Published: Friday, July 20, 2007
Thieves take copper from former nursing home
It will take about $150,000 to repair the building.
By LAURE CIOFFI
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Vandals have stripped a Lawrence County former nursing home of all of its copper wiring and pipes.
Greg Triko, who now owns the former Hill View Manor Nursing Home, said he got a call last week from a neighbor about some broken windows at the Shenango Township facility.
He sent someone to check it out and found most of the wiring and pipes in the building gone.
The building has been vacant since county commissioners closed it nearly four years ago and sold it at auction to Triko Enterprises. Triko, of McKees Rocks, Pa., said he has been working on leasing options for the large building located on Pa. Route 65, but the building has been vacant.
He was last in the building on June 15, and everything was intact. The broken windows and missing copper were discovered last Friday.
"The people who did this — the power was still on — knew what they were doing," he said.
In addition to the pipes and wires, numerous copper lightning rods on the roof were taken along with a copper cable box.
Asking for information
"There are condos right next door. I find it amazing nobody saw anything," he said.
The amount of copper taken would have taken days or weeks to remove from the building, he said.
Shenango Township Police are asking anyone who saw what may have appeared to be workers at the facility to contact them at (724) 654-2243. Triko had no workers on site in the last month, they said.
Triko estimates it will take about $150,000 to repair the building and replace the pipes and wiring. The copper stolen will likely be sold for about $30,000 to $40,000 on the open market, he said.
Triko said this is the second theft of copper from the building. A much smaller amount was taken about eight months ago, he said.
The building owner has hired his own private investigator to look into the matter, and he is offering a $500 reward to anyone with information about the copper taken from the building.
He said finding those responsible and where it was sold is his only hope of recovering some of the costs. Insurance does not cover the costs of vandalism on vacant buildings, Triko added.
On a mission to regulate
Triko said the theft has inspired him to make it a personal mission to have state laws passed regulating how scrap yards accept copper and other materials. He has already been in contact with state legislators.
He said there are several ways to regulate scrap yards that could curb theft including requiring scrap yards to photograph and hold all scrap for a period of time before paying for it. In some cities, police get lists of all people selling copper on a weekly basis from the scrap yards, he said.
Triko said he could identify the copper from his building because it was unusual, with some of it being one inch thick in diameter.
The theft of copper has steadily risen as the price per pound has increased. Last year at this time, copper was being sold for $2.20 to $2.50 per pound depending on the grade. It is now up to $2.75 to $3.07 per pound.
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