Building site next to ours it seems had one of their digger’s stolen on the weekend! I’m assuming easy pickings. No would be the wiser if they loaded the digger onto a flat bed and drove away.

Turns out 6 months ago their mobile office was broken into and laptops stolen as well.

Worked in a hospital ans some bastard had cut the plug off the heart defibulator, and the batteries had gone flat, one of our patients nearly died because of that, and plug tops changed to red and had Hospital property stamped on them.

Plant is a massive target

I worked on a warehouse project once and our hire fork lift was stolen. CCTV showed it being driven away around the industrial estate! Hardly quick, or stealthy!

The hospital ones I’m assuming were taken by some top knot wearing hipster C*-¥! As it would be so cool looking on my bed side lap.

Hipsters have no morals or souls (rant over about them now)

Gotta wonder why they would steal a plug from a hospital no less proper scum.

50 km stolen road

Had a 13 tonne digger pinched from one of my sites a few years ago – the residents who constantly complained about the disruption saw/heard nothing! Had dumpers/rollers go. Elsewhere in the firm a 30 tonne digger was taken from outside the manned security cabin.

As for the laptops – surely the idea is that they are portable and therefore not left in the cabin?

I had an empty 40 cu Yd skip stolen a few years back. Police asked how I thought it’d been removed 🙄

I can’t believe anyone cuts a plug off a defrib, more like it was PAT tested recently and failed, best thought it was safer without the plug, and then forgot to tell anyone. I would imagine most defribs would use a standard kettle lead.

I doubt I would have noticed a digger being stolen from the building site here – hopefully you don’t break most of the conditions of the planning application and bend the rules in every possible way in order to save money/time, unlike them.

I would imagine most defribs would use a standard kettle lead.

I thought medical stuff uses special leads and plugs specifically to stop people stealing them to use on the kettle or unplugging them to plug the hoover in.

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

tops5 – tbh I wouldn’t have noticed anything fishy they are people milling about on Saturday and on occasion on Sunday.

mrhoppy – Member
I had an empty 40 cu Yd skip stolen a few years back. Police asked how I thought it’d been removed

LOL

Found an illegal landfill site in the Cotswolds that was using a stolen 360, the thing was massive. Would of needed transporting on a low loader the works, again nobody saw anything.

Plant and tractors certainly used to be very easy to steal- most have only 1 or 2 key shapes for the entire range (John Deeres use pretty much one key for all vehicles!). They’ve started fitting posher immobilisers now but the older ones (over 5 years) are very easy to nick and do go regularly.

Building site cabins are a constant target, particularly the engineers cabin.

Easy target, one guy can easily carry £30k+ of kit away on their own.

Gleneagles Hotel a few years ago had their mobile back up genny nicked. Someone drove up with their Landrover, hooked it up and drove away. In full view of people in the back yard!

It’s only ART but this theft of Antony Gormley’s Standing Figure (or green meanie as i called it) really annoyed/upset me as i used to pass it regularly on my weekly jaunts up to visit mates at Dunscore, it was set in a very contemplative area overlooking Glenkiln reservoir and was my fav place to stop and take 5mins whilst having a totally irrational conversation with the sculpture.

I hope it was stolen to order/display and not just stolen for scrap/melted down.

Antony Gormleys standing figure theft

Speaking of hospitals – Local hospital had a Christmas tree stolen in 2014. Someone walked along a corridor picked it up with all the decorations and walked out with it!

Who the **** goes to a hospital and steals a christmas tree ?!

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

That made me laugh out loud!

Sorry. It just tickled me.

The hospital ones I’m assuming were taken by some top knot wearing hipster C*-¥! As it would be so cool looking on my bed side lap.

Hipsters have no morals or souls (rant over about them now)

Gotta wonder why they would steal a plug from a hospital no less proper scum.

Most random rant of the month.

The hospital ones I’m assuming were taken by some top knot wearing hipster C*-¥! As it would be so cool looking on my bed side lap.
Hipsters have no morals or souls (rant over about them now)

Gotta wonder why they would steal a plug from a hospital no less proper scum.

Most random rant of the month.

No less valid for being random though…

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

I had a Bonnet nicked once. It was from an RS Turbo so had the vents.

Came back from an evening of partying at my mates who was at Brighton Uni. Got a phone call from my Dad saying the police had been in touch about the bonnet.

Off I trot to see my parked car minus bonnet with the two head lamps placed neatly on the kerb. The thieves were that thick they mangled the boot lock trying to get in, but didn’t once think of just pulling down the rear seats, I mean, they were already in the car.

Phoned the AA up and a proper weird guy came with a low loader.

Thing was we may have had a herbal cigarette or 3 and my mates started mucking around saying that the AA man was a mad axe murder…..did make the evening just a bit more “weird”.

Plant theft is a huge problem, there are a lot of organised gangs who steal really quite massive bits of kit that end up shipped to Eastern Europe and anywhere in the world after that.

