Police investigate 19 break-ins at Spartanburg storage facility

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Spartanburg police are investigating a string of storage break-ins at a Storage Rentals of America location on East Main Street.

Officers responded to facility on Saturday and given a list of 19 units that were burglarized.

“The way the area is set up sometimes, it can’t be seen from the street, and it looks like the suspect or the people who were breaking in were cutting holes into the backside of the fence. So, once they cut those holes in the back side of the fence, they can’t be seen from the roadway and then they are able to break into the storage units,” Major Art Littlejohn with the Spartanburg Police Department, said.

It is unclear when the break-ins happened.

“We don’t know whether it happened over a period of time or if they all happened the same day,” Littlejohn said. “That’s really important for people who rent storage units to understand that from time to time you need to go and check on your unit.”

Littlejohn recommends checking on your unit more frequently.

“If they are not checking it on a regular basis, they may not go back and check for another three, four, six months to a year and that’s when they discover they have some things that are missing,” he said.

In cases like this it is hard for renters to know exactly what was stolen.

“What is really important for someone to realize is that if they are going to rent a unit, when they put their things in there they need to inventory,” Littlejohn said. “If you have a television that you want to use later on, we suggest that you have a photograph of that. Not only a photograph, but a video with the serial number also recorded of the information that you have in your storage unit because if it’s a year or so later you may not remember everything that you actually put in your storage unit.”

Police also recommend renters invest in locks specifically designed for storage units and even their own cameras.

“A person could actually put a small camera inside the unit themselves, maybe a deer camera or something like that. That way if someone does break in that it’s alerted to them, they get that alert notification that someone is on their unit,” said Littlejohn.

Police also recommend taking time to do some research on a storage facility and what security a facility offers before storing your things there.

Anyone who has information on the break-ins can call the Spartanburg Police at (864) 596-2035 or 1-888-CRIMESC.

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