I would take the fridge from the dead guy's apartment and have your handy man rig it up with a fake ghost that made a scary sound and popped out fast when the fridge was opened.

I generally don't like conspiracy theories, but the whole thing feels like it's rigged against landlords.

I would envision things would still be strong through the winter as supply decreases but demand is still existing - and this is with most of the oil rigs stacked up... wait till the price of oil comes back next summer.  

No cookie cutter.   

For instance if you can find a hard to cut through cage, and then add a security light and mount it high, see if there's some kind of alarm you can rig to go off as soon as someone messes with the cage, this will at least deter a lot of people - plus the thief is more likely to get someone's attention if the cage is hard to cut and they have to spend more time with an alarm going off the whole time.

The game is, and always has been, rigged.

Up until a decade or so, no-one cared really about minerals since oil companies were not going to put a rig in the back yard of a home in the middle of a city. 

I say that as many custom home builders were pretty much outpriced as competition with tract builders with their cookie cutter designs  and lower overhead. 

Harvest has at least three different neighborhoods:* Rural Neighborhoods* Neighborhoods with the cookie-cutter vinyl-siding homes crammed together (what I own)* Neighborhoods with more the custom home feel.Homes in each rent for different amounts. 

The system itself is rigged in a manner to LOVE home price inflation, with layers upon layers benefiting massively from it.