BOZEMAN — Did you know Bozeman Police recently recovered $130,000 worth of stolen items? But here’s the catch—most of these items were stolen from storage units. So, the question remains, how safe are storage units in Bozeman nowadays?
I talked to Randy Schubert, the owner of Bozeman Self Storage, and he says the business is no stranger to break-ins.
Bozeman Self Storage has about 400 storage units and has been operating for the last 15 years.
“The first five years of business we literally had zero issues,” Randy says.
But in recent years, Randy has noticed break-ins have become a bigger issue.
“They’ll cut a lock, come in, look real quick and see if they see anything small of value. Don't store your valuable stuff up front of a storage unit, by the way,” Randy suggests.
Which is why Bozeman Self Storage has invested in better security.
“We have alarms on all our units, individually, that are disarmed when somebody comes in through our gate,” says Randy.
Each unit gets its own individual code.
“Our system keeps a log right down to the second of all the activity on the doors and the gate. That coupled with cameras is very useful."
Security that could also help Bozeman Police crack cases such as this.
“Right now, we’ve had some major breakthroughs in one case where we recovered a whole lot of property from people from all over the valley,” Bozeman Police Detective Captain Dana McNeil tells me.
Around two weeks ago, 167 items worth over $130,000 were recovered by Bozeman Police from a local storage unit. McNeil tells me how these items were stolen.
“From what we’ve seen it is mostly the suspects cutting locks on other storage units. Cutting locks on storage containers. And just randomly stealing things," he says.
McNeil says items were stolen from construction sites and local businesses as well. And these items vary anywhere from outdoor sporting goods, to tires, e-bikes, all the way to generators.
“Think about anything you can store in a storage unit. And that's pretty much what we’re talking about.”
Now that Police have recovered these items and had to rent out their own storage units to house all the stolen property, what happens to all the stuff?
“Well, hopefully if you’ve had property stolen you’ve called us to report it stolen. So that when we do recover property like this, we’ll go through those reports and try and reunite it to you” says McNeil.
The problem with storage units?
“Sometimes like in these cases where people have had their storage units broken into, they may not even know it's been broken into yet,” McNeil says.
Unclaimed property is posted on Bozeman PD’s website for a period of time.
“Then if no one claims it, it goes up for auction,” says McNeil.
But for Randy, he hopes people who use storage units can work together to prevent these situations from happening at all.
“The most success we’ve had in stopping theft has been because someone's like, ‘This isn't right,’ and called us. Our tenants are actually our biggest assets when it comes to keeping our units safe,” says Randy.
McNeil tells me a prime suspect was arrested for stealing these items, and they will be charged with felony theft.
