Stealing isn't chic. It's shabby.

This story in today's Spokesman-Review calls attention to a very real problem. Stripping the fixtures, or even the furniture, from what appears to be an abandoned house is stealing. Plain and simple.
The article points to the Shabby Chic craze as the cause, but this has been going on a long time. I remember talking to people as long ago as the 1970s who were upset because family homesteads had been ransacked.
When religious artifacts were so popular in the late 1980s and early 90s, cemeteries were looted. Statuary, wrought iron fencing, crosses and urns were stolen and sold at flea markets and auctions across the country. New Orleans, with it's ornate architectural style, was particularly hard hit.
Now that primitives are so popular again, the farms and sheds in rural areas are the targets.