THE ANTICS of "absolute grubs" who have swiped copper pipes, stripped bathrooms and stolen taps from sports grounds and the local surf club have gone down like a lead balloon with Swansea residents.
The 'old boys' at Swansea-Belmont Surf Life Saving Club had rigged up showers for Nippers and members, only to find this week that someone has stolen the shower heads.
Club secretary and director Katrina Pastourmoglou said it was disappointing that some people felt they could take what was not theirs.
"It's not even the cost or the money, it's just like, why?" she said.
"There's no showers now for the children, and we're too scared to redo them because they're going to take them again.
"We've got beautiful volunteers that try to do stuff, and then you've got people who take shit, it's just disgusting isn't it?"
The surf club is not the only venue that has had a visit from the copper crooks.
A Lake Macquarie council spokesman told the Newcastle Herald it was aware of at least eight incidents between May and July where copper pipe work or taps had been stolen.
As recently as July 2, copper pipe work was stolen from the fish cleaning table at Birriban Reserve, Coal Point.
"We are concerned about any incidents of illegal and antisocial behaviour in our community," the council spokesman said.
"These actions directly impact public use of our city's sports facilities.
"We'd encourage anyone who witnesses incidents like those outlined above to get in touch with us, or with NSW Police."
He said the council was in regular contact with police about antisocial behaviour and vandalism across Lake Macquarie.
Recently, Swansea Football Club members arrived at Chapman Oval to find someone had tried to saw the copper pipe off their irrigation water storage tanks.
Secretary Natasha Johnson said that, thankfully, the thieves were not successful in stealing the pipes, but they had done enough damage to require council crews to be called in.
"You could see where someone's tried to hack away at it to maybe try and break it away," she said.
"It's frustrating but it's also something where if that had happened in the off season when we're not regularly accessing the grounds that could have had really serious consequences for our grounds.
"That's obviously one thing, but there's also the waste of water because it actually gets filled up by town water, those tanks aren't rain fed."
Lake Macquarie council was called about the damage to copper piping at Chapman Oval on June 25.
A council spokesman said a contractor attended and identified damage to the pipeline.
"Damage comprised of holes drilled into the existing pipeline," he said.
"A council contractor took the necessary steps to make the area safe.
"Copper piping will be replaced with poly pressure pipe, with repairs expected to be complete by July 9, weather permitting."
The pipe pilferers also made their way over to Pelican's Aitchison Reserve, where they stole taps from around the grounds and cut the copper irrigation pipe work.
Belswans Junior Football Club president Mick Stafford said the water meter was turned off, making the damage harder to detect.
Mr Stafford also coaches at the seniors' ground which is on the Blacksmith's side of the Pacific Highway.
He said the male and female toilets were stripped bare along with taps around the grounds.
"They've also done public toilets at Blacksmiths boat ramp, I think they've done Pelican public toilets as well," he said.
"It's not what we want to have as a community, they might be desperate for money but I think it's the wrong way to go about getting that.
"It definitely caused a bit of disruption at the senior ground because we had match days where the toilets couldn't be used, so that was a bit disappointing."
Lake Macquarie council said copper pipe work had also been stolen from public amenities at Blacksmiths Beach, the boat ramp and Blacksmiths Oval.
Taps have been stolen from the fish cleaning table at Thomas Humphreys Reserve at Swansea, the Swansea boat ramp and Chapman Oval.
Public amenities at Swansea's Quinn Park have also been targeted.
