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High-Voltage Fences For Zapping Would-Be Copper Thieves

Posted by Soulskill on from the Cu-on-the-other-side dept.

coondoggie writes "It may be a gimmick or the ultimate answer, but a California city this week okay-ed a draft ordinance that would let businesses install 7,000-volt electric fences to protect sites from rampant copper thieves. As reported by the Sacramento CBS station, the reaction from one business owner to the ordinance says it all: 'It'll be a little fun to watch one of these guys get electrocuted holding my fence trying to rob me.'"

12 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Yikes... by SIGBUS · · Score: 5, Funny

    Coming soon: "Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence" championship edition.

    --
    Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
    1. Re:Yikes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      They tested pissing on an electric subway rail and that failed. They then tried the electric fence and it did work. Perhaps you should have watch the WHOLE episode before commenting here.

    2. Re:Yikes... by aevan · · Score: 5, Informative

      The busted the third rail, but found electric fence plausible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2004_season)#Peeing_on_the_Third_Rail

  2. If they want to stop the copper thieves... by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Start making the recyclers who pay cash for copper keep records and start prosecuting them for receiving stolen goods.

    1. Re:If they want to stop the copper thieves... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That is the law in my state. Businesses not following it was rampant. But then, the state police started doing stings where they do things like bring multiple faucets or huge amounts of piping and the like. All it takes is one bust and you lose your recycling license for the business and the employee who doesn't report the suspicious transaction can be charged as well, which means they can be unhireable in that business and many others with the felony conviction. Lets just say that that cut into the problem quite a bit in the major cities.

    2. Re:If they want to stop the copper thieves... by Improv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am so glad that systems need to be perfect and costs need to be 0 before we're willing to accept them.

      --
      For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    3. Re:If they want to stop the copper thieves... by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When was the last time illiterate citizens legally obtained large amounts of copper they want to swap for untraceable cash?

      When was the last time someone not recorded in government registries was in the USA? hint: drivers license, social security number, birth certificate, travel/work visa... I can only think of illegal immigrants.

      Last time I dumped a bunch of copper pipe at a local scrap metal place I had to produce photo ID and fill out a form. I don't live in USA though.

    4. Re:If they want to stop the copper thieves... by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Tough shit, they had their chance for the zero regulation solution but their greed and willful ignorance is putting and end to that.

      It was just easy money for them -- the toothless loser driving the '98 Grand Am turning in a few hundred feet of brand-new 00 wire was perfectly willing to accept 30% below melt value for the wire and the owner was happy to resell it as new to the "ask no questions" contractor at a 15% discount below new retail.

      If you want it no regulation, that's fine, but let's make the punishments if you get caught:

      1) Accepting stolen merchandise -- clerk goes to jail
      2) Business is fined 3x the metal value and the metal or its on-site equivilent is confiscated
      3) Three violations in a 12 month period and you lose your recycling license for six months
      4) Two loss of license violations? Company, its owners and officers are barred from engaging in commercial metal recycling for 10 years.

    5. Re:If they want to stop the copper thieves... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, if a police get a report of a house that had a crapton of copper tubing ripped out of the walls and floors, and then discover a crapload of copper tubing just happened to be sold to a scrap dealer shortly thereafter... it's not exactly a convoluted path to draw a line between the two. And given how much damage and work you'd need to do to rip tubing out of walls and floors, they can probably find some kind of evidence directly linking to the two. Hell, multiple identically-angled cuts from the identical grade copper scrap and what's left in the house is probably a good start, never mind any DNA evidence the thief left at the scene (hair, blood if he cut himself, skin, etc).

      Honestly, it would be trivially easy to link a thief with stolen scrap metal, provided the scrap dealer actually keeps fucking records like he's legally supposed to as is.

      And I happen to work in an industry where I know exactly what type of paperwork the scrap dealer needs, and for how long he legally needs to keep it (note: it's a bit longer than a few days. Try years.)

      Shut down or heavily fine a few scrap yards for buying illegal scrap without keeping proper documentation, and the rest will require valid photo ID to sell to them and have video surveillance of the sale counter before the end of the day.

  3. A lot of fun by plover · · Score: 5, Funny

    It'll be a lot of fun to see the guy's face when they steal his electric fence wire.

    --
    John
  4. I have one by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Funny

    A neighbor girl had fun teaching my dogs to jump my fence. She was climbing back and forth into my yard all the time and goading the dogs to follow her. They of course learned. So I went to the local farm implement store and was looking at invisible fences... they were expensive... then I saw the regular farm electric fence transformer was only $15! SOLD! A roll of aluminum wire was $5 for 1/4 mile and the insulators was another $2. So for $22 and about 2hrs work I had an electric fence.

    Well my neighbors were "outraged" The little girl that had been jumping the fence was now in "mortal danger" according to her mom. I told her "well maybe you should keep her off my fence then" The fact of the matter is, I got zapped by far worse fences than what I put up when I was a kid... and while it smarts, it doesn't do any real damage to you. Apparently there's a city ordinance against electric fences in town, they pointed this out to me... I pointed out that I really didn't care and I was already breaking at least a dozen others. They called the cops... cops never came. Apparently had more important things to do.

    Then, about 8 months later, the best thing ever happened (well for me anyway.) The neighbors got their house broken into. I guess it wasn't great for them. But the cops showed up, investigated, and told them there were tracks in the mud leading up to MY fence... then for some odd reason the moved over to their house, jumped the fence and kicked in the back door. The husband told me about this... wanted his own electric fence now. He said "When you stop laughing can you go with me to the store?"

    Long story short... electric fences rock. 2 of my neighbors have them to.

  5. the sales aspect is easily solved by denbesten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Having worked in the recycling industry for years, solving the "sales" side of this is easy.

    A posted and implemented policy of paying by check if the payout is greater than $20 makes most of these problems go away.

    This works because large volumes comes in trucks and legitimate businesses generally prefer to receive a check (prevents employee skimming).

    After that, invest in a few video cameras, particularly one trained at the parking lot exit (to pick up rear license plates). Attach these to a motion-detecting video recorder and make sure you know how to burn DVDs. The few times we have had to involve law enforcement, they were pretty happy with a plate number and footage including a face and "the goods".

    So far, we have never had the check cashed, but if we did, the cops would then have a tie to the criminal's financial institution and we would join their case with a counter-suit to get our money back.

    Keep in mind that we really do not want to make an illegal buck, but at the same time, we also want to earn the legal bucks as efficiently as possible.