Had my own copper thief or wannabe thief anyway. I live in a rural area, my driveway is 600 ft long down a hill. There are 2 houses on the driveway, one at the top of hill where I live and one at the bottom that I've been fixing up for rent. I have an open shed on the driveway that used to house farm equipment(it still does but we aren't farming any more) where I'd throw the occasional brass or copper scrap that I'd get. Been saving it for years. Had painters down at the lower house. They did an ok job but I thought they could have done better so they had to come back and touch up some spots. I was out of town working when they came back but my wife was home. One of the painters came up to see if what they did fixed the problem. apparently he knocked on the door but my wife didn't hear him. On the way back down to the job site he must have spied the copper scrap and started throwing it out of the shed( I didn't know this at the time). My dog heard it and started going nuts. My wife looks out the door and sees nothing, goes out on the deck where you can see the shed and hears pipe or whatever clanging. She finally yells out, "hey what are you doing", the painter comes out and says"just looking at the tractor" and then says"do you own this". My wife says "we own it all". He says"I was just checking to see if what we did was ok" My wife calls me and I say tell him his boss knows what has to be done and if he is satisfied get the heck out. I call the GC on the job and tell him to get over and find out whats going on. Thankfully he comes right over(within minutes) and tells the 2 painters to get out( he looks in the vehicle, doesn't see anything). I still have one more day out of town. I get home the next day and see the copper out in the grass and freak out. I called the sheriff, who listened to my story and I doubt was going to come over until I mentioned the painters name, before I even had his name out of my mouth he said "I'll be right over". I showed him where the copper was and where the painter had thrown it. He said there is nothing I can do as he didn't get away with it, there are no walls or anything on my shed so it wasn't breaking and entering. he said he'd talk to him but the kid will deny it. When the painters left the would be thief wasn't driving, he was a passenger so that means the other person(a girl) was in on it also. The painters boss still hasn't called me. The GC sent my wife flowers:) at least he has a clue. Actually the GC did great work, too bad his sub had to leave a sour taste in my mouth.
I took all my scrap to the junkyard yesterday:) 513 bucks
