Why are scrappers allowed to run rampant in Detroit?

**Wheels** · January-03-12, 03:13 PM

Scrappers are a cancer to the city of Detroit, and little if nothing seems to be done about it. In fact they even have radio comercials encouraging them where to bring there bounty. They are destroying public buildings, schools, churchs, factorys, private homes, and any outher vunerable property that has any usefulness to offer. If it continues at the current rate of expantion we will all be vulnerable in our own homes. Why cant some examples be made of the culprits and the enablers that buy there wares?

**Meddle** · January-03-12, 03:17 PM

Lots of previous threads on this along with suggestions to curb it.

**Scottathew** · January-03-12, 04:02 PM

Because the police are too busy not responding to more serious crimes.

**Detroitnerd** · January-03-12, 04:12 PM

What? You gotta problem with the free enterprise system?

Ravine · January-03-12, 04:46 PM

Welcome to the forum, Wheels.
Poke around through the threads a bit. As Meddle stated, the topic you raised has been given a fairly thorough going-over in some past threads.
One could even say that we have just about beaten the scrap out of it.

**Zacha341** · January-03-12, 07:46 PM

The problem is the the scrappers 'DO' LEAVE THE BUILDINGS ABANDONED AND FURTHER UNINHABITABLE! And the 'rapes', 'murders', 'body burnings' and 'dumpings' are convened in them, including the garages as we have with the two women found in one just weeks ago. A little girl found in an abandoned house this summer!!

Abandoned property "breeding vermin and pigeons..." ? YEAH RIGHT!! If 'only'........

Scrappers rarely take a building down. That costs, and well they're in it for the money!

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Wheels... would you rather have abandonment? Vacant buildings where rapes occur?God bless the scrappers...Let them take it all down.My advice to all those absentee land owners in Detroit... live in your property. If not, more power to the scrappers.Regarding public buildings like schools hospitals etc.. either use the buildings or scrap them. An empty building puts no money in your pocket and is only good for breeding vermin and pigeons.Take it all down!Let Detroit revert to pasture and woodlands.

**softailrider** · January-03-12, 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Wheels... would you rather have abandonment? Vacant buildings where rapes occur?God bless the scrappers...Let them take it all down.My advice to all those absentee land owners in Detroit... live in your property. If not, more power to the scrappers.Regarding public buildings like schools hospitals etc.. either use the buildings or scrap them. An empty building puts no money in your pocket and is only good for breeding vermin and pigeons.Take it all down!Let Detroit revert to pasture and woodlands.

Revert to pasture and woodlands? That's throwing in the towel on what was once one of the most beautiful cold weather cites in the country. Actually, at the beginning of Coleman Young's first term it still was.

**Richard** · January-03-12, 08:39 PM

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Wheels... would you rather have abandonment? Vacant buildings where rapes occur?God bless the scrappers...Let them take it all down.My advice to all those absentee land owners in Detroit... live in your property. If not, more power to the scrappers.Regarding public buildings like schools hospitals etc.. either use the buildings or scrap them. An empty building puts no money in your pocket and is only good for breeding vermin and pigeons.Take it all down!Let Detroit revert to pasture and woodlands.

How about a little thing called enforcement ? you do realise that your taxpayer dollars are paying somebodys salary to prevent all of this from happening,not pissed at that aspect hugh

Good thing nobody ever got raped in a cornfield we would starve,not to make light of the act.

There are those that prefer to encourage scrapping , come to Detroit take a piece with you when you leave,pretty sad.

lilpup · January-03-12, 08:48 PM

photograph and fingerprint everyone who sells scrap to a yard and maintain a record of everything they bring in

even the local plasma center maintains a file with photograph on all their donors/sellers

**Richard** · January-03-12, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by lilpup

photograph and fingerprint everyone who sells scrap to a yard and maintain a record of everything they bring in

even the local plasma center maintains a file with photograph on all their donors/sellers

They are trying that in other cities including excluding walk ins for tag tracing ,but with dismal results,enforceing the secured building part seems to curb it somewhat.

