Detroit scrappers trash 71-year-old aunt's home

[ilwrath]

Man, I still say Detroit has to be the most fucked city in the US. Having always lived here, it seems normal to me... But then I stop and think about it. I'm pretty sure most other cities don't have bands of scrappers tearing up every structure that is unoccupied for more than a couple days, right?

Scrapping is rampant in the city. Abandoned houses and foreclosed homes are routinely invaded and destroyed by thieves, who steal anything that can be traded for a little money. But it takes real brazenness to scrap a house that someone still lives in.

The sad tale is at Metro Times.

 

[robert l. bentham]

well ... that's pretty disheartening... it goes on here too... a feller one mile from my dads farm had a triple axle trailer stolen from his farm when he and his wife went to kc to visit family... it was found days later... chopped up for scrap... scrappers gutted an old dairy barn at the walker farm... cut all of the milk stations out because they were stainless steel ... most of the heating/ac and plumbing and electrical contractors in hays put fences up to securely park their trucks overnight... dad has decided to install cameras at the farm so he can watch the place from his phone... i don't expect this will get any better anytime soon...

 

[metalman]

Contemporary barbarians stripping away the veneer of civilization

even if the criminals were apprehended, the costs of arrest, trial, and incarceration are too steep for a bankrupt city

The scores of police patrol cars spend their time watching for the middle class — looking for the minor, income-producing infractions of the generally law-abiding —where as investigating the petty, but frequent minor thefts are a lose–lose proposition.

Plan on it getting worse, its not like there is any fear of arrest and incarceration.