Lack of Confidence

What compels someone to go to such lengths to steal something belonging to others? We received an update from the local Carabinieri that ours is not the only property in the area that has been hit like this, individuals stealing copper and materials from homes under construction. That makes us feel tons better! We're not alone! Great! What we would really like to know is what the hell are they doing about it? They should be talking to every contractor in the area as well as to every single business that receives scrap metal as well as any and all junk yards etc, someone must know something, for it took trucks and equipment to do this evil. Our fear is that they are being typical Carabinieri and sitting around their station until the thieves walk in and tap them on the shoulder!
I recall many years ago in the piazza of Strada In Chianti there was a bank on the corner that had an atm machine mounted into the wall so that it was accessible twenty four hours a day without having to go inside. Keep in mind the station of the Carabinieri is just a few doors up from this bank in the same piazza. One night thieves backed a truck up to the atm machine, bolted chains to it and ripped it out of the wall towing it away and doing thousands in damage, not only making off with whatever was in the machine. The Caribinieri found the machine a couple of days later but never found the thieves! How is that for police work! In other words, we have our doubts that we will ever recover our property or even find out who did this!
Depressing to say the least, I get that times are tough and many people are out of jobs but do we need to resort to this? Could you do this? Would you do this?

This is just the type of thing when it happens to you that makes you lose faith in others. I don't mean just the thieves, they are just morons. I mean the society we thought we built to protect against such heinous activity. Where is it??

Thieves at La Vigna!

So it has happened again. This is the second time it has happened to us and I suppose we should call ourselves lucky in that no one was harmed but it still hurts badly. The latest information from La Vigna is the theft of all the copper gutters and downspouts. This wasn’t material lying around the jobsite, this was already installed aged and beautiful stuff! Almost fourteen thousand dollars worth of copper gone in a heartbeat! I know the world is becoming a little more desperate and things aren’t going well for people… but come on, really? You have to go and steal stuff from someone’s property that has already been installed? The first time the jerks stole stuff it was a pallet of ceiling tiles that were waiting to be installed in the second floor. This time the thieves must have brought equipment, ladders and such to take it all down from the second floor eves, imagine the gumption! These gutters had been installed several years ago and we had opted for the extra expense of copper for longevity and look, now what the hell do we do? This is a budget job that we are trying to do with limited funds but do the right way. We don’t want to use crappy material that will detract from the look and feel of the Tuscan countryside. I don’t know anymore, maybe we should just throw up plastic windows and plastic gutters and say the hell with it just to get it done. I certainly don’t know if we will be able to put back gutters like those, unless of course we hit the lottery.