Power Line to my house was broken

[MossRoad]

Yes, copper was being stolen from just about everything, including peoples outside AC units.

Cops said they probably cut it into pieces, melted the plastics off in a fire, and then turned it in for scrap.

Yeah. We had a rash of a few years of copper thefts. They'd steal your AC condenser and get $20 for it at the scrap yard. It would cost you many hundreds to replace it. My wife had a friend that bought his first house. He'd go over there after work to work on it before moving in. One day he showed up and someone had stolen the aluminum siding from 2 sides of the house up as far as they could reach.

South Bend had a huge manufacturing complex around the Studebaker corridor during WWII. There were lots of large tunnels connecting many of the factories. Large enough to drive trucks through unseen from above. Lots of underground manufacturing, etc. Anyhow, all that required power. So lots of copper down there. So around the same time all these copper thefts started, these homeless guys would break into the abandoned tunnels and steal the wiring. Eventually they'd get to locked gates at in-use factories, break into those, and start stealing stuff that was live. I recall one of them getting electrocuted.

All of that prompted local authorities to require junk yards to keep daily logs of what people brought in, and they had to be photographed, and they had to present state I.D. before they could sell any scrap. Those policies remain in place today. Even just aluminum cans and you have to get photographed and I.D.'d.

 

[MossRoad]

Back around 2006 we had many homeless scrappers living in abandoned buildings around the Studebaker corridor. 6 of them were living in one building. 4 of them got into an altercation with 2 of them over scrap metal, a propane heater, and living conditions. The 2 of them bludgeoned the 4 of them to death and dumped their bodies in manholes along some railroad tracks near the building. The family of one of the missing men asked police to look for him, and they knew the area and the manholes that lead to the old Studebaker corridors under town. The very first one they looked in, they found 2 dead bodies. A few yards down the tracks, they found 2 more. It was gruesome.

The case made national headlines as The Manhole Murders.

The story can be googled. Look for South Bend manhole murders. There's a few podcasts about it, and a long-winded multi-chapter story out there on it. Compelling reading.

This event was another reason scrap laws were changed in our area.

 

[goeduck]

Fargo missed that type of disposal or it would have been a manholebuster of a movie.

 

[BigBlue1]

They're into stealing catalytic converters off of cars in the Twin Cities metro area these days. Disgusting what folks are willing to do.

 

[MossRoad]

They're into stealing catalytic converters off of cars in the Twin Cities metro area these days. Disgusting what folks are willing to do.

Yep. We've had a rash of that as well. 800% increase in cat converter thefts over years past. It used to be theft was for scrap prices. Now, it's for resale. If your cat converter goes bad, it can cost over a thousand bucks to replace it. People "know a guy" that can get you one for $500. He takes an order, then goes out and steals one. Cordless sawsall is the tool of choice. Takes about a minute and they're gone.

 

[two_bit_score]

Yep. We've had a rash of that as well. 800% increase in cat converter thefts over years past. It used to be theft was for scrap prices. Now, it's for resale. If your cat converter goes bad, it can cost over a thousand bucks to replace it. People "know a guy" that can get you one for $500. He takes an order, then goes out and steals one. Cordless sawsall is the tool of choice. Takes about a minute and they're gone.

They were hitting storage lots in a Texas a few years back but has seemed to die down lately. Maybe they all moved to Indy.

 

[coobie]

About 20 years ago thieves cut a whole in our fence at our power company headquarters and stole Hugh reels of copper wire.They pulled them threw the fence with a pickup truck rolled the wire out and cut it off in chunks of 8-10 ft from what the security camera caught on film..

 

[aczlan]

About 20 years ago thieves cut a whole in our fence at our power company headquarters and stole Hugh reels of copper wire.They pulled them threw the fence with a pickup truck rolled the wire out and cut it off in chunks of 8-10 ft from what the security camera caught on film..

Watch out for that happening again, insulated copper wire is currently at a dollar a pound at the scrap yard near me.
I would imagine when they burn or cut the insulation off it goes up quite a bit.

Aaron Z

 

[Pixguy]

Same thing happened to a lodge I'm a member at in Florida, cut the power at the street meter and pulled the 200' main feed for scrap. Expensive replacement.

 

[MossRoad]

Watch out for that happening again, insulated copper wire is currently at a dollar a pound at the scrap yard near me.
I would imagine when they burn or cut the insulation off it goes up quite a bit.

Aaron Z

Several local scrap yards here won't take burnt copper wire.

I read somewhere about the math on burning insulation off of copper wire VS not and even at high copper prices, you end up only making a few dollars more on a hundred pounds of copper and you had to spend your time burning it off, then deal with the mess. They also mentioned something about the burning process damaging the copper, the environmental issues of burnt plastics, etc... you can make more money stripping it by hand than you can burning it.

Here's where I read that.

PapiSlot : Situs Judi Baccarat Online Terbaik dan Terpercaya No 1 di Indonesia

Situs Judi Baccarat Online dan Casino Online 24 Jam Terbaik dan Terpercaya no 1 di Indonesia, Daftar Bakarat Online Uang asli hanya di Situs Papislot.

www.scrapmetaljunkie.com

and here.

Should You Burn Your Copper Wire to Earn More Money For Scrap?

Spoiler alert: NO! We saw a disturbing video of a man advocating the burning of insulated copper wire, purportedly to qualify the wire as Copper #2, which brings a higher sale value when sold as scrap than insulated wire. Please don't do this. Burning insulated wire in Texas is ILLEGAL under...

encorerecyclers.com