Why would someone steal solar lights? 4 reasons
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Consider yourself buying solar lights for you home, installing them happily and one day you find they are gone?
What will be the first question that will hit your mind? If I has to think, than it will be why would someone steal solar lights?
There can be several reasons that can lead to this. I will try to answer this question in this post. So let’s look at it.
Short answer: Thieves can steal the solar lights for self-use, to make money by flipping them, or even just for fun.
1. for self use
The first reason which can influence a person to do theft of your solar powered lights is for self, domestic use.
There is still a population of people who can’t even afford such low budget things. But they have a keen desire to use them. In the influence of fulfilling such desire some people move to stealing.
As you know that solar lights are portable and easy to carry, many think them as an easy target to steal and go away.
Therefore, instead of buying new one for self they prefer stealing from others.
2. flip and make money
The second reason can be to make money by flipping them in second hand markets.
As you may be aware of this fact that there is a big market for second hand products. Many don’t want to purchase new things instead they shop for used products.
Many thieves make money by selling these solar lights in the markets for used products. They steal the lights from your house and sell them for cheap prices in the black market and online.
3. for battery
Solar powered lights comes pre-installed with AA rechargeable batteries for storage of electrical charge and supply of electricity to solar lights.
These batteries are made up of various materials[1] like lithium, steel, zinc, etc. which have a economic value in the scrap market.
These thieves taking advantage of the portability of the solar lights consider them as easy targets and to make money out of these materials they steal solar lights for this purpose too.
4. for fun
Yes this might sound weird to you but this is 100% true. Some people just stole things for sake of fun. They think of it like an adventurous task and proudly keeps the stolen things as mementos.
I have read many reddit posts where users share this activity and describes it as a fun. Mostly they are teenagers who do this for looking cool among their friends circle.
No fun in this act, in my opinion!
conclusion
Solar lights being lightweight and portable are an easy catch for thieves. They can be used by them to use for their domestic purpose or making money.
The above listed reasons encourage them for stealing solar powered lights.
But using right safety measures you can prevent them from being stolen. I have written a post on how to protect solar lights for theft. You should check that too.
For more information about solar lights check this article of mine on solar powered lights.