Stolen Wood

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.
Anybody remember that destructive lady named Sandy from 2012? She stole 2-2 1/2 cords and dropped them all across the neighborhood. I was able to find less than half a cord. Really set me back, that was this winters wood.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Soundchasm
Nice. It's good to have good neighbors. I need to take some cookies to my neighbors hoping that this will keep them from stealing my firewood. :)
Good neighbors are great... there's an older lady next door to me who's always on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.
 
Oddly no one around me burns wood. I have thought about my oak stacks which are within sight of the road. I have comtemplated moving them, not so much out of fear of theft as much as people just knowing my business.
We had problems with our summer home when I was a kid. The woodstacks disappeared during the winters.
The theives turned out to be the previous landowner's offspring. The landed gentry who sold off all his lakefront property to the "summer people" His kids confessed to me they stole wood,broke into camps and had parties. The cops thought the wood thieves were snowmobilers from across the lake in Vermont.
My father just ended up stacking wood inside the detached garage.
 
People suck any more. 2 things I can't tolerate are thieves and liars

I concur. Those two things seem to come very easy to a lot of folks these days.
 
I noticed some wood moved around and out of place in the huge pile of splits in my driveway so I checked my security cams to see what happened. On the video it showed a guy that lives in the foreclosed house down the way making many trips away with a wheelbarrow full of wood!

So a couple days after I saw this I saw him while I was out walking the dog and told him "I don't mind you taking wood to stay warm but I'd rather you earn it by helping me stack it in my backyard wood stacks." His response was "I didn't take any of your wood, are you accusing me of stealing your wood?" I asked him if he wanted to watch the video and he told me to f-off. Haha loser.
 
Not yet, I currently have a friendly retired neighbor who sits in his window all day and night. Nothing escapes his gaze and my woodshed is directly in his line of site.
I actually think he counts the splits every time I retrieve some.

Also the man who lives behind me is the "crazy loner" of the town and no one dares disturb him.
He is a nice enough guy but I sometimes build up his evil reputation to keep people away from my property. We don't even get trick or treaters.


HehHeh . . . almost sounds like my neighbors.

Neighbor across the way is a retired school teacher who sees everything. When we leave we tell her and ask her to just keep an eye out for things . . . as if we really need to ask. She is nice enough . . . in fact she was the one who told me who took the dead elm that the town cut down on my property (technically it was in their right of way) -- I was keeping the wood, but the town for some reason thought I did not want it and told another guy he could pick it up (long story short, I shared the wood with him as he is a decent enough guy and did not outright steal the wood.)

We also had another neighbor to our side who was notorious in the neighborhood. A real SOB . . . but for some reason my wife got along fine with him. He died several years ago though.

My other neighbors up the road are great -- one I have invited over for Thanksgiving dinner in the past (he lives alone and his children live down state), the other is an all around good guy and the third one is my Amish neighbor who has come by in the past to pick apples to make cider.
 
  • Like
Reactions: chazcarr
Thats why I'm happy I don't have any neighbors and I live back a long driveway on a back road. Nobody can see my business
 
I live out in BFI. Or BF Illinois. No neighborhood. And my neighbors are comfortably far enough away it's too far to walk. But...I shoot guns. A lot. Morning. Day. Night. I shoot when birds wake me up or when my heeler won't stop barking. I fire shots when I see people/kids driving through the bottoms around here. Lots of pew pew pew! Im pretty sure I've gained the proud reputation of the coot and I'm only 31. I doubt anyone will steal my wood.

As yoy can see. No one around me.
 

Attachments

  • [Hearth.com] Stolen Wood
    Screenshot_2014-01-07-15-20-57_1.webp
    72.2 KB · Views: 327
Last winter we gave some wood away to a friend who lives in a village. He had a lot of wood stolen as he had it stacked right along an alley. He has since moved his wood piles. lol
 
I live out in BFI. Or BF Illinois. No neighborhood. And my neighbors are comfortably far enough away it's too far to walk. But...I shoot guns. A lot. Morning. Day. Night. I shoot when birds wake me up or when my heeler won't stop barking. I fire shots when I see people/kids driving through the bottoms around here. Lots of pew pew pew! Im pretty sure I've gained the proud reputation of the coot and I'm only 31. I doubt anyone will steal my wood.

