) in their neighborhoods and to call Mt Lebanon Police with any information about these crimes.
This story takes the theft of copper to an almost absurd new level . . .
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/highschool/09/15/bc.fbh.coppertheft.game.ap/index.html
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