Some U.S. homes worth less than their copper pipes

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

BROCKTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Shards of broken glass outside the basement window of 31 Vine Street hint at the destruction inside the three-story home.

Thieves smashed the window to break in and then gutted the property for its copper pipes -- a crime that has spread across the United States as the economy slows and foreclosed homes stand empty and vulnerable.

"They cut it here and then pulled it right out of the wall," real estate broker Marc Charney said, pointing to broken plaster near a wrecked baseboard heating system in the 2,774-sq-ft home in Brockton, Massachusetts, a working-class city of 94,304 people.

<snip>

"In my district, we've got a lot of foreclosed homes and we've got a ton of people who are breaking into these homes, stealing the copper wiring right out of the walls," said Andy Meisner, a lawmaker in Michigan's state Legislature who plans an April 15 hearing on two bills intended to tackle the issue.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2527885420080401?sp=true

[Muttocracy]

1. I know a woman whose house was gutted for the copper

They had moved to another house and the old one was up for sale and thieves figured out it was unoccupied. They hit a string of houses in the same area.

Tens of thousands of dollars damage for a few hundred or thousand dollars of metal.

Is copper up so much because of demand in China?

[conscious evolution]

11. Up because of demand for bullets in Iraq. nt

[grytpype]

2. Nice country we used to have.

BTW, the article says that most of the incoming scrap metal is being sold to China and India.

So our houses are worthless and are being scrapped out to China and India.

[DBoon]

9. a good metaphor to what is happening to our country

going bankrupt and being gutted to be sold for scrap to China

[Art_from_Ark]

3. The headline is misleading

The home that was broken into was worth far more than the few pounds of copper pipes (@$3.50 per pound) that were stolen.

[Kolesar]

5. thank you!

The media has a way of dropping really distorted concepts into the collective consciousness of America.

[BRLIB]

6. More than one home broken into..... > $100 of copper??

""We're seeing houses sold for $100 that are distressed houses that should not be recycled," he said. Some boarded-up homes in his Slavic Village community have "No copper, only PVC" painted on the boards to stop would-be thieves."

[EvilAL]

8. only PVC

They'll just rip the wires out of the walls instead.

[Art_from_Ark]

14. If that 2,774-sq-ft home was worth only $100,

then its neighborhood must be the closest thing to hell this side of Baghdad.

[liberal N proud]

4. A friend of ours bought a foreclosed home, all plumbing was removed

Before he could move in, he had to completely re-plumb the entire house, the previous owners gutted it when they lost the home.
The home was originally valued in the $750K+, he purchased it for less than $250K. If the values return, he made a killing even in the repairs he had to do.

[heliarc]

10. We've become a nation of vultures.

Whether you are stealing the copper... or the home from under a weakened owner.

[EvilAL]

7. We used to call it copperizing,

but we'd do it to burned houses. I live in a small town, so it wasn't often and copper was less than a buck a pound (late 80s). The night after a fire, we'd go in with old clothes and gloves and copperize it. Burn the remaining plastic and rubber off the wires and sell it.
It has happened here though recently, with unburned camps and cottages.

Edit: not by me. heheheh

[Zorra]

12. Tweakers will steal anything they possibly can. n/t

[-..__...]

13. Roll on one... roll on two.

Copper pipes are an excellent conductor of electricity. I'd love to see someone hook-up about 1,200 volts of juice to the plumbing and light up a few of these parasites.