Thieves take fencing and metal shed from South Bend neighborhood homes
Posted: Feb 11, 2012 2:12 AM EDT | Updated: Nov 5, 2014 6:30 PM EDT
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- One street in a South Bend neighborhood is being targeted by metal scrapers.
Just two days ago, two different houses that are only four blocks from each other
had their aluminum fences ripped right from their yards. Besides the fencing, The thieves were also brazen enough to steal an entire aluminum shed.
Two houses along East Donald Street were targeted by scrap metal thieves. The homes, which are just four blocks from one another, had their metal fencing ripped from their backyards. One homeowner even reported his entire metal shed was taken during the thefts, and neighbors say metal thefts are on the rise.
"In the last six or seven months it has gotten worse. The economy went down and everybody is just trying to get what they can get," says Ben Vanvynckt.
Vanvynckt lives just a couple houses down from where one of the thefts happened and he says the vacant house right next door to him has also been a tragedy of these crimes.
Vanvynckt says he saw someone go in and strip the house of all its copper and aluminum siding, but the thieves were gone before police arrived. "A truck, trailer, flashlights, a lot of banging. you know something is going on and something is coming up missing".
Scraping metal can be profitable. Aaluminum is going for a little over a dollar per pound, so scraping big items like the metal shed that was stolen can easily be cashed in for couple hundred dollars.