Holes drilled in Vancouver resident’s gas tanks

VANCOUVER, Wash. (KPTV) - A handful of neighbors in Vancouver woke up to gas gauges on empty, even after many had filled up their trucks the day before. But their gas was not siphoned; someone had drilled a hole in their gas tanks.

One neighbor who was targeted by the gas thief, Will Swanson, has lived in this Vancouver neighborhood for more than a decade and said he’d never had any issues until Monday morning.

“I came out here and started my car and realized it was empty. So I drove down to the gas station, figured someone siphoned it because I just filled up two days before,” Swanson said.

But on his drive back from the gas station he noticed something was off.

“My gas meter just went down, it said 500 miles left in the tank, then a block later it went down to 470, down to 450, I got home then it was all the way down to 300,” Swanson said.

Even after filling up, he was back to where he started. And he wasn’t the only one.

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“I looked underneath and there is just a fine 3/8ths hole that is just leaking out of the gas tank,” Swanson said, “It’s a drill hole! He got the same thing right over there and so did the neighbor down the street.”

Vancouver police said they received multiple reports of drilled gas tanks from people who live on East 37th Street. Swanson called multiple body shops to see how much the repair would cost and turns out, that the hole could not be patched, and the whole tank will need to be replaced.

“It’s probably going to be around 2 to 3 thousand dollars to get it fixed,” Swanson said.

With Christmas right around the corner, it’s an added expense that wasn’t on anyone’s wish list.

“It’s frustrating to think people go that route to vandalize other people’s property for a minor benefit they just don’t understand how much that is costing not just me but the city as a whole,” Swanson said.

The drilled gas tanks have caused a larger mess for the whole neighborhood and the city. Because most of the trucks that were hit used diesel, Vancouver City Works had to come out and cover the streets with a special sand mixture to soak up any diesel that leaked as these trucks.