Today the Roanoke Times published a story about the increase in lawn equipment thefts this summer. Area officals are encouraging homeowners to go to greater lengths to protect their lawn equipment, including:

- Lock lawn equipment in a shed

- Permanently and uniquely mark equipment (engraving is a great idea)

- Record model and serial numbers of all lawn equipment

"One morning last month about 10:30, Charlie Hartman pulled up to his house just in time to see two strangers driving away with his flatbed trailer hitched to their truck. Parked on the trailer was his $4,000 Cub Cadet riding mower. Hartman, 56, a Vinton contract landscaper, had just stopped at home on his way to a doctor's appointment. Suddenly he found himself in a car chase down East Virginia Avenue, up South Pollard Street and past the police station.

'If I'd been two minutes earlier, I'd have been right on top of them hooking it up,' he said.

Two days after that, Hartman said, he was at a Roanoke used car dealership when the same truck rolled onto the lot with his trailer. The driver, he thinks, was looking to sell it.

'When I went to question him, he took off real fast,' said Hartman, who later found the trailer, minus the mower, abandoned a few blocks away. He has identified a suspect from police mug shots, but hasn't gotten his Cub Cadet back. 'I've been here 17 years and not even had as much as a toothpick taken from my yard. I keep everything now locked up like Fort Knox,' he said.

He's not alone. Although Vinton police and the Botetourt County Sheriff's Office said they haven't noticed a significant rise in thefts of lawn equipment, many other areas are citing a sharp increase. Roanoke did not submit information. Salem police Lt. Mike Green said that since mid-May, there have been about a dozen reported thefts of lawn equipment in the city, including trailers, riding mowers, pressure washers and leaf blowers."

Read full story.