Tree thieves are out to steal your trees!

Watch out people, Tree thieves will try to steal your trees from your back yard.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/30/stealing.trees.ap/index.html

does anyone have large trees on your property? You should spray paint your tree with your name.

"...spray paint your tree with your name..."

Or maybe carve your initials, a heart, and your honey's in the thing.

Having spent six hours today digging out the stump of a tree I cut down yesterday, I don't really want to talk about logging right now anyway...

I have 10 acres of oak and cedar that I want cleared. Someone tell those guys to come log for me.

It's old new. I prefer my method, marking bark doesn't do diddly squat.

I've marched a logger who was unsure of the boundary off my parent's land, and a third party had to get his equipment. And a neighbor who thought he could play games had to pay us for his employee's damage.

When they get there, save a good oak 2x6, about six feet long, for me. I will pay the shipping...

Trees. That's a new one on me.

Landscaping plant on the other hand are frequently lifted. I was finishing up a new home some time ago and rolled up one morning and noticed that most of the landscaping that had been installed the prior day were gone. Nothing but holes and a new set of tire tracks.

The builder called the cops who asked around and took pictures of the carnage. A neighbor said that at around 3AM he heard a heavy vehicle. He looked out and saw a pick-up truck driving through the grass around the house being built. As the truck drove around a couple of guys on the ground were pulling up the plants and tossing them into the back of the truck. Inside of a minute they had completed the circuit around the house and everyone jumped in and the truck took off at a high rate of speed.

Landscaping plants go for around $20 a pop for even mid-sized ones. Small trees go for much more. Three guys working all of three minutes could score better than $1000 retail and turn around and sell them on the hot landscaping market of the time for half that. Netting the crew a quick $500.

For a time, when the economy was tight, wood dealers were paying top dollar for hickory. A crew would show up in the middle of the night. Chainsaw the hickory down, landing it in the back of a flatbed with the help of the hydraulic arm, and be gone before the homeowners were awake enough to react. A good sized hickory could net a rogue crew a quick $25,000.

When aluminum was high people would keep track of who had aluminum installed. Quite a few families came home from a vacation to find their house missing its aluminum cladding.

Things get tight, or people start jonesing for their drug of choice, and people start looking for angles and opportunities.

ROFL

And now copper wiring is the hot item...

Yep. One of my buddies had some vacant rental property severely damaged by knuckleheads stealing copper.

I don't know about all this painting on trees...isn't there enough paint and graffitti on our walls? It's so....tacky..

I would think a simple name tag, smallish in nature, maybe suspended somewhat inconspicuously from a small limb or something, suspended with something environmentally friendly like....a small strand of hemp twine, would probably do the trick.

When I lived in Washington state, people were stealing evergreens from the highway median and rest areas for x-mas trees. The highway department sprayed them with a mixture that included, among other things, coyote urine. Apparently it is undetectable when cold, but when the thieves got their tree home and set up in a warm house, the mix spread a stench throughout the house. Supposed to be hard to get rid of even after tossing the tree.

I thought that was an appropriate punishment.

SNIP, what name tag???

Don't need a name tag, just use the enviroterrorist's favorite: spike the tree.

Of course, if YOU need to ever cut it down...heh heh heh.

Some threads you just have to have some fun with...............................

Here in WA, the copper theives are stealing the copper wire from the big city and county light standards, and ripping off about $20,000 of the stuff at a time.

They're selling it, which means some metal buyers are buying stolen property and they know it. If anyone is looking, they should be checking out the buyers.

You don't really need to spike the trees... just put out signs saying you did.

The people who should spike their trees are the ones who have nice, big old trees that are blocking the view of the new neighbors. I wouldn't mind if some of those people got their own throats cut while cutting down other people's trees to improve their view, from the house they built on the lot they chose.

Sue