Big clepto

March 24, 2005 5:05 AM

Now I have stolen some things from bars, and I know some people who have a hard time not stealing something. Most of us are just happy with the toiletries from hotels. These guys trump everyone - they stole an entire house
posted by thebwit (30 comments total)

If you're engaged in the process of stealing something for three months, and nobody stops you, you really should be allowed to keep it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:47 AM on March 24, 2005

[fark]
DUDE!
[/fark]

p.s. reg. req'd for link.
posted by moonbird at 5:50 AM on March 24, 2005

If you're engaged in the process of stealing something for three months, and nobody stops you, you really should be allowed to keep it.

Is that the Ken Lay defense?
posted by R. Mutt at 5:53 AM on March 24, 2005

Faint of Butt writes "If you're engaged in the process of stealing something for three months, and nobody stops you, you really should be allowed to keep it."

So, this Iraq, we get to keep it?
posted by orthogonality at 6:03 AM on March 24, 2005

I've often said as long as you look like you're supposed to be doing whatever it is you're doing, that no one will stop you.

Example: When I worked at a large hardware/houseares store during my teenage years there was a story about a guy who walked in confidently, picked up a canoe and walked out. Nobody said anything. He stole a CANOE in broad daylight just by walking out, tying it to his car and driving away. The staff didn't even ask him for a receipt!
posted by LunaticFringe at 6:26 AM on March 24, 2005

Methamphetamine is a hell of a drug.

I saw the link just fine with no reg, but when I went back to look a second time, it was reg required.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:48 AM on March 24, 2005

I think they found out we were stealing their content.
posted by kika at 6:52 AM on March 24, 2005

Weird. The first time I went to the link, I could read it all, when I went again less than a minute later, it was reg.req.
so read the story thoroughly the first time, I guess.
posted by raedyn at 7:08 AM on March 24, 2005

After numerous ( iirc 4) Amber Alerts in the N Texas area during March, what's a house?
posted by thomcatspike at 7:08 AM on March 24, 2005

So what were they going to do with the house? Reassemble it elsewhere? Or did it just block the view (and if the latter, I have to see these guys about the third apartment building in my complex that blocks my view of the CN Tower).
posted by orange swan at 7:13 AM on March 24, 2005

I can't wrap my head around this. Who owned the house? Is the owner the one that reported it "stolen"? Didn't the owner notice the house was slowly being dismantled over 3 months? Did this house even have an owner? If the house was abandoned, could it be considered "stolen? So many questions...
posted by MsVader at 7:21 AM on March 24, 2005

Also see: stolen bridges.
posted by lazy-ville at 7:28 AM on March 24, 2005

The story says that a real estate company rep contacted the police. So the house probably was empty and either was for sale or was going to be for sale. The material they got from the house ended up to people who needed bricks and construction material and what-not, and of course, lying around at some meth-head's house, the pack-rats that they are.
posted by lazy-ville at 7:32 AM on March 24, 2005

What gets me is the amount of work required to dismantle the house vs the probable resale value of used bricks & floorboards. It seems that the culprits could have earned more money in less time just by getting a minimum wage job.
posted by tdismukes at 8:24 AM on March 24, 2005

Timber has gone up 30% in the last year, and god knows how much steel and brick have gone up. This probably paid better than MY job.
posted by fshgrl at 8:40 AM on March 24, 2005

Except for the stealing part and what the money was going for, I have to give these guys credit. What a scheme!
posted by deborah at 9:06 AM on March 24, 2005

I remember reading Mike Royko writing a series of columns many years ago as he was watching a brick building across the street from his office slowly disappear. Same deal, druggies were stealing the bricks to sell.
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:18 AM on March 24, 2005

Wow, that was quite a gamble. They were lucky. The odds usually favor the house.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:21 AM on March 24, 2005

It is amazing someone can do this right under your nose and no one does a thing to stop it (cough "Iraq" cough, gag).
posted by j.p. Hung at 9:55 AM on March 24, 2005

This reminds me of a story about a guy in NJ who was stealing guardrail pieces from the highway. He stole hundreds of the horizontal rails before the cops figured out what was going on.
posted by R. Mutt at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2005

I'm imagining them trying to trade a toilet for some meth and the dealer just looking at them like their freakin' crazy (which they are).

