# Strangest things people have stolen **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 29, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522 "2013-10-29T02:54:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/101 "2013-11-04T13:02:28Z")
About 10 years ago I was working for a small company. We bought a precast concrete fountain to put by the front door. It was a huge bowl, about five feet across with a large centerpiece. Yep, it was stolen one night. We figured it would have taken a bunch of guys and a flatbed truck or an old pickup to get it done. ---
**Author:** ![kim\_okla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/d78d45/32.png) [@kim\_okla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kim_okla)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/102 "2013-11-05T04:52:06Z")
My water meter. If you are very delinquent on your bill the water company will come take your meter. So I guess they steal someone else’s. I asked if their usage would be on my bill too, no, it’s billed by address. The water company was also perplexed, they had no way to track where my meter was being used. ---
**Author:** ![48Willys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/db5fbb/32.png) [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/103 "2013-11-05T06:25:18Z")
> [@kim\_okla](#): > > My water meter. If you are very delinquent on your bill the water company will come take your meter. So I guess they steal someone else’s. > > I asked if their usage would be on my bill too, no, it’s billed by address. The water company was also perplexed, they had no way to track where my meter was being used. The meter is most likely made out of brass. At about $2.00 a pound scrap brass price, if the meter weighed about 30 lbs, 2 X 30 = $60.00 How long did it take to remove it? lets say it took one hour to remove it. $60.00 an hour is good money around here. I am guessing on the weight of your meter. I know that it would only take me about 10 minutes to cut one out and load it. Water going everywhere, but a thief will not care. If the water company really wants to know who is using it, they can compare the meters that have the same gallons used on them as yours had. This would narrow it down a lot. Then they see who has had a large jump on the gallons used from the month before. Unless the water company has replaced their meter, they have found their thief. Of course all of this takes time and effort. I doubt that they care enough to go looking. Until the thefts of meters cost them enough money, they will not go after the thieves. I would not hold my breath! ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/104 "2013-11-05T15:15:02Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Don’t know why they would freeze it instead of a safety deposit box, but that’s what he said. > > We keep important documents like passports in the freezer, because it is safer from house fires. > > Regards, > Shodan Even my passport is in the lockbox in the bank. Living in NY, I have an enhanced license that lets me cross the Canadian border without a passport. Anything other than that, I just go to the bank to get it…we don’t travel out of country that often, other than Canada! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/105 "2013-11-05T17:04:45Z")
Not the kind of thing OP intended, but what popped into my mind is [The Vanderbilt Trophy](http://acblstory.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/vanderbilt-3_jan5.jpg), awarded to the team which wins a prestigious contract bridge championship. > [@](#): > > On June 4, 1964 the Vanderbilt was stolen from a display at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was recovered the following month when the thief tried to sell the 11 lb. trophy to the Newman Silver Shop in Reno NV. The man, John Hadreas, an Ambassador employee, was arrested and charged with possession of stolen property. His bail was set at $2,500.00. > > After that incident, the trophy continued to travel to the Spring NABCs, but was kept tucked away until presentation to the winning team. I don’t recall ever having a conversation with that thief, but he and I misspent part of our misspent youths together. [This song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3HTvlDFbm4) reminds me of John Hadreas: I think I even saw him pull an old schedule of trains from his pocket once! ---
**Author:** ![slightly\_askew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d07c76/32.png) [@slightly\_askew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slightly_askew)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/106 "2013-11-05T18:10:58Z")
A dozen or so years ago, after failing to hot wire the durn thing, someone stole the front seats out of my then fiance’s Acura. It took forever to get them replaced as they couldn’t find leather seats and had to have fabric ones reupholstered. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/107 "2013-11-05T21:19:47Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Anyone who works in a store that sells it has probably seen it, but saffron and vanilla beans get stolen all the time. it’s the reason my store stopped selling them and many other stores sell them in such big containers. > > One of the times our store got broken into the only thing they stole was two of our scales. The cop remarked that they were probably pretty bummed that the scales only weighted in pounds. Even if they were dealing in pounds, it doesn’t have enough resolution to work with drugs. > We’ve also had people break into our store, break into our seafood case and steal all the lobster tails. It’s just a regular freezer like you’d see in a grocery store but we used to keep a lock on it. Then we started unlocking it at night that way if someone broke into the store, at least they wouldn’t have to break those doors also. Same reason empty cash registers are left open at night. No use in having burglars pry them open to find out there’s nothing in them. My dad’s car was broken in to one night. The thief had smashed the window and broke up the dash trying to rip out the custom stereo header. Dad stopped keeping the car locked at night, but he put a locking gas cap on the tank. If they’re going to break into the car and steal the stereo, he reasoned, at least they won’t have to smash windows and the dashboard. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/108 "2013-11-05T21:40:44Z")
