Thief Breaks Into Nearly 20 Claremore Storage Units

Claremore police are looking for the person who broke into more than a dozen storage units over the weekend.

Joel Smith, the owner of More Storage in Claremore, says 18 storage units were broken into.  He says whoever is responsible did it by tunneling through unit after unit before escaping.

“If he found something in one that he didn’t want to carry all the way back, he probably cut through the roof to throw it out,” said Smith.

He says he doesn’t believe anything of value was taken from the units, but the damage alone is estimated at around $30,000.

“Locks, repairing the building, loss of business, mainly repairing the roof,” stated Smith.

A customer alerted Smith to the break-in Saturday and Smith says he called Claremore police, but officers couldn’t find the person responsible.

Smith says, “I called the previous owner of this place, who I’m very close with, and asked him, ‘Hey, has anything ever happened like this before?’ and he goes, ‘No, nothing.’”

Smith wants his customers to know he’s addressing the situation and is adding security measures in order to prevent something like this from happening again.

He also has a message for the thief.

“Go out and get a job,” declared Smith.  That’s what I have to tell the guy.  Don’t mess with people that actually follow the rules and work hard and pay money to store their things.”