**mikeg19** · January-04-12, 05:17 PM

Maybe because Detroit has 5 police officers left and they have to choose between going after scrappers or one of the 50 nightly shootings they have to report to. Nobody can enforce laws against scrappers when there is literally no man power to do so. It's a shame.

**Ray1936** · January-04-12, 05:56 PM

Don't matter. There's nothing left to scrap.

**jt1** · January-04-12, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

Don't matter. There's nothing left to scrap.

Don't worry those 'nothing' people and 'nothing' jobs will continue to pay taxes so you can get your pension while living elsewhere.

I hope an EFM comes in and guts the pensions just so people like you can feel a little bit of the pain from a distance.

**Ray1936** · January-04-12, 07:52 PM

Originally Posted by jt1

Don't worry those 'nothing' people and 'nothing' jobs will continue to pay taxes so you can get your pension while living elsewhere.

I hope an EFM comes in and guts the pensions just so people like you can feel a little bit of the pain from a distance.

Ouch, touchy, are we? Actually, after taxes and healthcare premiums, there ain't a helluva lot left in the pension to feel much pain.

**wolverine** · January-04-12, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Wheels... would you rather have abandonment? Vacant buildings where rapes occur?God bless the scrappers...Let them take it all down.My advice to all those absentee land owners in Detroit... live in your property. If not, more power to the scrappers.Regarding public buildings like schools hospitals etc.. either use the buildings or scrap them. An empty building puts no money in your pocket and is only good for breeding vermin and pigeons.Take it all down!Let Detroit revert to pasture and woodlands.

No, you don't understand. Then again your username is "truthseeker," so here's some truth.....

They go in and rip these abandoned homes to pieces and leave them standing wide open and dangerous.. They change from vacant property to gutted and destroyed. In other words, it goes from a perfectly useful structure, to a target of arson and crime. So when you mention these buildings as a place for vandalism, arson, rape, drugs, etc....they only became more accessible to this activity because of scrappers.

Scrapping is crime that is an assist to even worse crimes.

I don't disagree that there's alot of vacant housing stock that will end up demolished because there's not enough people to fill them. But funds generated from recycling should be reclaimed during demolition should go back to the city, or organizations facilitating neighborhood cleanup or continuing demolition to more hazardous structures. It shouldn't go to thieves.

And God does not bless thieves...

**mikefmich** · January-05-12, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by jt1

Don't worry those 'nothing' people and 'nothing' jobs will continue to pay taxes so you can get your pension while living elsewhere.

I hope an EFM comes in and guts the pensions just so people like you can feel a little bit of the pain from a distance.

Well aren't you just a sweet peach. smh

**jt1** · January-05-12, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

Ouch, touchy, are we? Actually, after taxes and healthcare premiums, there ain't a helluva lot left in the pension to feel much pain.

Well when you make flippant comments about my home, homes and businesses of my friends and family being nothing all while sitting in LV collecting a check from the city then yes, I will be a little touchy.

Make jokes all you want about nothing being left but there are still a large number of good people trying their hardest to make things work here while doing everything thing they can to maintain their homes and businesses. They may be punchlines to you but they are very real to me.

**jt1** · January-05-12, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by mikefmich

Well aren't you just a sweet peach. smh

Sorry, I take exception when retirees living in another state, collecting a pension from the city make clippant comments about 'nothing' being left. That nothing that Ray jokes about is everything to hundreds of thousands of people. I guess they don't count to him.

So sorry if I hurt your sensibilties and didn't just laugh along with him.

**Ray1936** · January-05-12, 11:59 AM

Hey, jt1......truce, huh? My original remark was meant humorously. I spent 50 years in Detroit, 29 of them working for the city. I was not one of those 'dual-residency' employees; I proudly lived on the west side in the city limits all that time. My reason for leaving was the weather; I just don't do winter very well back there. Further, I return every summer to visit friends and sightsee the old neighborhoods.