I was selling my previous house, which we’d vacated and Realtors were showing it to prospective buyers. One day I came to the house to check on something, and realized that all the window treatments had been stolen. All. Most of them were custom-fitted cellular shades, of the sort that fit inside the window frame and really wouldn’t fit some random window in another house, which is why we were leaving them behind. The house was also locked up, I checked, so the perpetrator was probably a Realtor who had access to the lock-box. I know window shades are cheap, but why take ones that won’t fit your windows anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/109 "2013-11-05T21:47:55Z")
I’m glad you posted that, squeegee. You just reminded me of the strangest thing I’ve had stolen. I was moving from an apartment to a rented house and had basically gotten all my stuff out and went back to clean the apartment. Left it _ting_ spotless and locked it up. Came back a week later to walk through with the rental manager. When we unlocked the door, the stove and refrigerator had been stolen out of the place. My lease didn’t address major appliances and I hadn’t purchased them (or taken them with me, not that anyone investigated for that), so my renter’s insurance wouldn’t cover it. The property manager’s property insurance would have, but they billed me for replacement costs anyway and kept my deposit. It took me about a year and a lawsuit to get my deposit back. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/110 "2013-11-05T22:21:12Z")
Around '82, one of my sisters bought a decade old, rusted out, Ford Maverick for a couple hundred bucks. She later moved to The Bronx and the car turned up missing one morning. Either it got stolen or removed with the trash. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/111 "2013-11-05T22:43:24Z")
Literal [Cat Burglar](http://youtu.be/2qSLvkskXFA). ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/112 "2013-11-05T22:53:59Z")
Just remembered one other instance. Just asfter my sister got married she and her husband bought a new house in a fairly new suburb and planted two [tree ferns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicksonia_antarctica) near the front door. They went to the shops for about an hour and when they came back both were gone. ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/113 "2013-11-06T00:08:18Z")
Diaper Bag out of our Audi. Talk about Stinkin’ Thieves! ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/114 "2013-11-06T01:39:05Z")
About two weeks ago someone broke off the right end of my license plate. Maybe they were trying to take the whole thing and pulled off the one part. It had one letter, and the registration sticker on it. The latter is probably what was wanted. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/115 "2013-11-06T01:43:15Z")
The toilet brush out of a public PetCo restroom. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/116 "2013-11-06T14:59:36Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > I have a relatively expensive car, someone stole my antenna. Granted, it’s a nice antenna… I had a Dodge Caravan - and found that someone had stolen the antenna while I was at work. WTF??? On the funny side: years ago, I worked with a woman whose husband was an exec for a clothing manufacturer. He had a sample case with him when they were travelling, and left that in the car when they stopped overnight. Next morning, the car had been broken into and the case stolen. The thieves go away with a case full of maternity jogging suits! ---
**Author:** ![MsBatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@MsBatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsBatt)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/117 "2013-11-06T17:16:35Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > On the old air-cooled VW bugs and vans, engine theft was actually fairly common. There’s only four bolts that hold the motor on and if you’re cutting the wires and fuel lines instead of removing them it’s practically a smash-n-grab! I’ve attended a Bug-In ( a VW gathering) where they held an engine-pulling contest. The car had to be driven across the start line, the engine pulled onto a jack and rolled backward a certain number of feet, then rolled forward, reinstalled, and the car driven back across the starting line. The best time I watched myself was less than THREE MINUTES. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522/118 "2013-11-06T22:03:36Z")
> [@MsBatt](#): > > I’ve attended a Bug-In ( a VW gathering) where they held an engine-pulling contest. The car had to be driven across the start line, the engine pulled onto a jack and rolled backward a certain number of feet, then rolled forward, reinstalled, and the car driven back across the starting line. The best time I watched myself was less than THREE MINUTES. Damn, mrAru would love something like that, pity we don’t have any of the older VWs any longer. Maybe when he retires I’ll get him an old bug again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strangest-things-people-have-stolen/672522.md?page=5)