If you told most people that a thief was hitting the same San Francisco neighborhood over and over again, they’d probably assume catalytic converters, bikes, or maybe a car or two. What they probably wouldn’t guess is sewer grates. But that’s exactly what’s been happening in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, where a mystery man has been quietly lifting small sidewalk sewer vent covers since early April and simply walking off with them.
The strange part isn’t just what’s being taken. It’s how little it’s worth. These grates are small metal sidewalk covers, the kind most people step over every day without a second thought, and scrap yards will only pay a few cents per pound for the metal. Nobody’s getting rich off this. Yet residents on streets like Mullen Avenue, Brewster Street, and Montcalm Street keep waking up to fresh holes in their sidewalks, and security cameras keep catching the same figure doing the same thing.
Multiple doorbell and Ring cameras have captured a slim man wearing a headlamp and carrying grocery bags, arriving around 3 a.m., clearing away any leaves, working the grate loose, and moving on to the next one just seconds later. Neighbors have taken to calling him the “Great Drain Robber,” which honestly might be the best nickname a petty criminal has earned all year…