"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...
snip
We found a stolen Rug Doctor machine, and as we initially drove down
the lane to the farmhouse we spotted a truck parked at the gate. Blew
the horn and a guy walked out from the house area. Said he had been
hired to demolish an old barn, but was thinking he might not be in the
right place. We told him he wasn't. As he was towing a trailer, he
asked if he could pull into the turn around between the house and the
barn to head back out to the street. We said sure. When I went into
the house I heard somebody upstairs, turned out it was a buddy of the
guy driving the truck. The guy upstairs didn't see me and thought I
was his buddy as I walked in. He hollered something about "wire up
here".
I called to him to get downstairs, and when he came down he couldn't
give me any decent explanation what he was doing in the house. I told
him to "clear the hell out of here, now!"

He walked out to the turn around to meet the guy with the pickup truck
and trailer. As they were turning around, I made a point to be very
obvious about writing down the license number of the truck. I told the
driver he had better hope nothing happened to my FIL's farmhouse,
because if something did his license number was going straight to the
police. I'm pretty sure they were ready to start ripping into the
walls for copper wire and pipe, they'd probably get enough to support
a meth habit for 2-3 days.
snip...


Your father-in-law was darn lucky you showed up when you did.
Theft of copper wire & pipe is a big deal locally.
One idiot stole the few few of small diameter pipe leading from an outside
200 gallon furnace oil tank spilling contents all over the ground.
Another fried himself trying to steal wire at a power substation.
Local power company now has a special spray-on paint that includes minuature
dots or numbers that can be traced at the scrap yards.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia...per-theft.html