My grandfather is a retired coal miner. He has an old car wash in his town that he converted to his shop. Has tools in it. Lots of his "projects" of his outside such as a loader, bulldozer, tractors etc that he intended to get going but ran out of time...

Hospice has been called in and he was taken to a nursing home basically to die. This town in Indiana where he lives is kind of depressed since the mine shut down. From what I understand lots of low lifes and meth heads. (I live about 3 hours away in Kentucky).

Well, just yesterday some low like stole a 1200 trailer of his and broke into his building and stole a bunch of stuff.

My mom is the executor of the estate and I will be going up there several times to take pictures of all his posessions to document everything.

My desire to weld, work on machinery and in general metalwork came from him.. I don't do it for a living, but as a hobby.

My questions is, is there anything I can do to protect/detour would be thieves from doing any more damage? The police have been notified, but it is a tiny town with only one Barney Fifth cop.

Any advice is appreciated.