Baltimore County police say they have stepped up enforcement efforts after a recent wave of thefts has frustrated residents and businesses in Catonsville and Arbutus.
In addition to copper wiring and pipes being stolen from businesses, common metal objects such as aluminum ladders are also disappearing from residential backyards.
Police say high metal prices are contributing to the recent crime trend.
"It's a relatively easy way to make some money," said Lt. John Rossbach, investigations commander at the Wilkens Police Station, which cover the area.
Rossbach said the crimes often occur when residents and businesses leave bicycles or spools of copper wire lying around, unsecured.
"It's a crime of opportunity," he said and advised residents to lock up their property.
From May 24 to June 24, Rossbach said there were about 21 incidents where objects such as portable air-conditioning units, bicycles, power tools, ladders, golf clubs, leaf blowers and gas cans were stolen from area sheds, garages and yards.
Of those incidents, four occurred in Catonsville, six in Arbutus, four in Lansdowne, six in Baltimore Highlands and one along the Wilkens Avenue corridor, he said.
"The amount of them that are occurring have put them on our radar, so to speak, and we are investigating them more vigorously now as opposed to what we've done in the past," Rossbach said.
In March, when Rossbach wrote a memo to Capt. John Spiroff, commander of the Wilkens Station, advising him of scrap metal burglaries in the area, with objects such as air-conditioning units, heat pumps and copper tubing and wire being stolen.
Arbutus resident Eric O'Connell knows about the frustrations of metal stealing firsthand.
As co-owner and vice president of East Coast Catalytic Converters, a family-owned chain of metal recycling shops in the Baltimore area, O'Connell frequently works with law enforcement to identify people who bring in stolen merchandise.
In the past two years, O'Connell said his company has helped in the arrest of about 40 offenders.
Taking what's handy
"What's frustrating are the people," he said on June 24 at his shop at 812 Patapsco Ave. in Baltimore City. "It disgusts you some of the things that these people will bring in."
One man showed up with a tote full of 30 funerary urns stolen from a graveyard.
There was also a small stand meant for lowering a baby's coffin into the ground.
O'Connell said he watched a man steal telephone wiring off an adjoining business then immediately walk over to try to sell it to him.
"It's satisfying, though, when you do get to see the people arrested," he said. "When you're like, yes! This guy will never come back here again with a stolen item."
When he does think an item has been stolen, O'Connell said he will take the would-be seller's identification and the merchandise as he would during a normal transaction then call the police while the person waits.
He said he often buys the stolen goods, holding them for police, or flagging suspicious items in a database belonging to the Baltimore Scrap Pawn Unit that tracks those who sell metal to the scrap yard.
Through a Web site called scraptheftalert.org, O'Connell said he tracks alerts about potential offenders daily and notifies employees to keep an eye out for certain individuals.
Employees are often given time off to go to court and testify against offenders, O'Connell said.
On July 23, O'Connell called police after a customer brought in 18 brand new catalytic converters with stickers on them that showed they belonged to a nearby automotive shop.
The next day, he called police again after someone brought in copper pipes stolen from a nearby business.
"It's a daily occurrence," he said. "It's just non-stop. It's over and over again, which is why it is so hard for the police to keep up with it."
Though he has developed an eye for identifying suspicious merchandise, O'Connell said he knows some stolen goods still make their way into the recycling shop.
"It's almost impossible to catch everything," he said.
With metal prices going up, O'Connell said he tends to see more and more offenders.
Whereas copper sold for $3.60 per pound six months ago, it now costs about $4.10, he said.
In the past three months, aluminum has jumped about 30 cents per pound, he said.
Catonsville resident Jim Himel, among a small group of property owners working to rehabilitate a historic building at 701 Frederick Road, recently replaced all the building's pipes with plastic after some of its copper ones were cut from the basement.
The property owners have been redoing the facade of the building, which will soon house the watch and jewelry company, The House of Time.
Though plastic pipes are cheaper and hold up better when faced with conditions like acid rain, Himel said the main reason for not replacing copper with copper was the threat of another theft in the future.
"They probably got less than $20 for pipe that they took out of here, but of course, to us, it's hundreds of dollars in terms of the cost of repairing the pipe," Himel said.
"It's certainly not in the same vein as somebody breaking into your house and stealing family heirlooms that you can't replace," Himel said.
But it is annoying, he said.
"It is one of the risks and one of the costs that goes with having a building that's under restoration and not necessarily as secure as the finished building," he said.