KTKA

"When I walked into the house, I was being sprayed by water and I knew something was very wrong."

That was what greeted Gene Normandin when he returned to his new house, just two days after closing on the property.

"It was really very frustrating," he said.

In fact, 4,000 gallons of water had been pumped into his house, filling the main floor with several inches of standing water, seeping down into the basement through floor vents and destroying the home's heating and air conditioning system.

"The water in the house was turned on and it ran throughout the night, from the time the crime occurred until I was able to shut it off," Normandin said.

That crime was the theft of two sections of copper pipes where you would hook up the washer and dryer.

Normandin believes whoever broke into his home- knew the house was vacant and probably thought the utilities were turned off.

"They stole very little, I imagine the water being on forced them to flee," he said. "They decided not to finish the job and ran off with a very small amount of copper."

In fact, Normandin, a plumber who knows a thing or two about pipes, believes the suspect or suspects only got away with about $5.00 worth of copper, a small pay-off for a crime that ended up causing this family of $3,000 in damage.

"Seems like a real nice neighborhood that just had a bad seed running around it that night, and that's too bad," Normandin said.

The family says it will be several weeks before they can move into their home.

They hope the crime will be solved.

Police were able to get some sort of print from the window where the thief broke into the house.