Anyway, please remember that I paid in to the pension system for 29 years, and most of us are not eligible for social security or medicare.

**jt1** · January-05-12, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

Hey, jt1......truce, huh? My original remark was meant humorously. I spent 50 years in Detroit, 29 of them working for the city. I was not one of those 'dual-residency' employees; I proudly lived on the west side in the city limits all that time. My reason for leaving was the weather; I just don't do winter very well back there. Further, I return every summer to visit friends and sightsee the old neighborhoods.

Anyway, please remember that I paid in to the pension system for 29 years, and most of us are not eligible for social security or medicare.

Ray - I knw you're a good guy, the post was meant in jest and you are not the correct person to jump on. My apologies for it.

Now, that said, I'm sure you can appreciate my frustration when retirees make comments like that. The reality is that the pensions are severely underfunded and this is adding to the financial stress of the city. The people feeling the pinch from that financial burden are the current residents and taxpayers. Add in the contempt of the city from so many retirees that have moved out [[not saying it is you) and it gets extremely frustrating. It is akin to stating, “The city sucks, but I’ll happily keep taking money from them.”

There is no doubt that you paid into the pension system but pensions were not structured to be viable in an environment where there are 2 retirees for every current employee. The lack of understanding the long term impacts of pensions given out in the 50s – 80s was simply unsustainable. I doubt anyone would have guessed Detroit would have fallen to this point but I can assure you that any financial planner or economist worth a nickel would have been telling government entities years ago that the pension system is not self sustaining unless growth continues.

**Ray1936** · January-05-12, 05:07 PM

Absolutely. No one in their right mind forty years ago could have imagined the nose dive of what was then America's fifth city. I've read recently where they want to disband the current pension system for new employees and convert to a 401K system, which is pay-as-you-go, and avoids future problems as are currently seen. Probably the way to go.

No, Detroit doesn't suck. It's hurting, but it's going to survive. And this outlander speaks in defense of its reputation at every opportunity. Further, a Red Wings logo adorns the back window of my Ford Escape.

**Wesley Mouch** · January-06-12, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

... I've read recently where they want to disband the current pension system for new employees and convert to a 401K system, which is pay-as-you-go, and avoids future problems as are currently seen. Probably the way to go.
...

Ray1936, thanks for your years of service to Detroit.

As someone who will have ZERO pension from anyone except myself, I do often find amusement chatting with those who are feeling the 'pain' of reduced pensions. I wish a good retirement to all hard workers -- not just those who joined the exclusive union club during the years when government and industry were willing to giveaway today's dollars to retirees who also benefited from the housing price bubble caused thereby. Now pardon my exaggeration there. So onto my main point...

In retirement, I will get back the fruits of my labor from my 401k. And that's probably it. I fashion myself reasonably wise, and think I've invested better than the 50th percentile -- and its not done me so well -- but I'll be OK. I worry that there are a lot of people who didn't max out their 401k's, have taken out loans or early withdrawls, and will really be stuck later.

Well-managed defined-benefit plans have a place. We've gone too far with the idea of only 401k's, which remove 100% of the responsibility for retirement from the government. I'd like to see us encourage a balance between these two ideas. Traditional pension plans have been a major source of stability and equity for American industry -- we need to be careful as well toss it all out.

**Richard** · January-06-12, 06:47 PM

So the purpose of illegal scrapping is to supplement reduced pensions?

**Ray1936** · January-06-12, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by Richard

So the purpose of illegal scrapping is to supplement reduced pensions?

Don't matter to me what happens. Fortunately, I invested all my bribes and payoff money from the 70's into Microsoft.

Ravine · January-06-12, 11:10 PM

I don't know, I don't care, and nobody asked me.

However, if a guy served this city as a police officer for as long as Ray served it, I think if he chooses to take his pension and move to a spot that is more comfortable for him and/or his wife, he should be able to do so and express his opinions & feelings about the city without having to listen to, or read, any fucking whiny-ass horseshit implying that he took something and ran away with it.

Oh, but of course, I meant that "in jest."