Thieves strip homes as metal prices soar

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Real estate broker Cyle Young got a shock when he drove by a house he bought two days earlier.

The home had been stripped of aluminum siding from the ground to as high as a person could reach.

"A couple days later, they broke back in and stole all the copper in it," Mr. Young said. "I can't tell you how many houses we've bought with no downspouts - gutters gone."

High market prices for copper and aluminum are enticing thieves to steal metal to sell for scrap. Fueled in part by a building boom in China, demand for copper has pushed its price to historic highs, and aluminum prices are the highest they've been in 17 years.

Demand for copper has increased by 4 percent a year since 2002 and is expected to continue at that rate for the next three or four years, according to Robin Adams, managing consultant for CRU Strategies in Seattle. Demand for aluminum grew nearly 10 percent in 2004 and 4.6 percent in 2005 and is expected to increase 4.5 percent this year, he said.

The theft of metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant homes is nothing new. Authorities have long blamed it on drug addicts looking to pay for their next fix. Now police are being inundated with reports of metal thefts.

In Springfield in western Ohio, thieves hit about 70 homes and businesses in five months. In other parts of the country, they carted off air conditioners from an apartment complex, stole downspouts from a church and snipped down cables for a tourist trolley.

In some cases, thieves have masqueraded as construction workers.

"This is just crazy," said Springfield police Detective Geoff Ashworth, who is taking up to two metal theft reports a day. "And there's no one or two, there's no six people that are specifically responsible for this. Everybody's doing it. People know the prices are up."

On the market, pure copper is selling for about $2.10 a pound; aluminum goes for about $1.05. Scrap copper, such as pipe and wire, is fetching between $1.30 and $1.80 a pound, about double what it was a year ago. Medium-grade scrap aluminum, such as siding, sells for 45-65 cents a pound, up 10-12 cents.

Mary Poulton, the head of the department of mining and geologic engineering at the University of Arizona, said the price of copper is likely to remain high.

"Given how long it takes for new production to come on line, we're seeing forecasts that we are looking at a 20- to 30-year high-price cycle," Ms. Poulton said. "And some analysts say $3-a-pound copper is not out of the question."

The theft problem isn't confined to the United States.

Taiwan's state-run power firm says the theft of power lines for their copper wire increased so much in 2005 that the company has replaced the lines with less expensive aluminum.