As yoy can see. No one around me.
'Merica !!
 
guy that lives in the foreclosed house... His response was "I didn't take any of your wood, are you accusing me of stealing your wood?" I asked him if he wanted to watch the video and he told me to f-off.
Here I go making assumptions again... but it's amazing this guy can't keep a job.
 
  • Like
Reactions: flhpi and D8Chumley
The guy moved into the house after the house sat empty because the owners that got foreclosed on moved out. I doubt this guy has a job at all! I think the correct term is squatters.
 
I am surrounded by elderly retired people. Single women on either side and a really crotchety man and his wife across the street. They are always watching what I am doing..for better or worse. When I have a project going on, they always seem to walk the dogs back and forth on the street. I tried being friendly when we moved in with mixed results.
 
I heard a story years back about a fellow here in the mountains, drilling a hole in a split, and waxing the hole...
Sounds like a guy who's spending a little too much time in the wood shed.
 
It's quite amazing what a few well placed, realistic, rubber snakes will do to deter a thief! Not kidding!;lol
 
Thats why I'm happy I don't have any neighbors and I live back a long driveway on a back road. Nobody can see my business
Me too, 1800 ft driveway , no neighbors, love it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ralphie Boy
I heard a story years back about a fellow here in the mountains, drilling a hole in a split, adding something that would go bang and waxing the hole, he added the split to his wood pile. Don't remember the rest of the story.

Heard this story here before many a time . . . cannot help but think it may be an urban legend.
 
I hide my wood stacks with large Marijuana plants.

Just kidding...

I do find that a German Shepherd is a great deterrent from unwanted visitors. Heck, even the wanted ones don't want to show up.
 
Natural gas came down our road a few years back and almost everyone has switched over. The biggest concern to my wood piles is no longer my neighbours, but it's when my friends are over for a camp fire, I have a whole pile of uglies, poplar, softwood and random brush ready to go for bonfires but for some reason guests are always drawn to pull wood out of my beautifully raised and covered stacks of oak and maple. *sigh*
 
I traditionally stack my wood at the back of my house where the only access is via a wheelbarrow. Generally thieves are lazy and aren't willing to work. It also helps that my neighbors are a state trooper with two other troopers in the neighborhood, a county sheriff, the daughter of the chief county sheriff plus a few state and federal prison guards to boot.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ralphie Boy
I traditionally stack my wood at the back of my house where the only access is via a wheelbarrow. Generally thieves are lazy and aren't willing to work. It also helps that my neighbors are a state trooper with two other troopers in the neighborhood, a county sheriff, the daughter of the chief county sheriff plus a few state and federal prison guards to boot.

better than a gated community!
 
I noticed some wood moved around and out of place in the huge pile of splits in my driveway so I checked my security cams to see what happened. On the video it showed a guy that lives in the foreclosed house down the way making many trips away with a wheelbarrow full of wood!

So a couple days after I saw this I saw him while I was out walking the dog and told him "I don't mind you taking wood to stay warm but I'd rather you earn it by helping me stack it in my backyard wood stacks." His response was "I didn't take any of your wood, are you accusing me of stealing your wood?" I asked him if he wanted to watch the video and he told me to f-off. Haha loser.

At that point, I would have turned the video over to the police. I don't care if the dude was down on his luck or not. Stealing, and then lying about it, would not have set well with me. It's nice and comfy in a jail cell, and you get 3 meals a day too. Like someone else said, liars and thieves are the worst people in the world IMO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D8Chumley
I said it ==c And fwiw I never stole anything I didn't need


J/K
 
Status
Not open for further replies.