Ann Whitford of Cataline Drive discovered Sunday afternoon her ATV had been stolen Saturday evening.
It was a windy night, and she thought she heard a bang, but it wasn’t until around 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon when she went out to check on things that she discovered her 2008 red Polaris Trail Boss was gone.
“The irritating thing is that someone was home all evening at our house,” Whitford says. “The thief or thieves had to have been working for a couple of hours at our place.
“They broke our fence and had time to eat some chicken while they were here because they left their chicken box behind,” Whitford told the Tribune.
The thieves attempted to steal both Whitford and her husband’s ATVs, but only managed to take one.
“Mine was easier to hot-wire, but they totally wrecked the other one trying to steal it, too. I guess mine was easy access for starting without the key. And the creepy thing is they drove it out to the road too,” she said.
Whitford can only guess at the time frame of the theft, but said the last time she saw the machines was around 6 p.m. Saturday evening. She’s hoping someone from the public might have seen something.
The Whitfords had only pulled the ATVs out of the garage a few hours earlier because they planned to put them into winter storage on Sunday.
“The thieves had to be watching us and they must have only wanted quads because there were two Skidoos right beside the ATVs,” she says.
Estimating the value of her ATV at $3,000, Whitford noted she used it every day and is really hoping to get it back.
Since Sunday she’s been checking Internet sites to see if anyone is trying to sell it.
“It wouldn’t have a key,” Whitford added.
Whitford has lived in her home for more than 40 years and hasn’t escaped theft all this time, although most of the time it’s Christmas decorations that go missing.
“I figure decorations have minor value and if someone really needs them then they can take them. But this time I’m upset to think that someone was in our yard for a couple of hours and had to be watching our place,” she said.