Manhole covers stolen in Flint, Mi

[ozzy1028]

Thought this was rather amusing to see when i signed into Yahoo this morning. Being my hometown and all and being Yahoo's main news article

Mich. cities say hundreds of manhole covers stolen - Yahoo! News

 

[Bob Haller]

got 130 bucksa yesterday at scrap yard. my main interest was getting rid of the junk.

its now making a few extra bucks.

locally copper 3 bucks a pound

steel 13.25 per hundred.

my old furnace was 17.25 worth the effort.

I had been tossing steel a little at a time weekly.

more trips to scrap yard are in my future.

around heres homes are being broken into, all the copper plumbing being stolen

its everyones job to keep the chinese in raw materials so they can put more americans out of work........

 

[Ramy]

They are only getting about $25 for those covers so it blows my mind why they even bother with it. Also why are scrap yards taking them when they know they are stolen.

 

[Hall]

They are only getting about $25 for those covers so it blows my mind why they even bother with it. Also why are scrap yards taking them when they know they are stolen.

In Dayton, they (officially) could NOT sell something like this to the local scrap yards. In fact, if you take in anything other than soda cans, you have to have a valid ID for them to record. A co-worker told us that a friend of his owns a construction company and they had gutted a house to renovate. They took all the copper plumbing that they removed as well as electrical wiring. He had one of his employees take it to the scrap yards. They bought the material with no questions... As he was driving back to work, he got pulled over by the local police wanting to know where he got the stuff. Sorta funny part is, he had an old warrant for something.

 

[lumpkin666]

They are only getting about $25 for those covers so it blows my mind why they even bother with it. Also why are scrap yards taking them when they know they are stolen.

Around here, if you toss them in with a bunch of other materials, they just glance in to see what sort of metals you have, and you end up weighing in/out and unloading everything yourself. They wouldn't even know what was underneath a load of metals. When I was an ornery kid in my teens, we used to recycle old transmissions from cars, and sometimes we'd have a guy squeeze behind the seat of the pickup when we weighed in.. then have him jump out before weighing on the way out and meet us at the road - that's an extra 100lbs of materials we "sold". The scrap yard didn't have any idea how much material we had in there, or what it was (sometimes it was concrete blocks under a stack of transmissions.. Thank goodness I grew up and matured a "bit"!)

 

[Bob Haller]

they got a electronic copy of my drivers license for the alunimimum, copper, and stainless.

but asked for no ID for steel, and didnt appear to watch what i was dumping.

 

[Van]

Yea its gotten bad down here so the scrap yards have to take id's and get details of where you got it from. Some things they wont take such as new pipe and wiring in large amounts, large amounts of a/c systems or furnaces unless you work or own a heating and cooling company. Over the last few weeks a scrapper has been cleaning out the woods behind my place saving me a ton of work. Cell towers have been hit in the region and I think it was posted here to about it happening in Tennesse but I remember seeing it on the local news aswell.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

This crap, you guys are describing, has hit epidemic proportions in Detroit. I had one house I was working on to flip broken into. They took 3 steel doors, a new window, the furnace, plumbing, water heater, all the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, a bedroom door (?), and most puzzling, electrical sockets. (They left the wiring). All this happened while the next door neighbor watched all afternoon, without calling me. Needless to say I gave up on this project, and sold the house for a little more than my expenses last week. I would have made $30K on this house when I finished, but the theft killed my will to continue. No insurance for the theft, I would have been better off if the thief burned it down for me.

 

[Bob Haller]

This crap, you guys are describing, has hit epidemic proportions in Detroit. I had one house I was working on to flip broken into. They took 3 steel doors, a new window, the furnace, plumbing, water heater, all the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, a bedroom door (?), and most puzzling, electrical sockets. (They left the wiring). All this happened while the next door neighbor watched all afternoon, without calling me. Needless to say I gave up on this project, and sold the house for a little more than my expenses last week. I would have made $30K on this house when I finished, but the theft killed my will to continue. No insurance for the theft, I would have been better off if the thief burned it down for me.

sadly theres lots of desperate people out there..........

espically in detroit.

 

[charper1]

Regardless of the times; they are still THIEVES. Go bag groceries or something; anything that is respectable as opposed to being a criminal!

 

[GeorgeLV]

I wish we would pass/enforce laws here to get id from the &$@^ing copper theives when they come into the salvage yards. And it's not like the salvage yards are blameless either. How frakking hard is it to tell a legitimate contractor from a tweaker strung out on meth?!

Around here most of the plumbing is PEX now, so they just switch to stealing power cables, air conditioning condensers, you name it.

 

[Claude Greiner]

The worst part is where they are taking it off of telephone poles, cutting phone and electric service.

Look at Tiger Stadium, some a$$hole contractor agreed to do the demolition for free in exchange to be able to sell off all the scrap steel

 

[Bob Haller]

I am going to clean up my 16 by 20 shed and shop, and sell off all the scrap. the price is unreal....

as the economy goes down so will scrap prices, now is the time to sell

 

[Hall]

Look at Tiger Stadium, some a$$hole contractor agreed to do the demolition for free in exchange to be able to sell off all the scrap steel

Not quite the same, but a few of us at work have noticed that when buildings are demolished anymore, they have distinct "piles" nowadays.

 

[HD MM]

I noticed the garbage pickers are out in full force lately. Every week before garbage collection, when people have their stuff out to the curbs, the same trucks go up and down the street looking for some kind of treasure. Pretty desperate if you ask me....

Here at work, our guys are instructed to keep a good eye on their material. Copper pipe specifically is often stolen from job sites.

 

[riffjim4069]

sadly theres lots of desperate people out there..........

As charper pointed out, these people are better known as criminals.

 

[Bob Haller]

I noticed the garbage pickers are out in full force lately. Every week before garbage collection, when people have their stuff out to the curbs, the same trucks go up and down the street looking for some kind of treasure. Pretty desperate if you ask me....

Here at work, our guys are instructed to keep a good eye on their material. Copper pipe specifically is often stolen from job sites.

I have picked garbage in the past and still will if its something I can use

better than going to a landfill.

some memorable finds, a lionel steam train valued at the time about 200 bucks, today probably 10 times that.

a real nice kirby vacuumn with attachments, i still use it occasionally

a nice cabinet in use today in my shop, must of had it 20 years.

out of high schjool i picked and sold at flea markets it was fun.

 

[HD MM]

I have picked garbage in the past and still will if its something I can use

Well you ARE from Pittsburgh, PA, so that explains everything! Kidding, Kidding!

Go Browns!

 

[charper1]

I see it this way though Bob; should people be throwing these useful items out like this? NO! But others should NOT be going through their trash either.

 

[Bobby]

I see it this way though Bob; should people be throwing these useful items out like this? NO! But others should NOT be going through their trash either.

Why not? If there is something usable and the throwing out party is willing to throw it away, I say go get it if it has some use to you.