WEST LINN, Ore. — A nonprofit home inspection group is asking for the public’s help after their storage unit in West Linn was broken into twice earlier this week.
Charles Lewis, who runs Nonprofit Home Inspections, said the group provides inspections for people with low incomes.
On Wednesday night just before 10 p.m., Lewis received a notification that someone was inside the group’s storage unit.
“I see activity, and there is a masked man in the screen. He is going through stuff, and I’m like, 'What is going on here?' I watch it for about 30 seconds and I’m like, 'That is not good,'” Lewis told KGW on Friday morning.
Security video from inside the unit shows a man wearing a mask and a ball cap breaking in. Lewis hit the panic button on the device to startle the man; the suspects then cover the camera.
Lewis called West Linn Police, who arrived to sweep the building just minutes later, but the thieves had already left the storage facility. They would return early the next morning.
Lewis says his unit was broken into again around 4:30 a.m., with the thieves making off with another $35,000 worth of items. In total, Lewis estimates $75,000 worth of items were stolen. Some of the items taken included a ground-penetrating radar system, sewer scopes and radon detector machines.
Lewis will keep providing inspections despite the setback, but he said he hopes fingerprints left from the suspects will help West Linn Police Identify them.