It's hard to believe this has spread so far out of heavily populated urban areas. Hard to predict that something the crackheads were doing in places like NYC where I worked for many years, long ago, would become a problem everywhere today. It's obvious the prices of scrap have made it attractive for anyone who does not work and has to support their selfish drug habits by going so far as tearing out plumbing and electrical items in a residence or building they do not own. They have been doing this for years in NYC, people burning insulation off large conductors, in abandoned lots, stinking up the neighborhood with the toxic smoke, destroying abandoned, occupied or in process of remodeling homes, buildings etc. One of my employees had a 2 story brownstone in Brooklyn off Livonia ave and the crackheads took all the plumbing out, it was under rehab for investment, was a lot of good oppurtunities back then to get some deals on buildings, restore them and re-sell at a big profit, certain neighborhoods that were bad, then became popular attactions to avoid the high rents of Manhattan, only problem was you need a night watchman who is not on crack or in cohoots with the thieves while rehabbing said building.
Mongo madness is what we called it in the construction business, for scrap items found on job sites. Waste in that industry was and probably still is terrible, I used to hammer our ironworkers about wasting expensive fasteners, but also gave them carts with bins to work out of, re-stock at the shanty in the morning, the crackheads love to break into construction sites and job trailers, shipping containers shanties etc.
In '94 I changed out a heater core in my old ford ranger, tossed it into a trash can on site, it did not last 1 hour. This was a big pipe job, trades were off site already, crackhead or homeless person checking the trash cans must have taken it.
A lot of the trades people would collect valuable scrap metal items found on the concrete decks or elsewhere around the large jobsites, fill buckets at home, go to the scrap yard annually with what they carried home each day, it adds up.
It's real sad that these people do this, it's a problem in the city adjacent to the town I live in, all started in the big cities, fueled by drug habits, and is a real pain to prevent from happening to any idle or unoccupied building. I would support a bill to immediately execute any perpetrator caught in the act/redhanded of doing this. This is one of those crimes that really gets me, while your back is turned is the only time they strike, and what does an owner do when this happens and there is no way to recover the loss. Sad news, I hope they get caught, and you find a way to recover that loss.
