|
Flint is efficient. Abandoned buildings are quickly overtaken by scavengers, scrappers, and squatters, who watch for opportunity. Aluminum siding is stripped and resold into the formal recycling economy. New aluminum windows, hot water heaters, and furnaces (some supplied to renters by the Lank Bank itself) are taken, sometimes in daylight, no problem. Copper pipes too, and new electrical wiring (which is burned to remove the plastic casing and reveal the wires, which can be sold). Often by the time the Land Bank has assumed ownership of an abandoned property all that remains is an empty shell beyond the point of rehabilitation.