FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. – There's a neighborhood crime alert in Fernandina Beach, where police said vandals broke into a beachfront home and caused tens of thousands of dollars' worth of damage.
It happened over the weekend, just weeks before the family building the home on South Fletcher Avenue was set to move in. But that's no longer the case, as the Brooks family's dream home is no longer livable.
"It's indescribable the emotion you feel when someone takes advantage of you like that," homeowner Bonnie Brooks told News4Jax on Wednesday. “We’ve made memories in this home, just by going and watching construction over the last month and we’ve seen it become our own. And to see that violated, we felt very vulnerable."
On Saturday morning, Brooks and her family woke up to word that their future home had been broken into.
The burglars didn't just break in to steal items, the police report shows, they also came to leave a mark.
Inside the house after the burglary, orange spray paint could be seen covering walls, windows, doors and more. Police said water was left on in clogged sinks and showers, flooding the upstairs before the water seeped through to the first floor.
The whole ordeal has been unnerving for Brooks and her family.
"We will obviously correct the damage and move in later than planned, but we’re not letting our children know what happened because we feel like they might be afraid to go to the house," Brooks said. "We obviously don’t want them to feel that way since they are so young.”
Surveillance images from a neighbor's security camera show a late model Ford Mustang at the house overnight.
According to the Fernandina Beach Police Department, neighbors reported seeing three men, appearing to be in their 20s, walking around the outside of the house on Friday night.
"It was rather sloppy and disorganized," Brooks said. "They left footprints. They left undergarments. They left evidence that made me think that this was definitely not perpetrated by someone who was organized or thinking clearly.”
The process to get the home in living condition will be a long one, as the damage to the home is estimated to be around $100,000.
Additionally, the police report notes, several hundred dollars in power tools were stolen.
Anyone with information that could help in the investigation is asked to call Fernandina Beach police.