Comments on: Weird Stuff People Steal

By: Guest Post: Taxes and Death » Sociological Images

Guest Post: Taxes and Death » Sociological Images — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:17:12 +0000

[…] key to this attitude seems to lie in Danes’ trust in government and each other—something I noted in an earlier post. As this video interview with a pair of Danish sociologists suggests, this trust stems from several […]

By: Taxes and Death » Economic Sociology

Taxes and Death » Economic Sociology — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:33:11 +0000

By: Brooke

Brooke — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:42:28 +0000

I don’t own a car anymore (that’s life in Europe for you), but $66,000 is more than the sum total of what I paid for all the cars I have ever owned in the past, put together.
I still miss my coat most of all.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:37:28 +0000

Imagine that- your light was worth more than your car.

By: Brooke

Brooke — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:21:56 +0000

Perhaps they should consider changing the name of the business to “Design Within Reach of Hedge Fund Managers.”

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:18:57 +0000

Only $8,000? That exact same lamp is being sold by Design Within Reach right now. For a mere $66,000.

http://www.dwr.com

By: Brooke

Brooke — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:30:07 +0000

Oh, you don’t know how ecstatic I would be at the resurrection of Coat. I miss it so. I will never find another like it.

As for the half-eaten turkey sandwich: damn. If you were on CSI or one of the other tech-tastic crime series, you could probably pull some DNA from the sandwich (depending on how drooly the thief was), run it through a database to find the thief’s name and address, then show up at his/her doorstep with a world-weary smirk and a witty line like, “I think you forgot something in my car.” Or maybe just “Gobble gobble! Does that ring any bells?”

By: Q.

Q. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:32:50 +0000

I myself had a reverse burglary about a month ago…
I made the decision to leave my car doors unlocked since I had a mundane window-smashed-GPS-stolen incident a year ago.
From time to time, I enter my car to find that the glovebox is open and someone has nosed around for an interesting electronic device or cash. No one has ever disturbed my overdue library books or empty shopping bags….
Then one morning, I found that there was a half-eaten turkey sandwich left on the passenger seat. Perhaps someone consuming a take-out dinner was disturbed by a passerby? Or they were saying “screw you” to the owner of the vehicle, knowing that I abhor turkey?
I was grateful that nothing more repellent or disturbing was left. Maybe one day I will find Brooke’s overcoat, enigmatically left behind by a would-be burglar who found nothing of interest to take. Here’s hoping…

By: Brooke

Brooke — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:24:02 +0000

That was my reaction exactly: what the HELL was the landlord thinking, to put this insanely valuable objet d’art in a rental apartment, let alone in plain view from the street? Okay, so it’s rental housing for professors at the Copenhagen Business School, but still, we’re not that special! As someone who has been a landlord myself, renting out a furnished apartment to tenants (in the US), I came to this place with the assumption set you’re describing: that the apartment would be decorated with lowish-end materials; if not “contractor’s special” type stuff, then cheap-n-chic at best.
Here’s the “economic culture shock” part:

a) the Danes have such a high-trust society that apparently it never occurred to anyone at the CBS housing office to consider theft as a possibility

b) the housing office continues to furnish other faculty rental houses with equally valuable design classics: one of my colleagues lives in a place with unassuming-looking chairs that are apparently worth about US$5,000 each (his place, luckily, has a security system)

To me, this is sort of like an Italian landlord hanging a Tintoretto or two in the front hallway, just to make things look cheerful. My American perspective just can’t comprehend what would lead someone to take that kind of risk.

What this experience has illustrated for me (all too vividly) is that perceptions of risk itself are very embedded in local culture. Another case in point: Danes also leave their infants (in strollers) outside on the sidewalk while the adults go inside shops and cafes. So if you walk down the street, you see a bunch of little snoozing babies “parked” in front of various establishments, like bicycles. Unlocked bicycles. (BTW, many Danes actually do leave their bikes unlocked at subway stops and so forth, as well.) And if you express any surprise about these practices, the Danes (at least the ones I’ve met, who are mostly CBS colleagues) give you this blank look of incomprehension, like “what’s the problem?”

So: 1958 artichoke lamp in rental apartment? Just not a cause for concern.

By: karinova

karinova — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:18:54 +0000

Wait a second. Are you telling me that gorgeous genuine mid-century-modern Artichoke lamps are just hanging about, unnoticed, in otherwise average apartments in Denmark?? For the last fifty years?! Sigh. I’m not even a design aficionado, and I recognized that baby immediately. It’s famous. In the US, a copy of that lamp would cost around $500 and it would be gone with the first tenant. No. It would never be installed in the first place! Because over here, we get what’s known as “the contractor’s special” for apartment fixtures like lights and faucets and such. Basically, they’re sold to builders and apartment managers a dozen at a time, they’re ugly, and they’re of the absolute lowest possible quality. Not worth stealing, and not worth repairing when they inevitably break.

Man. I picked the wrong continent.

_________
PS: Glad you’re (both!) safe. Home invasion— my god! Once when I was a teen, someone quietly broke into the lower level of my house while I was alone upstairs, and I wasn’t afraid (too angry). He clearly wanted to rob us and thought the house was empty. But If someone broke down my door while I was clearly home and awake, I’d assume they were homicidal. That’s insanely bold for a burglar.