Last time I was invovled in Plant finance in the mid 2000s HPI were building a database of serial numbers and the like (caravans and trailers too) like their car database, but it was proving tricky as not everything was on it, in fact most wasn’t and there wasn’t a standardised format for serial numbers or their location so theives would remove the numbers (if they could be bothered) and stamp or plant made-up ones elsewhere on the kit.

They used to put fancy trackers on the really big stuff, some of our repo guys used to work with insurers too and said once you get out of Western Europe is was very hard work to get stuff back. In the west you could call the Police and they might help you gain access to a site to look for kit if you could prove stuff was there, in Latvia and places like that is was more ‘hands on’ and they’d work with “serious lads” who’d effectively steal it back.

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

A few years back we drove some friends into London who were visiting from Canada, parked around Kensington. Came back in the evening to find their suitcase in the back of the Estate (covered with the pull on tarp)had been rifled but nothing taken.

Months later had a flat, went to get the spare tyre and yeah you guessed it ..&astards had taken the spare tyre.

If you want to see footage of a really blatant theft look up Jim Aim KTM theft, four bikes taken in approx 3 minutes, it is just unbelievable

A friend’s daughter woke up a couple of months back to find that the front end of her car (Bonnet, Front bumper, lights etc) had been removed overnight. Parked outside her property nobody heard a thing even though it was alarmed.

Two weeks later the same thing was reported in the local paper to have happened to another car owner.

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

We were out walking in the Goyt Valley one day and got back to the car to discover it had been broken into. The haul that they’d made off with? 3 Creme Eggs.

hangings too good for them! etc, etc…..

A friend of a friend had the entire interior of his RS4 estate stolen one night while parked in a ‘nice’ and quite busy bit of London. 😯

After 30+break ins/thefts in 6 weeks on site ( cross green Ind est Leeds)we tried a ‘pressure activated alarm system’set off by door opening pressure change. Next morning door kicked in ,usual mess alarm gone. 2 way radios also taken could hear scrotes on replacement set police tried to set up a meet but scrotes did not bite and still it continues…

Not a stolen tale as such, but years ago someone broke into my mates car, stole nothing at all, just took a dump on the back seat. It still winds him up now 😆

dump on the back seat

Now that is mean…rank.

Girl I was at uni with bought a new exhaust for her Fiesta, started itthe next morning & it sounded very loud & rorty.
Called her boyfriend to have a look at it and the exhaust had been nicked from the manifold back. They left the bolts on the floor.

We reckon it was someone from the exhaust centre, had followed her back to see where it was parked & took it off to put it back into stock. Weird coincidence otherwise….

Job I’m on now has had 2 brand new transit tippers go, what happens when people leave keys above the sun visor. They both had stihl saws inside. Lads were sat in a welfare cabin eating their dinner, left a big breaker in the doorway and some scrote picked it up and ran off up a side street with it, into a car and off.

Last job I was on someone put a vis vest on, came into the offices, picked up they keys for the engineers pickup and took it. 20k pickup with 30k of gear inside. I smell an inside job for that one though.

GTA Bradford

Plant and tractors certainly used to be very easy to steal- most have only 1 or 2 key shapes for the entire range (John Deeres use pretty much one key for all vehicles!). They’ve started fitting posher immobilisers now but the older ones (over 5 years) are very easy to nick and do go regularly.

As you say Farm equipment is often going walkabouts do the slightly lax approach to keys. Having said that the old mans new JCB Fastrac has a gps tracker fitted and you set a safe zone and time on the internet, and if it moves out of that zone between the set times it rings you. Having said that they’ve taken to just tractorjacking them during the day now as its less obvious driving down the road during the day.

I had one of those Peco big bore exhausts nicked about 20 years ago.

Mate had his van broken into and all they took was a packet of Jaffa cakes.

someone broke into my mates car, stole nothing at all, just took a dump on the back seat. It still winds him up now 😆

Would that someone be you?

A few years back, when I was working for a developer we had a load of freshly installed kitchens taken. They’d only been completed a day.

If you want to see footage of a really blatant theft look up Jim Aim KTM theft, four bikes taken in approx 3 minutes, it is just unbelievable

Jim Aim – Sible Hedingham?

One of my sites had 30m of copper cable cut out of the tower crane and cut up on site over a weekend. They turned up with a flat bed transit and cut the cable with a chainsaw into manageable chunks, lobbed it on the back and calmly drove off 30mins later.

Thieves recently tried to steal the digger from my new fire station as it was getting built. Luckily it’s right next-door to one of the biggest police stations in Leeds and the dumbasses were spotted

a really blatant theft

I worked for a while in pubs. A manager in one told a story of his first day full-time in a pub. The manager left him to go and do something. A couple of guys came in 10 minutes later, asked for the manager by name, said they were there to fit the new TV. Dougie said manager was out so they said they’d fit the new telly anyway as it was already paid for. They took the old one down and…. want to guess the rest?