Paranoia about scrappers

This evening, a neighbor came by and let me know some guys with a truck and tow dolly stopped by my house today. She said she thinks they were the same ones who stopped at her place a ways back, and asked if they could haul away her husband's old Bronco for her. I assume they were going to ask about my Subaru wagon, but geez, the thing has current plates, and it's not like it looks abandoned, I just don't drive it much. Heck, I use it to haul my scrap to the recycler.

I know I shouldn't worry too much, but it just seems scrappers have gotten a lot more aggressive around here lately. I've tinted the windows on my garage doors, and I don't like having my garage door open anymore if I'm not right there.

Any other simple precautions to take, or am I just being too paranoid?

Security cameras, big dogs.

That would qualify as theft, I don't think they would take it without the title. Of course, a motion sensing security camera wouldn't be the worst idea.

I have also noticed scrappers have become more aggressive since the summer. I think most of the easy stuff has been picked over and now they are forced to "branch" out more. The price of metal is also down

Paul B

People don't like being shot, make your intentions clear, buy a lot of NRA stickers.

I remember losing a bicycle to those people.. it had been locked to a tree in my backyard with half inch aircraft cable and the biggest and baddest padlock I could find.. I used it everyday to get back and forth to work.

I was home sick for two days.. stuck in bed. When I went to go to work the third day.. it was gone.. as was the cable and the padlock. Now they managed to cut that cable and/or the lock without me knowing... baffles me to this day

Hope not to do anything too expensive, especially over a car I'm trying to get rid of. Of course, the Neon also had a nice coat of mud on it from the weekend's rally cross, so I guess they could have thought it was pretty neglected. With any luck, the wagon will be sold, and the Neon will be tucked in the garage next time they come around.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Honestly, put out some "No Trespassing -Violators will

Brilliant! Leave their imaginations to fill in the rest of that threat, and their worst psychological fears will paralyze them!

Honestly, put out some "No Trespassing -Violators will be prosecuted" signs in your yard. Let the friendly neighbors know what's going on and start from there. "Beware of Dog" signs help out too.

And before someone says that doesn't work, in this instance it most likely will. Make it known you do not want people on your property without your permission.

In reply to Racer1ab:

Somehow that didn't post right. But yeah leave it to their imagination.

there were some break-ins in my sister's neighborhood a while back. she went to the range and punched some nice tight groups into a few silhouettes and hung them on each of her doors. neighbors on both sides got broken into. her, not so much. i wish i had a pic, because it was sweet.

not sure if this helps, but i love the story.

I don't think it's paranoia. They're getting bolder around here too. I cleaned out my garage in preparation to go to the scrapper last winter. I had a stack of 12 car batteries and a handful of old starters and alternators nicely stacked between my garage and one of my cars, hardly visible (if at all) unless you're in my yard. I went to load it all up a couple days later and it was all gone. I also had a crappy stack of steel wheels and a couple junk transmissions taken from right outside my garage door. berkeleyers.

You are not paranoid. Times are getting tough, and people are going nuts.

The thing about scrappers is that since they're not robbing liquor stores at gunpoint, they think they're not criminals. Case in point: when we moved into the new place last Feb, I left the old lawn mower outside the old place so that SWMBO's buddies would put it on the U-Haul the following morning. It vanished.

When I went back to pick up some odds & ends, the neighborhood kids were hanging around. "Oh, yeah..(shiny happy offspring of shiny happy person) took it. It didn't look like it ran anymore. We scrapped it."

I recently ran into the daughter of the woman that lived across the street from us in our old neighborhood. I asked, "So, how have you been getting by lately?" She answered, "Oh, we're scrapping.." like it was actually a real job.

I don't have locking lugs on my cars' wheels, because I thought no one wanted to steal something as "small" as a 15in. set anymore. I think I need to reconsider, since so many folks just think of them as pre-heated slag..

