After he endured lot of grief and a $600-oil bill, Ceri Bowen's home is warm and being heated by fuel once again following a theft of the heating source from his tank in the Baranov Mobile Home Park.

Two days after Christmas, Bowen noticed his furnace wasn't running as it should have been at around 11 p.m., he said in an interview Friday afternoon.

Since he has his tank filled every month, it didn't occur to him he might be out of oil so he called his landlord to come and fix the furnace.

'I don't use $1,000 worth of oil in a month,' he said.

After his landlord worked on the furnace for about an hour and wasn't having any luck in getting oil into the system, he asked Bowen if he was certain the tank had oil.

Bowen, knowing the tank had been replenished a short time earlier, was adamant that it had, but when they went outside to check, there was none.

'It was completely dry,' he said.

This is the first time in the 14 years in total that Bowen has experienced such a problem in the trailer park, which is located off Wann Road in Porter Creek.

While he's lived in his current home for two years, he lived in the trailer park in the 1980s and '90s for 12 years.

'Fortunately, we weren't in the weather we're in now,' he said of the recent -30 C temperatures that have plagued the territory.

His trailer has back-up electrical heat that he and his wife used in the meantime.

After he had $600 worth of oil put in the tank, it took three days to get the furnace operating again.

And though he spent $600 on oil, his tank isn't completely full.

'At least we've got oil,' he said, after noting there hasn't been any oil taken from his most recent purchase.

This isn't the only tank Bowen has heard of having oil stolen from it. His landlord also rents out a mobile home in the Takhini Trailer Park which ran dry just days after $400 worth of oil was inserted, he said.

'Apparently, it's happening all over,' he said.

Bowen opted not to report the matter to the RCMP though, arguing that nothing would likely come of reporting the incident.

Bob Mitchell, with Robert Mitchell Petroleum Ltd., said he hasn't received a report of stolen fuel in the last month, but noted it certainly happens.

'It's going to be a problem,' he said, noting some thieves may not be able to afford fuel or choose not to purchase it legitimately.

He recalled receiving a call a few years ago from a woman who claimed her fuel had been stolen. When he went up to her house, he found the hose that was used as well as evidence of where the thieves had placed the cans for the oil.

Locking caps can be purchased for tanks, Mitchell said. His company permits customers to buy the locks directly from them so it's easier for those delivering the oil to open all the locks with one key rather than having a different key for each device.

In other cases, customers may believe their fuel has been stolen, but have used more oil than they thought and had simply run out.

A representative with North 60 Petro who would not give his name also said oil theft can be a problem, though the company has had no recent reports of it.