On a Thursday afternoon in April, someone made off with a cement mixer at a South Riding construction site.
Stealing from construction sites is a common problem in Loudoun's half-built neighborhoods.
Last year, there were a total of 347 construction thefts reported to the Sheriff's Office. In total, construction companies lost more than $604,000 in 2004, consisting mostly of kitchen appliances and construction materials.
As the months get warmer and construction activity heats up likewise, so do thefts. According to the Sheriff's Office, South Riding and Leesburg, with their many unfinished cul-de-sacs, are the most-often hit areas.
In the spring, hardly a week goes by where construction materials aren't listed as missing in police reports.
Now and then, however, a bulldozer will vanish.
"You wouldn't think a 20- or 30-ton piece of equipment would be easy to steal," said Jim Stepahin, executive director of Heavy Construction Contractors Association of Northern Virginia. "But it is surprising how easy it is."
THE HEAVY Construction Contractors Association helps contractors ward off thieves by an e-mail alert system. Thefts seem to come in rashes, Stepahin said, with the crooks moving from site to site.
While easy-to-tote tools and small equipment are the most common disappearing items from construction sites, heavy equipment often goes the farthest distance to be resold.
A bulldozer's identification number will be doctored before it's sent to Philadelphia or another port city to be shipped to the thief's cohort overseas.
About five years ago, Stepahin encouraged contractors to use a tracking device hidden in the equipment's engine. But at $100 to $200 per device, contractors balked. They'd rather buy the insurance and cut their losses.
"That's unfortunate, but that's the attitude of some of the contractors," Stepahin said.
A bulldozer can cost up to $500,000 to replace.
HUBERT CONSTRUCTION'S first project was Lakeside @ Loudoun Tech Center, a trio of 105,000-square-foot office buildings. Since then, the Maryland-based company has built a number of small and large projects in and out of Loudoun County.
The company practices due diligence when it come to warding off thieves, said executive vice president Russ Gestl.
One thing the company does is carefully coordinate deliveries so materials aren't sitting around unused and ready for the snatching.
"Temptation is the devil's workshop," Gestl said. "If it's not there, nobody's going to take it."
In addition, the company also works to close buildings as soon as doors and locking windows can be installed, as well as keeping storage trailers on site.
Just last weekend, the Sheriff's Office reported that an entire set of kitchen and bath cabinets had been stolen from a house site in South Riding as they awaited installation. The loss totaled $5,369.
Stepahin said that contractors often use overseas shipping containers to hold material, but even those aren't foolproof.
"Let's face it," he said. "If somebody is determined to get into something, they're going to get into it."
OVER AT Lorton-based Shirley Contracting LLC, specially designed locking storage units are used. The company reports few major problems, but said that small tools are the most commonly pilfered items.
Shirley Contracting, along with its partner Clark Construction, has Loudoun's two largest highway projects, each worth tens of millions of dollars: Route 28 and Dulles Greenway improvements.
When a construction site is at a vulnerable point — perhaps stocked with materials but without locking doors on the project — Hubert sometimes hires 24-hour private security.
"I think it's good construction common sense to do all of these things all of the time," Gestl said.