Overtime and estimates and insurance adjusters and security contracts and security installations and waiting for my water bill from last month so I can complete my loss summary and then get it notarized and submit it to the insurance company. What fun.
Meanwhile, we heard another pipe theft on the scanner today, in a part of town pretty far from where I live. This time they needed to call in the gas company to shut off the gas.
Don't think that this is part of the economic downturn. People aren't stealing pipes because they need money to buy food for their kids. They're stealing pipes so they can buy their next dose of heroin or crack or meth or whatever their drug of choice is. And they'll keep doing it until they overdose or get killed. The sooner, the better.
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Daryl Sznyter
5 years ago
2 comments:
Ouch. (To the part about "the sooner, the better.) Although I realize you feel violated by the break in, and anger is understandable. Knowing you though, I have to wonder if you have a statistic about the reason for the pipe thefts? Not that stealing for food money is OK either. Just wondering if there could be an element of desperation for some folks. I keep hearing things are getting better out in the workforce and I just don't see it. Government programs are tightening their requirements and I know people who were laid off 2+ years ago and have no money in the bank you can't qualify for food stamps. Desperate people do desperate things.
Still, if it had been me, I'd be just as angry.
Here's hoping the alarm system etc. eases your worries.
The information about the thieves being drug addicts and not desperately poor people comes from the police themselves. Pipe thieves actually get caught fairly often, on something of a "catch and release" program. It's the same people, over and over again, but the court system doesn't hit them with any major time - and once they are out, if they see any time at all, they generally go right back to doing what they do.
Now, there are social reasons for this, too: If you're a drug addict, most jobs are closed to you - who wants to hire a junkie? But heroin isn't free; you have to get the money for it somehow.
As for my viciousness towards these people...there's a funny story there involving a photo at this weekend's blog gathering, but I don't have time to tell it right now. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a post.
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