Brazen thieves steal cottage building materials

A Corner Brook man is disappointed he won’t likely be putting the siding on his retirement cottage this fall.

Derek Mollon, a retired teacher, found out his cottage on the Bay of Islands overlooking Governor’s Island was hit hard by thieves last Thursday.

Around 50 of the 2” x 6” studs had been removed from both the interior and exterior wall plates, enough to make the whole structure unstable in a heavy wind.

There were more than 30 sheets of Aspenite sheathing forcibly removed from both the upper and lower wall structures.

Several more were left in place but broken.

Approximately 15 sheets of Aspenite that had been stored inside a shed were gone from the York Harbour site.

Two used windows were also taken from the shed and a truck load of black creosote-treated 4” x 4”s of varying lengths up to 16’ were hauled off.

Mollon believes the thieves left behind a grey-painted sledgehammer on the second floor, along with a few beer bottles and a cigarette butt.

“Basically someone went in and dismantled it,” Mollon said.

“It was just a shell, but it was totally enclosed with a roof on it.

“They were still there on Thursday, took it apart to remove the studs and just left the skeleton with very few bones.”

He said someone had stopped by on the way to Lark Harbour Thursday morning and thought Mollon was taking the structure down.

On the way back to Corner Brook, he stopped in at the site again and more was taken, so he contacted Mollon who called the RCMP.

Mollon believes the same people could be responsible for the theft of an observation platform in the area of Blow Me Down Mountain, just across the road from his place.

The deck was taken in late May or early June.

The Town of Humber Arm South put up a $500 reward.

He said there are only a few people who would have the brass to take apart a cottage to steal sheathing and studs in broad daylight.

“When I was told about it, I thought it was the wind,” he said. “They said the sheets are off your building materials.’ I said ‘what?’ I never experienced a lot of wind down there. I’ve been there when it was blowing a real gale, but it never impacted that area.

“Then he said ‘they’re gone completely. Someone took them.’ I said ‘oh!’”