DENVER - These days Tracey Valentine isn’t taking any chances.

“We have the alarm on the inside now.  The landlord put a sensor light in over here and put the door up,” Valentine said as she pointed out the improvements made to her home.

Valentine is beefing up security after a couple of crooks busted her window and let themselves in leaving muddy shoe prints throughout her house.

“The tracks were huge.  I went over and I’m looking at them and the tracks were actually sneaker prints,” Valentine said.

Neighbors later told Valentine they saw two men shoveling snow near her home earlier that day.  The men had shoveled a path right into her backyard and up to the window.  Valentine believes she came home before they had time to take anything.

“They only went so far into the hallway.  They didn't actually come into the living room.  If they had walked a couple feet further, they would've seen tons of presents that I hadn’t put under the tree yet,” Valentine said.

Valentine later learned from police it’s all part of a simple scam.  The men knock on a door.  If nobody answers, one will act as “lookout,” shoveling snow while the other burglarizes the home.  Valentine now wants to warn other people that the guys with seemingly good intentions are nothing but bad news.

“People don’t need to have gone out and spent their hard earned cash on gifts for their family and in case it snows again, and these people come back if that's their MO, the last thing you want is for all those expensive gifts to get stolen."

The city and county of Denver offers a snow buddies program to connect snow removal volunteers with senior citizens.  For more information, go to their website: http://www.denversnowplan.com/help-your-community