After a summer of fixing up a house to call home, a Columbia Falls family is reeling after burglars made off with more than $38,000 worth of loot, leaving hardly anything behind.

John Woody said his family had just started moving boxes into their new home off Montana 206 near the Bad Rock Fire station last week.

The family was working on the home the night of Oct. 14 and locked it up before they left. After Wood went to his son’s soccer game the next morning he returned home to find that a lock on the back window had been broken. The house had been completely picked over by a thief.

A gun safe, two guns, ammunition and tools were among the valuables taken. The family’s winter clothes and a filing cabinet that contained important documents like birth certificates were stolen.

“They took my sink,” Woody said. “We got a brand new kitchen sink. They even took that ... They left us a few boxes, but not a whole lot.”

Woody said the monetary estimate of what was taken does not include the value of a 1968 Mustang that was stolen. The red car has a vinyl top and belonged to Woody’s grandmother.

A couple of weeks prior to the burglary Woody said one of the outbuildings had been rummaged through by someone who left a card saying that he or she had been looking at the property and wondered if it was for sale. Woody called the number but never received a response. Now he thinks that the card might have been a ruse by someone who was scoping out his home for the crime.

“A lot of stuff I don’t even know how they were going to sell,” Woody said.

Woody said he couldn’t offer ideas on how other people in the area could better protect themselves.

“My house was locked,” Woody said.

Anyone with information about the burglary is asked to call the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office at 758-5585.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.