Burglaries on the rise

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Steve Cheney As work in the building trades on the island is drying up, burglaries of construction sites is on the rise.

Kent Murphy, an island contractor who has been in business on island for 12 years, said last November, one or more thieves broke into two of his trailers on Old South Road and stole $30,000 in tools.

"Two trailers full of tools were completely wiped out," said Murphy. "Saw, nail guns, chop saws, sanders, grinders. Those trailers were equipped with every tool you'd need on a job."

"This was definitely not an inside job," Murphy added. "I think the thief is somebody who works here and lives off island. I don't think it is an island person. I think the tools were stolen around 2:30 a.m. and the thief left on the 6:30 a.m. boat."

Murphy said it was not unusual for island contractors to label their tools by either spray painting or engraving.

"Most of the guys are peeking into vans and looking in buildings for their tools," said Murphy of the contractors on island who have had their tools stolen.

Steve Cheney of Cheney Builders had $7,000 to $8,000 worth of tools stolen shortly after Christmas from his work site on Baxter Road.

"There have been six or seven significant tool thefts," said Cheney. "I am shocked that this is happening. The guys need to start changing the way they are storing tools."

The thief or thieves use bolt cutters to cut the hasps off the trailers to get into the storage space.

Cheney sent out an e-mail to the Nantucket Builders Association alerting the membership about the thefts and has been monitoring the Internet sites eBay and Craig's list to see if the tools are being sold online.

The thefts have also been reported to the police.

"Most of the stolen tools are small enough to ship," Cheney said.

Jeff Hatch of Hatch and Burns Builders had tools stolen recently from a work site in Quaise.

"We have a big project in Quaise on the water and four work trailers," said Hatch, who has been in the building trades for 10 years. "Someone cut the locks and stole from each trailer. They took selective tools worth $8,000 to $10,000. I am just hoping who has these tools gets caught by the police."

Rand Smith who is the projects manager for Graham Goldsmith builders said that $5,000 worth of tools were stolen from his company's building site on Cliff Road.

"I've lived on the island for 28 years and have been in the building trades for 15 years and have not seen anything like this before," said Smith.

Instead of tradesmen locking their tools in trailers, they are now breaking down the job site and taking their tools home.

"It takes a lot of time for people to completely breakdown the job and take everything home, and time is money," said Rand. "The cost of cameras, alarms and security is also expensive."

Rand speculates that people are floating around job sites acting as if they are looking for work, but are actually casing the site for tools and building materials to steal.

"The thefts are precipitated by the poor economy. It started to happen when people started to lose jobs," said Rand. "There are people here who may have been bad guys in the past, but now that jobs are drying up, they are going back to bad habits."

"In this day, everybody is getting three bids for a job," added Rand. "Before a hole is dug, all the jobs are filled." I