Yesterday I went to a house that was supposed to be vacant. The front door was wide open. What the hell, it's open right? In I go. When I do this I yell at the top of my lungs "appraiser coming in". This is just so anyone in the house doesn't think I am the cops and come at me with anything trying to get out.
I hear a bunch of noise in the basement and some guy comes charging up the stairs. On my way back out of the house I am yelling "appraiser, appraiser, appraiser". The guys stops, invites me back in.
I go down into the basement to look at the mechanicals and this guy and his buddy are ripping the copper out of the house. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME !!
Not sure, but unless they owned the place, there was some illegal activity going on.
We called the owner, called the police and got out of the house.
On the way back to the car, my partner says "They were pretty nice for a couple of crackheads."
We both decided that we had been doing this too long if his comment was about all we could come up with.
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Richard F. Kruse is the President of Columbus, Ohio based Gryphon USA, Ltd. (www.gryphonusa.com). The Gryphon Organization includes Gryphon Asset Management providing receivership and consulting services in the distressed marketplace, United Country Gryphon Realty & Auction Group (www.ucohiorealty.com & www.ucohioauctions.com) providing real estate brokerage and auction services throughout Ohio and OnlineAuctionUSA.com (www.onlineauctionusa.com) providing commercial asset liquidations from the Midwest to East Coast.
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I would suggest that they were a couple of "enterprising crackheads" who watch Bloomberg TV. The price of copper has doubled in the past year and Goldman Sachs think it has another 10% rise in it.
Linda - That is so funny. Get 'em done before 11am around me and you are ok. Me, I do them all day long. I would not send my wife or a young agent out to certain areas during certain parts of the day though.
The unfortunate truth is that what is happening in these areas is sad.
I saw one of the most trashed properties of my career the other day. It had elementary school papers scattered about. Most of them said "A". I fell bad for that child.
Don't tell anyone I have a heart. It would cost too much.
Scrap copper is at an all time high right now. My husband works in environmental construction & demo. His company is having a hard time controlling their employees as far as stealing scrap copper from the job site.
His company typically takes in $50 - $70k a month in scrap copper! Copper is my friend!
Great story, although it is sad to see what people are willing to stoop to. There was a story not to long ago about someone who got mugged for a load of copper, and by load I only mean an amount that he was carrying down the street. I can't remember where it was, I think it was in one of the Google updates that I get emailed weekly on events related to certain keywords. They sometimes come up with sites and stories that are less than relevant to what I was looking for. But I digress, thanks for sharing.