how many more investors like this poor sod

http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36374

We have finally finished building our IP in Smithfield Plains, Adelaide. Although it has made money for us I don't know that we would build a house again in Adelaide.

I knew that there had been a few break-ins whilst the house was being built, and I know that this is a common problem with new homes, however I had no idea how serious these problems have become in Adelaide until I arrived there and found out what had been going on. It seems that even a lot of the locals have no idea how bad things have gotten - the builders are just not telling people what is going on.

When I arrived in Adelaide I discovered that a number of people had got there before me - stolen the air conditioner, cut all the copper piping and vandalised the place. Turns out that our most recent site supervisor alone has had seven police reported incidents at this house. I know the previous site supervisor has had a couple of break-ins too... given that a builder only reports incidents that are serious enough to claim on their insurance (presumably their insurance has a fairly high excess), how many incidents of break-ins/vandalism has this one house had? The builder tells me it is not just this house/area, this level of theft/vandalism is normal throughout Adelaide. The laundry sink alone was stolen 5 times!

The major problem is that the criminals are no longer stopping after handover when someone moves in. My closest neighbour, whos house has been completed for over a year is still having problems. I've been staying in the new house for about 2 weeks, and taking pains to make it clear someone lives there, but I've still had the taps and water meter stolen whilst I slept, kids coming round the first night I was there in a clear attempt to check out who was living there etc, the car vandalised in the driveway, and teenagers threating to come round and vandalise the house.

I've now enclosed the back yard, assuming tenant locks the roller door, installed a local alarm system and security doors (again hoping tenant uses them), and put padlocks on the electricity and gas meter boxes. I've enclosed the water meter in one of those green irrigation boxes (hoping out of sight, out of mind), and taken off the front tap and put a stopper on it as they keep stealing the tap. Only other thing I can do is put in a front fence, which is not technically permitted by the developer.

If things keep going this way I don't know how anyone is going to be able to actually finish building houses in Adelaide. Only reason I was able to finish the house was that I made the decision to accept the house "as is" and sleep on the concrete floor and guard the house, with no water etc for a time whilst the builder fixed things up. If I hadn't decided to stay at the house and guard it, I believe the house would just have been broken into again and again and would never have been completed.