Construction company frustrated with theft increase in 2022

Frustration is growing for a local custom home building company after an uptick in stolen property.

Brad Blair, the owner of Spruce Homes, says he has really noticed thefts increasing over the last two years.

“It has been getting worse ever since COVID,” Blair said.

“Specifically right now, these last six months seems to be getting a lot more rapid. I know our sites have been hit a couple times in the last few months.”

It’s not just Blair’s company being hit. He says he hears similar stories from other competitors in the market.

“I hear from around the industry as well that guys are either getting trailers or vans broken into or houses,” Blair said. “It’s pretty frustrating.”

Blair realizes there’s always going to be people committing crimes in some way, shape or form. He says the frustrating part comes from cases that appear to be solvable, but aren’t.

“We understand that no matter what you do, you’re not going to stop all theft,” he said.

“We have had scenarios where we’ve actually had on-camera footage — licence plate number, vehicle, make, model, colours, time stamps — and sent that in for reports and nothing ever came of it.

“We were basically told that there was not enough manpower to kind of help out.”

Blair says it would make a major difference in his business to see even just a handful of the criminals get caught to steer them from committing more crimes.

“A lot of it for us is we wish those low-hanging fruit cases were dealt with a little bit better to at least deter future theft,” Blair said.

Learning from past experiences, Blair says his company has tried to learn from its mistakes by clearing out properties as often as possible.

“The best thing you can do is to not leave anything on site because then there’s nothing to steal,” he said. “For the most part, that does happen.”

The Spruce Homes owner says there are scenarios where certain equipment stays on site for the duration of an entire project, but says the company tries to avoid that as much as possible.

Blair says it can be awfully expensive having to replace certain tools or equipment, and hopes to see a chance in the future for the sake of his business.