The victims in this particular case are the neighbors who have to see this junk every day of their lives. The government doesn't make money dealing with this stuff. YOU lose money. It is your tax dollars that pay for the court operations and sooner or later the cleanup too. There is no money made here, just wasted. I do feel for the poor guys and women who have this problem but in most cases you have health issues and others just the visual ugliness. There was a fellow featured on local TV here recently that I knew in the 70s-80s who has cost the taxpayers in this area upwards of $50K for cleanup operations and is still hoarding.
Good example, this spring we went out and checked on some cars, well we got done looking at what he had and the farmer said "hang on I'll show you what my neighbor has" Ok this has our interest, so we walk about 100 yards past some trees and look straight to the south of his farm and in plain site on the side of a hill are between 500-600 cars! 1920's on up. This farmer we had been talking to said some of the cars are packed in so tight you cant even walk between them! If you look close at the picture there are cars scattered all over and the trees are packed full to! I tried to zoom in with the camera as close as I could and this was the best shot I could get. The farmer tells us " follow me over there and we will see if he is home, he might let us look at them, he wont sell anything not even parts and watch out hes not playing with a full deck" Apperantly this old boy was going around the area by his farm and buying up whatever he could get his hands on before the crushers got em. I guess he would haul in 4-5 huge trailer loads a week! This was about a year ago when scrap was at around $350 a ton. He just couldnt see the crushers getting them. Thats all fine but if your never going to do anything with them then at least sell parts or complete cars. When we rolled up at his farm driving past one of the barns there must have been 5 or 6 model-A's setting there! The farmer never was home and we didnt dare go looking so we turned around and went back. Like I said I would rather see someone buy them up then let the crushers get em. We will give it some time and maybe go back in a year or so and see if we can get anything out of him.
HighPlainsDrifter, yeah, stay with it, man! Some wise guy once said that the ONLY thing constant in life is CHANGE. One way or another, the situatin WILL change. Then, maybe the good stuff that HAS to be in there will be accessible to rodders who'll do the old beasts proud by getting some asphalt back under them!
When i first saw the show i thought of my friend Investinrust...he hates me right now but i think he's kool.
The Jalopy Journal
