[Red Badger]

Randi, a Chatham neighorhood resident, installed a cage with three locks around her new central air conditioner after thieves stole her old unit from her back yard in June 2011. (Credit: CBS)

This has been happening here in FL Panhandle, also.............

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I wonder how hard it would be to wire up 220, but still make it look like an accident when they fry themselves?

[ladyvet]

I was born and raised outside of Chicago. There's not enough money in the world that would ever make me go back.

[2banana]

So Randi and some of her neighbors have cage protection now for their A/C units.

So now the thieves will steal the metal cage AND the A/C...

[Above My Pay Grade]

I suspect it is the Green Police. Do you have any idea what kind of carbon footprint all those air conditioners make? :)

[Charles Martel]

And to think, our expert said the thieves only get about $25 for their haul.

I wouldn't assume that the units are being sold as scrap metal. In fact, I used to see central A/C condensor units, so new that the hacksawed copper lines hadn't even yet begun to tarnish, in New Orleans area pawn shops. There was a shop run by some Vietnamese guys that was particularly notorious, but the cops didn't lift a finger.

I recall something in the news there about the same guys who did A/C installation work during the day being involved with the thefts at night.

[Emperor Palpatine]

It must be those Amish gangbangers, again....

[proxy_user]

In my building, the central air conditoner weighs four tons and is 23 feet long. So far, no one has attempted to steal it.

It handles 480 apartments.

[WOBBLY BOB]

http://www.protectyourac.com/

Happening here in MN ,too.

[HereInTheHeartland]

We don’t shoot enough people in this country.

[dawn53]

It’s been happening in the Tampa Bay area for a couple years...they sell the copper. It’s a broad daylight crime. The thieves pull up in a work truck, make themselves look like repairmen, check to see if anyone answers the door, and if not meander into the backyard and cart off the unit (and these guys are bold...we live on a golf course, and they cart it out right in plain sight of the golfers...but they make it look like it’s a legitimate AC firm.)

Our unit is on a concrete slab and is bolted down, but if someone was determined, they’d get away with it. By the time the police were called (if there was a suspicious neighbor watching to call them) they’d be long gone.

[Arrowhead1952]

Same thing is happening in Austin, Texas. Thieves made off with the AC condenser unit to a library and it will take weeks to get a replacement part so the silly council is buying a new AC unit.

Lots of vacant homes are also having the AC units stolen. One home that had just recently sold, had the entire outside unit taken the weekend before the new owners were moving into the house. Not funny in the 100+ heat.