Thiefs and Scrappers

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CCR

CCR

Mouth-Breather
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
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Have you ever seen a bike ride by that looks familiar ? My family used to have a body shop, we still manage to build up a decent scrap pile though we dont work on cars anymore. We seem to turn away scrappers about 2 or 3 times a week, sometimes the pile goes missing after dark though. The thing that really gets me is the guy who asked last, before the pile went missing has now been seen on a 50s tornado I had in a barn on the same property but in a different building. I dont really miss the bike as it was a junker (and didnt know it was missing until i saw it ride by) but I plan on going to get the seat back (the only good thing on the bike) the next time i see him riding to the gas station by my house on a beer run.
 
Thats funny...I have a mental image of some scruffy looking guy trying to ride standing up with a twelve pack under his arm. Then he hits a bump, and :shock: seatpost enema.
 
ha ha.. I had a guy ride by on a bike that belonged to me. I stopped him and asked him about it...
he took me to the place he got it from.... and I called the cops ... then knocked on the door while
waiting for the cops... kid with the bike was scared... but told him if he did not steal it... not to worry
I have the guy in the house the chance to pay me for the bike... and when the cops pulled up the threw money
at me and close the door... I just dont like playing nice with dem kinda folds..
 
Many of the scrappers around here are thieves. Luckily gas prices going up more have kept them from cruising the alleys as much, so I don't get asked as much, but I keep my eyes open for the guys. There have been some wild scrapper stories around here the past few years.
 
I hate the stories I hear lately of scrap thieves taking bronze plaques and statues from town and city memorials. That's heart breaking. The World Wars rose garden here in New Britain, CT (dedicated to the sacrifices women have made during our wars) had one of it's big plaques taken. This is becoming a problem everywhere.
 
There is a new neighborhood here in town, the streets are laid out, curbed, and sidewalk, just not paved yet, the thieves (scrappers) came through and stole all the cast iron storm grates from the curbs.

Another piece of this puzzle is the owners of the scrap yards, someone comes in with a load of brand new street grates, just don't ask questions, just tell them to move along. Same with statues and plaques, sure, they can hide them in a pile of stuff, but a trained eye can pick it out easy as the stuff is off loaded.

Around here a car can be scrapped without a title if it is 10 year old or older, so people wake up, have see their car was stolen, by time any investigation is started, paperwork filed, etc... the car has gone across the scales and someone drove off with a check.

A scrap yard owner around here was recently arrested and investigated, I didn't follow the story beyond the beginning, but the police went to his scrap yard and asked to come check for something, he told them they could not enter his yard, they came back with a warrant to search and they arrested him for having stolen property. If he had just let them in, things would have gone better.
 
ive heard stories of our local scrapyard buying the same load of scrap twice. fella drops it off, gets his check, comes back in the dark and steals the scrap back, next day sells it back to the scrapyard, i geuss a different employee delt with him that day or something. once they caught on, he's been blackballed from every scrapyard around (and rightfully so).
im not saying all scrappers are theives, just thought it was a humourous story.
 
That reminds me of a funny story, When I was a kid I used to keep a pile of junk bikes behind my garage inside the fence till some junker stole them one night. I'd only put bikes back there that I scavenged parts off of so no huge loss but after that I decided I'd get the scrapper back. So I took an old junk bike and dug a trench behind the garage just deep enough where the hubs were 2 inches below the surface then put the bike in and filled it with concrete. Then I buried it in dirt and threw some grass over it so it looked like it had just sat there for a really long time. One day I caught a junker pulling and yanking every which way on it and I laughed my butt off as I walked up and asked what he was doing. He looked like a deer in headlights. I told him if I saw him in my yard again I'd let my dog out after him. :mrgreen: Never saw him again.

Around here they have even gone as far as stealing monuments and brass light things from cemeteries and funeral homes, which I think is about as low as someone can go.

One of these days I'm going to put another decoy bike in my yard just for laughs.
 
I put our old dishwasher outside of our shop because my wife didnt want it hanging around, scrapper stopped by at lunch and asked if he could pick it up. I said "sure, you can pick up that plastic tub dishwasher". He said "It's plastic !?!" and then cussed me out :lol: No reason, it just wasn't a stainless tub like he thought it would be.
 