Is there much of a market for second hand bricks? I'd never really ascribed much value to them? What's the exchange rate on bricks for meth right now? I've got a pile outside my backdoor and now I'm worried the local crackheads will try and steal it.
posted by fenriq at 9:59 AM on March 24, 2005

Apparently the strib has a cookie that lets you look once. Odd.

I've been working for years at stealing Miami Beach. There's a relatively large pile of sand in my backyard, and so far, I haven't been called on it. *crosses fingers*
posted by graventy at 11:38 AM on March 24, 2005

fenriq: Is there much of a market for second hand bricks? I'd never really ascribed much value to them?

Yep. I've dismantled buildings (we bought the demolition rights) and for the most part anything that can be salvaged intact can be sold for 10-50% of the original value and much of what can't can be sold for scrap. Brick is on the top end of the scale. Some old brick is worth more than new brick. And brick is really easy to clean of mortar with the right, inexpensive to make, tools. We even sold the mortar sometimes.
posted by Mitheral at 12:12 PM on March 24, 2005

Is there much of a market for second hand bricks?

Oh yeah. Especially if they match bricks you've already got. If I could find a few hundred to match the existing brickwork on my 1950's ranch, they'd be worth a lot to me (I want to extend a walkway, but not so that it looks brand new)
posted by davejay at 2:20 PM on March 24, 2005

What's weird is that this (ex-) homeowner is better off with no house at all than if, instead of dismantling and selling it, they had used it as a meth lab for any length of time. Then they'd have a condemned or blown-up dwelling on a toxic waste dump.
posted by obloquy at 2:21 PM on March 24, 2005

Someone stole my apartment once. But that was a bit different.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2005

I've heard methamphetamine keeps people alert, gives them lots of energy, and helps them focus on details. (All things I don't need in my life.) But this bit about taking apart buildings is new to me: around here they just smash your car window and steal your stereo, CDs, and handguns.

Yes, I've read police blotters: lots of people around here really do leave guns in their cars overnight, in urban neighborhoods where cars get burglarized all the time; however, it's being quickly caught up to by those people whose cars get stolen because they left them running and unlocked to warm the engine up while they shave or while they run "just for a second" in to buy beer. Around here folks don't have to be inbred to be pretty damn dumb; from the looks of things a little inbreeding might help a bit.

SO, are old bricks in good shape worth more than new bricks? This place is wood-framed siding, but down the block.... Who says you have to a tweaker to be an entrepreneur? But then maybe I'd need a little something to motivate me, y'know.
posted by davy at 7:22 PM on March 24, 2005

Old bricks can be valuable.

Stolen Barn aka Craig Sears + Vintage Barns = FRAUD.

And as anyone familiar with Lovejoy can attest, the world of antiques and architectural salvage is full of shysters and many shady, gray transfers which muddy the provenance of items; and because the dollar values are often much less than with stolen art, police interest is consequently also diminished. Britain has a slightly larger problem, with older and more valuable artifacts -- the site Salvoweb operates a Stolen Artifacts Theft Alert site. Recovery rates, they say, peaked at around 14 percent (how can you say a flagstone is yours?).
posted by dhartung at 11:04 PM on March 24, 2005

damn - It's Raining Florence Henderson wins AGAIN.
posted by soyjoy at 8:08 AM on March 25, 2005

Apparently the strib has a cookie that lets you look once. Odd.

I've noticed it at a few sites. The S-T is owned by McClatchy, and the company is doing the same thing at the Raleigh N&O, which it also owns. Other companies are trying it out, too, as newspapers desperately try to figure out this intarweb thing.
posted by mediareport at 10:48 PM on March 25, 2005