On 2014-01-09 10:06 PM, Bastette wrote:
Christina Websell wrote:

We did have a bit of problem a while ago, someone got a bicycle stolen from
their yard and another got their hub caps stolen from their car outside on
the street.
I hate to admit this (stereotyping) but I always suspected the scrap dealers
that were up here twice a week with their vans. Since they now have to be
licensed to do this and cannot take stuff to a scrapyard to get a cash
payment, they don't come any more and nothing metal has gone missing. I
lost my wrought iron side gate when I was in hospital.
The law was brought in after so many buildings (churches, especially) were
being stripped of the lead on their roof.
Now, the scrapyards can only pay you by cheque, which has had a brilliant
effect on opportunistic metal thieves here as has the licensing law. Now,
if they steal it, they can't get rid of it as the scrapyards get regular
visits from the enforcement agency and if they can't account for where it
came from with paperwork, they will get a massive fine. Seems to be working
quite well ;-)

There's a similar problem over here with copper theft. People steal plumbing
from buildings (pipes newer than a certain time are made of copper). I wish
they'd try something like that here.


Employees at a local scrapyard recently started wondering if a bell they
had purchased might not have been acquired legally, so they called the
police. Sure enough, it had been stolen from a church.

Modern plumbing all seems to be plastic, but when copper prices go up,
the more stupid of the local thieves steal wiring from phone and power
installations. Sooner or later one of them will be electrocuted.

There is a small development where I used to live in which the old
buildings were torn down and the new ones built slowly, over a period of
just over 3 years. For long periods of time, the site was left
unattended and unsecured. I saw nothing myself, but I heard that
building supplies vanished from the site at an astonishing rate.
--
Cheryl