Lexington, Ky (WKYT) - The people who work at Habitat for Humanity spend their days building affordable homes for people here in the community. But recently, their work has turned into repairing and replacing.

"They're just cutting through the chain link fence and they're coming through and very quickly going under the trucks cutting out the catalytic converters," says CEO of Habitat for Humanity, Rachel Childress.

Employees showed up to work Monday and discovered that seven catalytic converters were stolen from the trucks that they use to haul materials to work sites.

This is the third time in just the past five to six months that the thieves have taken metal from the trucks and tools from the facility on East Loudon Avenue in Lexington. Staff say it's cost the organization about $10,000 and a lot of time.

"We have lost work time because we have to spend time going back and forth to get the trucks to the repair shop. We have to repair the fence. Now after three times, we are looking at increasing security measures to protect our property," adds Childress.

The organization already has several security features in place.

"We've got a six foot fence with razor wire, security gates, a security system on our building. We're going to have to add, what the police have told us we need to do is light it up like a football field and put in high resolution cameras. So that they can catch the thieves," Childress says.

Despite the additional costs that come with new security measures, staff are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the thieves out so that they can get back to building.