Brooksville, Fla. –From the outside, the small one story home for sale in Brooksville, Florida looked like any other. Then we walked inside and noticed that thieves had stolen everything that wasn’t tied down.
Even things that were tied down had been taken: the fridge, the oven, the microwave. The kitchen sink and bathroom mirror were gone. The dishwasher and bathroom soap dishes that were tiled into ceramic walls had been taken.Toilet lids and the aluminum towel bars were ripped away. The vandals had even taken the bulbs from every light socket. They even snagged the huge outdoor air conditioner unit before they left.
We came to Hernando county to do a story about foreclosed homes. Thieves were having their own private Christmas in March – stealing every appliance. Then, as one real estate agent told me, “these homes are left for dead.”
Nearly 100 houses in one month have been ransacked. The sheriffs office tells me the vandals often dress like repairmen or movers. They back up their trucks right into the garage and start taking the items.
Where are the neighbors you ask? Police say many are too busy to notice. Some homes are in rural parts of the county, and there’s too much distance between houses for anyone to see what’s going on.
A good number of these foreclosed homes are owned by out-of-state banks, which aren’t dealing with any local realtors just yet. That’s a mistake, police say, because real estate agents could be another set of eyes watching that empty property.
Police near Brooksville have arrested two people so far. They outsmarted the would-be thiefs with GPS technology by placing small, almost invisible electronic tracking devices inside a whole slew of appliances. And those dishwashers and refrigerators and air conditioning units are inside scores of empty foreclosed homes.
Police are throwing down a challenge, they tell us: “Go ahead punk, are you feeling lucky?”