<\/p>\n
The Hursts found their entire home stolen when returning from a trip. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
When a couple recently got home from an out-of-state work trip, they found their home was gone \u2014 literally.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t a tornado or fire that wiped out their house \u2014 their tiny home had been stolen from their property by bandits who towed it away hastily in the night.<\/p>\n
Part-time handyman and life coach Lester Hurst and his wife, Helena Peters Hurst, have lived in the 26-foot tiny home they designed and built from scratch since 2019 in multiple locations across the US.<\/p>\n
They moved it to their 10-acre property in Burning Springs, KY, last year. It had been a great living situation \u2014 until Sunday, May 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pulled onto our property after our trip, and noticed muddy tire tracks,\u201d Hurst tells Realtor.com\u00ae. \u201cThen when we pulled up to where the tiny home had been, and it was gone. Our deck had been thrown aside. They cut the hitch locks off, took it off its blocks, and pulled it out. All of our personal belongings were gone \u2014 sentimental stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is what the Hursts saw when they arrived home to find their tiny home missing, after thieves hastily towed it away. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
He says the thieves had also broken into their tool shop on the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey raided generators, power tools, stuff like that,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Hurst says he and his wife were in total shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t have any words,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the memories \u2014 like my wife\u2019s deceased father\u2019s pictures \u2014 were taken. It\u2019s almost like a house fire \u2014 everything was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peters Hurst says, \u201cThings like that have no value to anyone else \u2014 they\u2019re just sentimental to me. Who could be so heartless and take our home?\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Hurst had heard about tiny homes going missing from time to time, he wasn\u2019t particularly worried about it<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you think about, but we were not concerned enough to put an AirTag in it, unfortunately,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lester Hurst and Helena Peters Hurst build the rustic custom deck on their tiny home.<\/p>\n
After discovering the theft, Hurst says he and his wife immediately went to ask their next door neighbour if he\u2019d seen anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we went straight to the Clay County Police Department to file a police report,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Hurst says he and his wife are now doing whatever they can to recover their tiny home \u2014 which was uninsured \u2014 as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started putting it on Facebook and YouTube, and we\u2019ve done two news station interviews,\u201d he says. \u201cWe visited pawn shops in the area. We\u2019re talking to neighbours about outdoor cameras and footage. We\u2019re doing reverse image searches to see if anyone is trying to sell it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, they are living in a travel trailer equipped with a bed and a sink, and hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur tiny home always gets a lot of attention since it\u2019s custom and it really stands out,\u201d says Hurst. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that it\u2019s found soon, because we just want our home back.\u201d<\/p>\n
How homeowners can protect their tiny homes<\/p>\n
There have been a rash of tiny home thefts in recent months, but there are steps homeowners can take to protect their properties.<\/p>\n
Ryan Meagher, who works in business development at tiny-home builder Tinybox Systems, told Realtor.com that homeowners with mobile units should invest in wheel locks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is super important to lock up the mechanical features of the tiny home,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can put a wheel lock on by yourself, and can buy them from any large auto retail store.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meagher also suggests using a trailer receiver lock, an antitheft mechanism that ensures no one can drive off with your tiny home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many ways to complete this and many different solutions, but as long as no one can properly hook up to your trailer system without a key or a way to unlock the trailer receiver, then you shouldn\u2019t be dealing with any thefts in the future,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hursts found their entire home stolen when returning from a trip. Picture: Supplied When a couple recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-724237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}