In the East Redlands, a foreclosed development has had all of its manhole covers stolen, presumably by scrap peddlers who can get six cents a pound for them -- or about $6 per hundred-pound lid.
Neighbors, who have been using the abando-minium complex as a park, are fretting that robbers might hide in the open sewers (huh?) or that they themselves might fall in and never again re-emerge.
"Someone is going to fall in there one day and no one is going to hear them,'' said George Detrio, who lives two blocks away.
Also this week, the Miami-Dade Police Department announced it is taking 500 confiscated assault weapons to a smelter in an "undisclosed location", where the guns will be melted and turned into manhole covers. Presumably, a few of the lids will then be shipped to the East Redlands.
So as long as serious criminals keep getting arrested and having their guns taken away, two-bit grifters will have new manholes to steal. It's trickle-down economics at work.