This topic has really started to hit home for me.
I live in a pretty urban area - not downtown Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis or Indiana, by any stretch but there is plenty of foot traffic going past our house. We're in a college town so there are fair number of renters, too.
I'm just getting started into the wonderful world of heating my home with wood and I've got access to lots of free logs (guy across the street is an arborist).
So my dad & I split up about 2.5 cords of maple this summer and the stacks are sitting alongside our house - some of it runs out about 6' past the front of the house but is at least 15' from the curb.
So I've been noticing the pile is being 'picked at'... armful here, log there... for the last two weeks.
Any suggestions?
I'd love to sit out there with my shotgun in the dark (unloaded) and just wait for the thief to start 'picking' again. The sound of a 12-gauge racking is enough to scare the piss out of many snot-nosed college kids.
Problem is, I'm in a liberal college town and I'm sure I'd both lose my gun and spend time in the pokey for that.
Again, any thoughts?
Tony