As the targets of burglars and thieves rise, fall and shift, one type of business has recently found itself in criminals’ crosshairs — storage unit complexes.

Over the last two months, about a dozen complexes have been burglarized across Flathead County and even south into Lake County.

Among the most brazen burglaries was one on Walsh Road in Kalispell, where the culprits cut a hole in the fence and then cut the locks off 12 units, as well as the recent attempted burglary of several storage units, at least one containing items belonging to the Hockaday Museum of Art.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said his department believes the string of burglaries are connected.

“As with most of these similar MO property crimes, as a general rule they’re connected and the responsibility of the same person or group of people,” Curry said. “We have had several and certainly are focusing our attention on those right now.”

That attention has begun to slow the occurrence of the crimes, which Curry said are cyclic.

“As we catch one group it seems like there’s always another group that targets a different type of property,” he said. “We don’t have the people responsible for these crimes yet, but we have some things to work on.”

At Lakeside Mini-Storage, manager and former owner Martin Tetachuk said he had been lucky, with just three break-ins over the last 21 years.

“The latest one was in May I believe, early May, and we had 12 units broken into out of 60,” Tetachuk said. “To our knowledge, the only thing that was taken was two bicycles out of one unit. They didn’t ransack them all, they just cut the locks, went in and peeked, took these two bikes and that’s all.”

Tetachuk seconded Curry’s statement about the burglaries generally being perpetrated by one group of people.

“One time we got broken into, they went all the way from Arlee up into Kalispell breaking into units,” he said. “It’s a little crew that travel around.”

Having a prior 18-year career in law enforcement himself, Tetachuk said he didn’t fault police for the break-ins.

“Between law enforcement, pawn shops and storage owners, we’re doing what we can,” he said. “It’s hard to do anything about it, we’re just fortunate it doesn’t happen more often.”

Tetachuk said he did think penalties for the crime should be a little higher.

Pam Reeb, who owns Columbia Falls Mini-Storage, offered her advice to renters of storage units to keep from becoming a target.

“I always say don’t bring anybody to your unit that you don’t want knowing what your stuff is, and don’t tell them what your unit number is,” Reeb said.

Reeb said she was lucky enough that they have not had any break-ins for a long time. She credited that largely to the fact that their manager lives on the property.

For his part, Curry recommended renters use some sort of high-security lock, anything that’s hardened and difficult to cut off.

“Just pay attention to what you’re buying,” Curry said.