Thieves lifting manhole covers
 

Thieves lifting manhole covers
Lids attract street crime as prices for scrap metal soar, economy sags

By Stefanie Frith
USA TODAY

Cities and counties are battling manhole-cover thefts, a crime spree that police tie to the weak economy.

Hundreds of 200-pound covers have disappeared in three months in California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Georgia as scrap metal prices pop up.

"It's a sign of the times," says Sgt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office in Georgia, where 28 manhole covers disappeared in April and May. "When the economy gets bad, people start stealing iron."

It's the first year he has seen such thefts since he started with the department 16 years ago.

The price of heavy melt steel, the medium grade used for manhole covers, has increased from $329 per metric ton in January to $519, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, D.C. A thief can get $10 to $15 for a manhole cover, says Ryan Alsop, spokesman for the Long Beach Water Department.

Long Beach has lost more than 80 covers this year. People who have damaged their cars driving over manholes have filed claims with the city, Alsop says.

"Our No. 1 concern" is safety, he says. "A small kid can fall into these holes," which can be 20 feet deep.

It costs Long Beach $500 to buy and install a manhole cover, Alsop says. In Georgia, which has lower labor costs, the price tag is $200, Baker says.

$10 to $15 haha

going through all that trouble to lift a 200lb lid

they must be in amazing shape.lol

Meth makes you Superman!!

We don't have manholes or manhole covers in my 'hood ;)

hahah thats a good laugh for the day

then they smoke it up and need to lift another lid 20 minutes later in between gas siphoning safaris ...:helpme :1orglaugh

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

The scrap dealers should be charged for accepting that stuff and lose their business licenses.It's a epidemic here too.They even resorted to stealing a statue that we've had standing for almost for 30 years

I just read an article a couple days ago where someone was cutting sections of railway track to steal :1orglaugh

A business license means nothing anyways and often is not needed if your outside of city limits. They should more likely get fined at a crazy rate for accepting obvious items. Not like the thieves can make a manhole cover look different first.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Imagine hitting that hole with your car!

They should try coming to Paris.
People have been going into the metro tunnels, and stripping 5 of the 6 HV lines out. Leaving one line means that the trains can still run, but the next one that passes will melt out the remainder.

They can get 1 cubic meter of copper per tunnel section.. big dollars.

Crazy bastards are doing it in the live tunnes though..

:Oh crap

most places as long as its general scrap (not aluminum, copper,stainless) you just go back and dump it the dealer doesnt see what you bring.

Is that saying the labor costs for installing a manhole cover is $300 in Long Beach? ($500-$200)

Fuck! What a business opportunity.

Buy the stolen manhole covers from the crooks for $10-15. Charge Long Beach $315 to re-install them. The city saves $185 and you pocket $300 profit.

The manhole covers are back in place. The crooks steal them again. You buy and re-install over and over again for recurring income.

or the ones stealing them now are the ones who sell them for $500 with installation (total profit $500)

This has been happening in Central and South America for years...

Just last week in Costa Rica - someone stole over 1km of fiber optic cable in the middle of the night - estimated cost to replace was something like $25K.

Here they love to steal the guard rails on the bridges and other obtainable metals :disgust

Why would the city pay someone $500 when someone else would do it for $315?

(Unless, of course, the higher bidder was a relative or campaign contributor.)

You gotta be fucking kidding.. How fucked up can people get.

Cities should just do a few spot welds on the covers. That's what they do during Indy Car and F1 street races.

wow ripping live stuff is nuts :1orglaugh

Police should just pay a crackhead to go sell some scrap stuff to the dealers, then go arrest the dealers right after the sale for buying city property

Makes it tough to get inside.

just look for a bunch of really buff people and you'll know who's doing it. lol

Im always amazed where it begins, do these guys call there friends/cousins in other states and give them there latest brain wave ideas, lol

here's a manhole:

http://www.winternet.com/~redright/g...ts/manhole.jpg

lol they do it over here in the UK and they steal lead flashing from the church roofs and even leaded church windows have been stolen

Na just a simple grinder will pop off the spot welds, doesn't have to be a big weld bead just a few small spots.. They just need a power source, to power the grinder to grind them off. Then again battery power has come a long way so maybe they could use a cordless grinder.

Priests are too busy with the alter boys, they dont give a fuck, well not about the roof or windows that is.

steal 200 pounds of steal and get 10 bucks.... i wonder what a whole train car is worth?

Quieter than ripping the siding or gutters off of someones house...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:(:Oh crap

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I used to have to open manholes regularly. I can assure you this is a team effort. If not, let him be, it isn't worth it.

well the people buying these things should start being held responsible...because if they quit paying ppl money for these things, then ppl wont be stealing them anymore...geez! i would seriously freak out on someone if i drove over one of those things and fucked up my car!!!

It's scary as shit, and can cause accidents by A> hitting them B> avoiding them.. I've driven a bit in Mexico City, and sometimes they're missing there, or there's just a hole that might as well be a sewer... heh.. Right on the fuckin highway too! It's not nice to have to worry about stuff like that when you're drivin :/ As if driving in Mexico City isn't fucked up enough...

They read about it on forums and see it in the news.

:1orglaugh I will be honest, I don't remember looking at the manholes when I was in FL. However, speaking for So Cal, you sure make it sound easy.

#1. If the spot welds are too easy to get off, what will stop the thieves? If all they need is a cordless Black and Decker they will just steal one of those. So,

#2. The welds pretty much have to be a PITA to remove, which means a power source required (they can run it off the car battery), but it will be time consuming.

#3. Union workers charge a lot and take breaks.

Sometimes they may need to get in there quickly.

Here is another problem. Lots of times the phone company will have manholes that are accessed five day a week. Do they spot weld those at the end of every day?

Imagine on a motorcycle.

In Thailand they actually cut LIVE WIRES down so they can steal the cable.

They also steal the bolts off of light poles, the same bolts that hold them to the ground. They will steal all but 1, just enough to hold it up until a strong wind comes and blows it over.

A friend of mine in Queens works for the phone company and does it also. Maybe the manholes are lighter on this coast, but he doesn't have too much of a problem.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh by the power of METH

How doesn NO ONE notice someone walking away with a manhole cover? Even if they do it late at night the way the world is today streets are very rarely totally empty

It is no problem taking it off the manhole with the proper tool, but to just lift it up and put it in the back of a truck would take a pretty strong dude.