HOUSTON – One Houston car mechanic is now having to deal with the aftermath of losing all of her tools after she said her work van was broken after she left on leave on leave for medical reasons.
“Bags of tools, boxes of tools...everything. It was just gone,” said Devae Diodati, who has been a mechanic since she was 18-years-old. “That’s my livelihood. That’s how I make my money.”
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Having to take some time off from work for medical reasons, she parked her work van on Dec. 2 at the back of her apartment complex. However the next week, she said she went to get something out of the van and her heart sunk.
“When I walked up to it, I noticed that the doors were kind of not quite latched right,” Diodati said quickly realized things were not right. “The rear...it was cracked open. The locks were damaged. There was a dome lamp damaged in the front of the vehicle.”
However, the worst part was what she saw next.
“My tools were gone. Everything,” Diodati said.
Diodati said that after listing what was missing, she counted that she lost approximately $10,000 worth of work tools.
“I lost several sets of quarter-inch and 3/8s and 1/2 in impact sockets, deep and shallow,” Diodati said listing more tools. “I’ve asked my neighbors if they caught anything on their cameras they have not. I talked to the front office.”
She said she filed a report with the police but has not heard back.
For now, she said she set up a GoFundMe page in hopes to make up for her losses. She said she has a 3-year-old son to take care of. For now, she said her hands are tied.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do because I need those tools to do my job. And I can’t buy those tools without money that I don’t have,” Diodati said.