A YOUNG family are dealing with the aftermath of a theft where valuable and sentimental items were stolen when their container was broken into.

Keegan and Michael Hayes planned to build a new home in Rosevale while living in a house elsewhere that was part of an employment agreement.

Their new house is being built on land left to them by Michael’s late father.

“We are selling our house and took a job out west so that for the first time ever I’d be able to spend time with my kids because they’re going to school this year,” Keegan said.

“We didn’t need to take all our things with us because the property we moved into was fully furnished.

“We also don’t have to pay rent and that gave us a chance to come back and build a house on the Rosevale property.”

Things took a turn for the worse when the Saturday before last Michael noticed the lock on the gate and container broken apart.

Someone had forced entry and ransacked their container.

“We can’t figure out how they’ve done it, they’ve left some items still in the container,” she said.

“It appears like they’ve taken what they could and run after shoving whatever fit into whatever they came in.

“We think it’s just been a onetime thing but the hardest part is there was a period of a week from when we were last at the container to when we rocked up on the Saturday to do our cattle work.

“We are not sure exactly when it was broken into.”

Keegan said her gut feeling was someone drove past and saw them loading the container or it’s someone who knows them and that they’d moved away.

“Not many people knew that we were storing stuff in there, most people thought we were taking everything with us, so maybe they’ve stumbled across it by accident,” she said.

“We feel like they’ve just rocked up, not really knowing what was in there and taken everything they can thinking they’ll go through it later.

“I’d labelled boxes and some containing higher priced items were left behind, but those were under other boxes so we’re assuming they didn’t have room and weren’t looking at what was on written on them, just grabbing and going.”

Adding to the heartache, Keegan was in the process of transferring from one contents insurance agency to the next and none of the stolen items were covered.

She said police attended and started an investigation, but so far there have been no leads.

“It’s not a very busy area, there are minimal houses but police have supposedly contacted all of [the neighbours],” she said.

“They’ve even gone 15 kilometres down the road and looked through security camera vision but couldn’t find anything.

“Being a rural area, my thought is they’ve had a cattle truck or truck and that’s not unusual around here.”

The Hayes family have listed multiple photographs of items missing from the container on social media.

Some items are sentimental keepsakes and easily identifiable.

If you have information on the burglary file a police report via Policelink 131 444 or phone Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.