12/10/2013 10:12 AM
Tim,
We had a couple break-ins toward the end of 2012 season. This particular maintenance facility houses the golf course equipment as well as several landscape mowers for the local municipality. Our only method of security was locked doors, exterior lighting, and the removal of keys to all equipment. No alarm system or security cameras. Additionally, the entire golf course is secured with fencing.
The first break-in occurred at night and was a "recon" mission so to speak. The perps used a crowbar to gain entrance thru a man door. The perps had access to all tools, equipment, etc but took nothing. In response to the break-in, the owner of the building installed additional locking mechanisms to the walk-thru doors. The second break-in occurred a couple weeks later, again at night. This time the perps knocked out the exterior lighting and tried to gain access thru the walk-thru doors but failed. This was evident by the damage to the door frames. The extra locks worked. Then the perps got creative. They pried up the bottom section of the overhead door enough to allow a person to crawl under. They then hit the garage door opener on the inside wall and presto, they were in. This time they took three Toro commercial zero-turn landscape mowers. They must have brought their own mower keys because all the keys to the equipment had been removed at the end of the prior day. They drove off with the mowers never to be seen again. We discovered they had cut a hole in the fencing on the opposite side of the property which they used to escape with the mowers. Nothing else was taken. Weed eaters, back pack blowers, hand tools, nothing.
The building now has a security system and we have not experienced another break-in since. We surmised the first break-in was for scouting purposes and they came back the second time with their own universal keys to start and remove the mowers. I can only guess that they did not take the smaller items (weed eaters, back pack blowers and such) because of the distance from the maintenance building to the hole in the fence. Guess only.