Habitat for Humanity is out thousands of dollars after thieves stole catalytic converters right out of their trucks over night.

Abby Glenn with Habitat for Humanity said workers went out to start their cars like any other morning.

"We found out that we got a lot of property damage and damage to our vehicles," she said. "They came in and started our trucks and heard something wrong and did some investigating and found that the catalytic converters were stolen out of our vehicles."

The non-profit's biggest box truck was hit. Glenn said that truck alone could cost them up to $3,000.

"We're going to be impacted both financially and just time and progress wise," she said.

Glenn said the money will have to be pulled from their recent donations.

One of the average prices of one of the repairs that we do for our critical repair program is $2,500," she said. "That money is taking away from the neighbors who need repairs to their homes, so we're really appreciative of the donations that we get at the Christmas time in the holiday season, but some of those donations now are going to be diverted to fixing our trucks so it's kind of an unfortunate time for us.

Glenn said police told them their call was the second report Tuesday morning of a missing catalytic converter.

Tim Hess with Rick's Automotive said their shop has seen the rise in thefts first hand.

"We've had at least two fleet vehicles in the last 48 hours," he said.

Hess said a stolen catalytic converter can sell for a few hundred bucks.

"Unfortunately there's platinum and zinc and precious metals within the converter that make them that valuable," he said.

Getting them replaced isn't cheap.

"Those vehicles ended up being well over $1,000 to repair," Hess said. "It's substantial."

He said the converters don't come with a serial number on them, but you can have one engraved.

"There's not a lot the consumer can do other than park their car kind of in a heavily trafficked area where there's a lot of foot traffic [and it's] well lit," Hess said. "Don't park on the corner of a parking lot where it's dark."

He said the converters are about the size of a fire extinguisher. Hess said these parts can be taken off fairly quickly, but the process is loud.

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