http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/05/thieves-in-chatham-targeting-air-conditioners /
How many AC units are using copper instead of aluminum these days?
And now people are putting cages around them?
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/05/thieves-in-chatham-targeting-air-conditioners /
Some really brazen critters came over the fence at my friend's place
where he stored some used units we removed from service and he caught
them on their last expedition onto his property. He isn't sure if his
gunfire got one of them in the backside as they went over the fence
but they haven't been back. ^_^
TDD
I don't see how. I save scrap that I generate and I kept my old
carrier unit and inside coil. It didn't amount to much when I took it
to the scrap yard. The inside coil counted as mixed copper because of
the steel frame so the price per pound was far less. The aluminum
outside parts was only worth a couple bucks. They would not take the
actual compressor in my pile of scrap iron/steel. I think I got like
$12 dollars total that day and I mostly made the run because I had a
cracked bare chevy 350 block I really needed to get rid of. I mostly
save scrap as a way to be more environmentatlly responsible than for
the money anyway.
I was wondering what these thieves do with the units they
steal too. There was a foreclosure house here in a nearby
town that a friend was looking at buying. When we saw it
the house was still occupied and in perfect condition. Stopped
maybe 5 months later and it's a wreck. Inside, the flooring is
gone, all the kitchen cabinets, countertops, etc. Outside
both AC units were gone. The owner was a doctor.
I was puzzled as to who did the stripping. Like would a Dr.
sit there and pull up flooring? And if so, what could he
do with it? Even if you sold it on Craigslist, would not seem
to be worth the effort. And for street thieves, it's hard to
imagine they would want to be in a house long enough to
rip all that stuff out.....
And then with the ACs, I wondered if they could sell them
on CL? Who would buy unknown eqpt that could be
contaminated, burnt up, etc and if they did how much
would they pay for it? And scrap price isn't that much
is it? Doesn't make a lot sense to me.
On 7/7/2011 8:24 AM, snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote:
We had an article in the local paper that said the latest thing to
steal and scrap for metal is...cars. A couple ran out of gas on the
freeway and had to abandon the car. When they went back to retrieve it
a few hours later, it was gone. The following day they learned that a
tow truck driver picked it up and sold it to a scrap yard for $500
bucks and it was already destroyed. Turns out car thieves have been
selling stolen vehicles to the same scrap yard without titles. The
yard pays them, crushes the car, and the lawful owners are SOL.
This yard doesn't concern itself with that. It says that requiring
them to collect proof of ownership from the sellers is
over-regulation, and bad for business. Yeah, when you're shady, I can
see how that would be bad for your business.
What is the state law? In Indiana they have to have valid title of
some sort to crush a car legally. Also, I would think their rather lax
standards would lead them open to charges of receiving stolen property
and one heck of a class action suit for damages.
--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
Not sure if it is in effect yet, but in MI, they were trying to make
scrap yards operate basically like pawnshops- no purchases from walk-ins
without ID and a logbook, and a description of the material. Not to
mention a 'who are you kidding, dumbass?' educational program for yard
workers and potential sellers, showing examples of the most common kinds
of stolen scrap that anyone with common sense would know are probably
hot. (manhole covers, new cable on reels, unused plumbing parts, etc.)
The local yards have been put on notice by cops and DA- if they buy
obvious stuff without doing due diligence, they will be prosecuted as
well, just to make an example of them.
In Brooklyn someone recently stole a bunch of antique wrought iron gates on
a couple blocks:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/44/dtg_gatethefts_2010_10_29_bk.html
Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).
re: "one heck of a class action suit for damages."
How would that happen?
To have a class action suit, you need a class.
From lawyers.com:
•Numbers. There have to be so many possible plaintiffs and lawsuits
against a defendant that it's not practical for them to file their own
suits. Often, possible plaintiffs number in the hundreds or thousands.
In order for a Class Action suit to be filed against the scrap yard,
there would have to be at least hundreds of rightful owners of the
cars that knew that their cars had been taken to this scrap yard after
being stolen.
If the cars were being crushed soon after receipt, then will have
essentially "disappeared", never to be found and the owner would never
know who to sue.
Then there is the question of who is the rightful owner. If there was
a lien against the car (a car loan) who would be the plaintiff?
If the insurance company paid the individual owner after the car was
stolen, then the insurance company would own the car should it ever be
found. Assuming many of the stolen cars were insured (and now owned)
by the limited number of insurance companies in the market, the pool
of plantiffs just got much smaller.
Any of the above factors makes the possibility of a class action suit
pretty small.
We had a power failure here a few years ago. A tree fell across the
lines. It lasted for a good 4 hours because by the time the power
company arrived to fix it, which was within half an hour, a quarter
mile of wire had "walked away". They didnt have enough wire on the
truck to replace that which had gone missing so they had to send for
more from a far away depot.
It just amazed me that thieves could strip wire from the poles so
fast.
You do see a lotof stuff on craig's listthat could come from a
stripped house.
Maybe noi surprisingly most neighbors will ignore a van or truck
parked at a house in the middle of changing hands or in forclosure.
They just assume it's some service guys. Pleny of time to strip and
remove the kitchen cabinets. Two guys could remove a complete set of
kitchen cabinets in about 30 minutes. I could pull an outside
compresor in 15 minues tops. And that's pumping it down. 5 minutes
if you don't care about the charge or the power is off.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/05/thieves-in-chatham-targeting-air-conditioners /
Read the article, the thieves get $25.
Must take 2 or 3 guys to carry and at least an hour
per unit.
Doesn't make much sense.
They sell the copper at 75 cents a pound and a couple guys can steal a
condenser in about 2 minutes. They just cut the lines and roll it away
on a hand truck.
It takes more like 4-5 minutes to strip the copper using battery
tools.
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