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Whenever I travel down to the desert south-west (Arizona, Texas, NM, ...) I'm amazed how many abandoned or half-abandoned (still on private property) cars there are everywhere visible. It must be a mix of better weather and them not rusting down in matter of month when outside instead of a garage, and different regulation not enforcing their removal.

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I'm in upstate New York where even the cars I drive regularly are rusting out constantly, to say nothing of the rusted junk that doesn't get used. When I bought my house and talked to the homeowner insurance agent about risks on the property they asked if I had any abandoned junk cars in the yard. When I said no, she said "you will."

Nearly everyone here has some junk cars sitting around rotting, whether it's a future project that they'll never do, spare parts for another vehicle, or just something they know that a pinch they can roll down to the scrap yard for $100-200 (or waiting for the price of scrap metal to rise again so maybe they can get $400).

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