CCR said:
I put our old dishwasher outside of our shop because my wife didnt want it hanging around, scrapper stopped by at lunch and asked if he could pick it up. I said "sure, you can pick up that plastic tube dishwasher". He said "It's plastic !?!" and then cussed me out :lol: No reason, it just wasn't a stainless tub like he thought it would be.
Click to expand...

Ha ha, I'd have just let him take it and find out the hard way... :mrgreen:
 
I figured he would get the hint as he did pick up on it but I wasnt expecting to get cursed at because I told him it was plastic :roll: If I would just told him "sure" I'm certain something else would of walked away instead.
 
My son left his old 16" mongoose out on garbage night, a scrapper grabbed it, mind you it was no where near garbage, or even the street, in the carport, neighbors told me the story.
 
I wouldnt call them scrappers when they are stealing stuff, I have a few friends that scrap and they wont go on someones property unless they are invited. when people put stuff to the curb Ill go up and ask if I can have what ever Ive seen that I want and if I do dig thru stuff I always pile the stuff back up.
 
I have an old fishing cabin on the lake here.. and a few years back somebody came in and tore all the windows out of it because they had aluminum frames and shattered all of the glass out in the yard.I don't think we'll ever be able to pick up all the glass. :(
 
some are just trying to make a buck like the rest of us...some are scum bags that need to get set straight, they think they got an easy way out of a situation of "well ya left it out I figured you didn't want it"
 
dragnusa said:
I wouldnt call them scrappers when they are stealing stuff, I have a few friends that scrap and they wont go on someones property unless they are invited. when people put stuff to the curb Ill go up and ask if I can have what ever Ive seen that I want and if I do dig thru stuff I always pile the stuff back up.
Click to expand...
I am going to call a diference between scrappers and garbage pickers, they are the same yet so different.
I ran ads in the local "shopper paper," and Craigslist offering to buy scrap metal, never took anything that wasn't purchased. I would not accept free, unless the stuff was more work to get than it was worth. A Tree growing thru the car you are trying to have removed means it is more work than it is worth! Or some jerk cements the bicycle into the ground!
I am sorry to say this but, garbage pickers I have found are usually the dregs of society, either alcohol, drugs, or both are driving them, they have no control over themselves due to the addiction they carry and they don't have the recourses to operate as a buisiness.
 
Three bikes have disappeared from my house in town now since the last time I posted anything in this thread, I'm blaming a lot of it on the the 24 hr beer stop gas station 1/2 a block away. I don't know if its people stealing a ride to get back across town or scrappers, but the traffic and the type of people going through the back alleys has both increased and gotten shadier in the past year. The neighbor behind me is an elderly guy who goes to Florida every year and doesn't come back until April, he came back and found his a/c condenser stripped, he lives on main st :shock: 2 of the three bikes have been brake less. Think I'm going to leave some more bait out without pedals and see if they get picked up, then I would have a better idea. Neighbors were thinking about complaining to the city, anybody have a "no scrapping" ordinance in their town?
 
I was on the way out the door to take the kid to the bus stop as I watched this "scrapper" walk up on my property and try to grab my cat traps, then he walked over to my trash can and open it. My trash can is 10 foot on my property from the curb. There was a neighbor feeding and attracting cats, I got rid of most of them then the neighbor moved. I walked out and asked if I could help him. He replied, "I looky por trash". I looked back at him and said' "no your stealing .... and you are way to far up on my property". I then pointed to my security camera and told him the cops are on the way. If I wouldn't have had the traps locked down he would have taken them. I haven't seen him back around I am not sure if it was the threat of calling the cops or the pistol I carry that scared him. No I didn't flash it or point it at him just had it on my side like I always do when I leave the house.
 
I have a full time job, work 8-12 hrs a day, and I scrap. I fund my hobbies with it, and rarely take money from our savings to pay for my toys. I don't steal, but will get scrap at the curb if its there and I have room. I can make around $200 a trip if I'm loaded up and the prices are up as well. I don't do it all the time but when I get the chance I will.

I sell and service wheel chairs. I've had several customers over the years have there wheel chair stollen. Not cheap stuff, $2-3000 or more wheel chairs! Bikes are one thing, stealing someone's wheel chair is a low down dirty deed.
 
I'v picked up scrap metal a few times to make ends meet,then my Grandson posted a ad in the local C list ,and got a few jobs , but the problem is i have to argue with him all the time! cause i want to keep stuff :oops: :lol: :lol:
 

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