In empty houses, thieves see copper profits

Repossessions help fuel a crime spree

Realtor Kevin Norton checks the damage done by thieves in the basement of a house on Whitfield Street in Dorchester. (Dominic Chavez / Globe Staff)

Kevin Norton arrived at the empty beige house on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester, saw the kicked-in back door, and swore under his breath.

The real estate agent did not have to go inside to know what had happened. Thieves had stripped the house of copper.

In the past year, nearly all of the foreclosed properties he is trying to sell have been hit. Thieves have twisted off and cut out exposed copper pipes in the basement, punched holes in the wall to find the metal, which is usually used for plumbing, and ripped up floors.

Scrap copper, which sold for about 75 cents a pound a decade ago, now sells for more than $3 a pound. Demand from countries with rapidly growing economies, such as China, has pushed up the price.

And foreclosures are at a record pace, leaving empty houses that are vulnerable to plunderers. The combination, Norton said, has resulted in an "epidemic" of thefts.

"I don't even put for-sale signs up anymore. It's not worth it . . . Don't put up anything that makes [the house] look empty," said Norton, who handles foreclosed properties for Daniel J. Flynn & Co. in Quincy. "I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking of leaving copper on the front porch with a sign that says, 'Just take it. Please don't break into the house.' "

In April, Boston police charged two men with burglary after officers found them inside a Dorchester house, saying the two had filled two bags with copper stripped from the heating system.

In some Boston neighborhoods, burglaries are up for the first four months of the year, compared with the same period last year - especially in Dorchester and Mattapan, which have many empty houses. It's in those neighborhoods, real estate agents say, that most copper thefts happen.

Boston has had 35 thefts of copper, mostly from vacant houses, since the beginning of the year, said Superintendent in Chief Robert Dunford.

"It just seems that we're seeing more of it," he said. "What happens is when you go into these houses and cut all the copper and everything, it starts flooding . . . It leads to a series of other problems, besides just the copper being stolen."

The problem extends into the suburbs, too. Diane McCarter, a real estate agent in Franklin, thought she had sold an 18th century farmhouse that was in foreclosure, but the prospective buyers discovered all the plumbing was missing. Repairs cost more than $12,000, she said, and postponed the sale by weeks.

The thefts are also weighing down a struggling real estate market by adding to the number of properties that aren't selling, brokers said.

Real estate agent Marc Charney of Wellesley said he had a buyer lined up for a home on Vine Street in Brockton - until it was recently burglarized. Charney said the thieves got a few hundreds dollars' worth of copper, but he estimated the damage they caused at $15,000.

Cities and towns across the state have developed strategies to deal with the problem.

Boston police are working with departments in neighboring communities to find out where the thefts have taken place, so they can look for patterns. They also want to know where copper is being sold, so they will be more likely to trace the thieves.

In Worcester, the fire and police departments take turns monitoring foreclosed homes. In Lawrence, police have asked the public to alert them to foreclosures so officers know where to patrol.

Lawrence police also work closely with the city's only metal scrap yard, Winfield Alloy, where the manager, Robert Costello, demands photo identification and addresses from customers. He enters the information on his computer and sends it to police so they can track those trying to sell metal.

Costello, who has been buying metal for 40 years, said that if a seller seems suspicious or refuses to hand over identification, he immediately alerts police.

"I don't want to buy stolen property," Costello said. "I've had a lot of people arrested out of here."

It's fairly easy to tell which sellers are not legitimate, he said. Some claim they are selling decades-old copper when the metal is clearly new. Other sellers are less subtle, Costello said.

"When you have someone coming in with a shopping cart that has 200 pounds of copper, I don't think he got it out of the dumpster," he said.

Real estate agents use their own methods to ward off thieves.

Linda Kody, of Kody & Co. in North Andover, said she has removed placards from the windows of foreclosed houses so people don't think they're empty. She also spray paints copper pipes with bright colors and immediately reports thefts. If a thief tries to sell spray-painted metal, the dealer will know the copper was stolen.

Kody learned to deal with thieves in the 1980s, during the last foreclosure crisis.

"Metal theft was a problem then," she said. "But it's a bigger problem now."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.