Rims stolen off a stored bmw 635 csi I had stashed

mad_machine wrote: I remember losing a bicycle to those people.. it had been locked to a tree in my backyard with half inch aircraft cable and the biggest and baddest padlock I could find.. I used it everyday to get back and forth to work. I was home sick for two days.. stuck in bed. When I went to go to work the third day.. it was gone.. as was the cable and the padlock. Now they managed to cut that cable and/or the lock without me knowing... baffles me to this day

They froze it (Probably an upside down can of compressed air duster) and hit it with a hammer.

let's be clear.

there is a gigantic difference between scrappers and scrap thieves.

i pay for my house through the winter by scrapping if work is slow - that is, i drive around and pick metal out of the trash on garbage night. i won't even touch a bicycle on the treelawn unless it is in the pile with the trash because some dumb kid could have left it out. 2 years ago when steel was 11-12 cents per lb i was pulling $80-100 per night out of the trash in 2-3 hours.

maybe i'm lucky and live in a decent area, but i've got an aluminum pile and buckets full of copper, brass, and wire out in front of my garage and nobody has been ballsy enough to steal it. however at my other house they broke in and stole all the plumbing while it was bank owned/vacant. i've been told they have legit looking work vans and tools, and they do it in broad daylight so it looks like they are supposed to be there.

Im hit after going over to stash house ,,,,,,,,,,, all radiators gone , rims , crap i am pissed . The got 60 mercedez rad , stripped the 635 csi , 2 mgb radiators from 2 cars . tried to steal nephews rims and tires from his mustang . Cops say they got prints /////// fans and 4 way had prints

In reply to patgizz:

Pat, I think the problem is its a fine line between legitimate scrappers and scrap thieves, and its pretty much impossible to tell as they are trolling through the neighborhood, until you see them just taking something.

I don't think it's being paranoid, but I know from experience the scrappers roam my area a lot. This spring, the garage window a/c died, so I pulled it out and put it to the curb. In literally less than 5 minutes, a guy stopped and picked it up.

It's a catch-22.

On the plus side, I don't have to pay for bulk waste removal. I can put just about anything to the curb and it'll be gone within a day. My mother has to pay a fee where she lives if she needs to get rid of an old fridge. So instead, I loaded it into my truck and put it out at my house. Gone within 24 hrs.

However, if I'm mowing my grass and run out of gas in the front yard, you're damned right I won't leave the mower unattended for even a second to go back to the shed for the gas can.

patgizz wrote: let's be clear. there is a gigantic difference between scrappers and scrap thieves. however at my other house they broke in and stole all the plumbing while it was bank owned/vacant. i've been told they have legit looking work vans and tools, and they do it in broad daylight so it looks like they are supposed to be there.

This, there is a huge difference between the two......last year I had 2 guys in an astro van(with construction co. magnets) steal the aluminum siding off my garage. Took them 15-20 minutes to get 3 sides off before my parents(1/4mi down the road) noticed and they fled. I'm just glad they didn't bother to look inside the garage to see the '95 sho and '95 bmw sitting in it......let alone the spare sho parts inventory that I've accumulated over a decade. (wheels, intakes, heads, etc)

Conversely, we have a guy that showed up at our work dumpster and politely asked me if he could take scrap out of it. I told him as long as the driveway around it is kept clean of nails/screws/jagged metal, I didn't mind. I've brought certain things I'd otherwise have to pay to remove in(normally refrigerant related) and set them next to the dumpster for the guy. Routinely checks it every other day.

I've never heard of people getting stuff stolen by scrappers. I've got an old mini grand piano frame beside my garage that I'm going to paint and bolt to a fence as yard art. It's been there a couple of months and not touched. We have scrappers coming round every Sunday about 5:00pm (Trash day in Monday morning) to scavange, but nothing has ever been touched around here.

What does scrap metal (steel and iron) go for a lb. these days if I were to fill up the utility trailer and weigh it in?

Is there such a thing as a tire scrapper? I have about 60 dead tires in my garage that could stand to go.

In my area, they're down at the moment. I'm wanting to say 200/ton or so(were up to 275-300 for awhile), so about 10-12 cents per pound

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Is there such a thing as a tire scrapper? I have about 60 dead tires in my garage that could stand to go.

Not that I know of, most places make you pay to get rid of them. Might be worth looking around for a tire recycler that won't necessarily pay you, but might take them for no charge. They do still make playground padding out of the stuff IIRC

Around here, scrap thieves steal downspouts. Mine's PVC.

Honestly, we have just about as much trouble going the opposite direction: people taking an entire truckload of junk down a couple alleys, filling everybody's dumpster as they go because they don't want to pay the fee at the city dump. Not a problem at my house, but at the shop the other tenant and I go in for a private dumpster we can lock, for this very reason.