Thefts of Roofing Materials on the Rise?
The Houston Chronicle reports that a neighbor jumped in to thwart a couple of criminals attempting to steal thousands of dollars worth of roofing materials from a southwest Houston home in early January, indicating that the economy has spurred theft of not just electronics and copper wiring materials, but also roof shingles and more.
Houston police report that the neighbor, an unidentified man, spotted two men taking shingles off the roof of a house on Belle Park at Corona around 11:30 p.m., which was empty at the time and undergoing renovations. The neighbor called the homeowner , Raul Rivera, who arrived quickly with his hand gun.
The two suspects, police say, quickly jumped off the roof when confronted by the homeowner and fled, one on foot the other in a minivan parked. "Rivera told police "he fired several shots at the minivan in an effort to flatten the tires and tailed the vehicle in his own car," according to the news report.
The suspect, who was struck once in the hip, eventually pulled over on S. Kirkwood at Beechnut and begged the homeowner not to shoot him anymore. Rivera stated he only wanted his merchandise back. Police arrived and took over the scene. The wounded suspect was taken to Southwest Memorial Hermann Hospital in stable condition.
The 48 packs of shingles, worth thousands of dollars, were returned to Rivera. He'd hoped to complete roof repairs this month in an effort to prepare the home for sale.
This is not the only incident of thievery of building supplies and other materials from empty homes. In the wake of the nation's wide-spread foreclosure crisis, more and more homes are left "abandoned" while courts decide the fate of the properties. Often, homeowners have walked away from their homes, leaving them empty and open to thieves of all kinds who know the value of copper wiring, plumbing and electrical fixtures, and now, even roof shingles left on the premises by owners in midst of doing roofing repairs and other projects.
According to a December article in Builder magazine, the FBI is now involved in working to stem the tide of home material thefts, particularly zeroing in on the problem of copper wiring and building materials theft. The agency says these thefts are "endangering both public infrastructure and private property as criminals strip copper wire from electrical wiring at power stations, construction sites, foreclosed homes, water irrigation pipes, tornado sirens, and more. Individually, these isolated crimes cause big enough headaches of their own," the FBI said in a written statement. Taken together, however, they present a fairly significant problem for our country—a threat to public safety and to U.S. critical infrastructure."
Builder sites prices paid by scrap metal yards as the key factor and a market ready to buy. "Wholesale prices for copper hit $8,900 per metric ton this summer, according to John Mothersole, principal with IHS Global Insight's pricing and purchasing service. "When prices reach those levels, scrap yards become more aggressive in their collections," he says, and less concerned about the, ahem, provenance of such metals." That goes for metal roofing materials, widely used in the South, Southwest and other parts of the country.
According to Builder, the FBI doesn't have an exact estimate of how much copper theft costs the country, but the U.S. consumes approximately 2 million metric tons of copper annually. In addition, Builder says nearly half of copper consumption goes for residential and commercial construction. The next biggest copper user is electrical power and equipment, which is responsible for 28% of copper consumption.
So, what do the experts recommend? Simple things, like storing your building materials for roof repairs in a lockable shed or garage when in between work. If you own a home you don't live in but are working on, consider hiring a private security firm to patrol the home regularly and a weekly maintenance crew to keep the yard cut, watered, and fresh, so that the home does not look vacant. Take down "foreclosure," "bank-owned" and "for sale" signs if you are not able to visit the property on a regular basis. These signs attract attention, especially if the yard and the structure themselves are in need of repairs or general TLC.
If you are a Realtor® who buys banked-owned properties, it's your job and responsibility to you services/clients to pay for a responsible maintenance team and to install sufficient security systems. After all, you want to get top dollar for your clients, and if the properties roof repairs or other issues are not kept up with, you can almost guarantee thieves will take notice and in not time break in and steal whatever is there for the taking.
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