Thieves in Mojave, Calif., took the definition of mobile home a little too literally.

Someone drove off with a two-story, 10-ton modular home that Statewide Homes of Grass Valley had just opened as a branch office.

“Who steals a house?” asked Statewide Homes' president, Sheri Murray.

The company had trucked the 50-foot-long, 11-foot-wide modular home to Kern County to serve as its Southern California office, Murray said.

“We had just started getting it up and running,” she said. “My husband and I have been commuting back and forth.”

Murray traveled to Mojave Feb. 16 and spent two days working on the office.

“I left on the 18th, and the night of the 18th, a tow truck hooked up to it and took it away,” she said.

The next morning, a mortgage broker who is renting part of the office called to ask whether they had decided to move the office, because it was gone, Murray said.

At least one eyewitness has come forward, and media reports have brought in several tips, Murray said.

“The thing weighs 20,000 pounds, and they hooked it up to a regular tow truck,” she said. “They couldn't have gone very far with it.”

The mobile home was located on Highway 14, which she called “one of the busiest highways out there; it's the main highway between Los Angeles and Mammoth,” Murray said.

Of course, she added, it's not that unusual to see a mobile home going down the road.

The mobile home is worth $45,000, Murray said, and she is not sure whether her insurance will cover the loss.

“Nobody has ever heard of a house getting stolen,” she said. “I guess that's what our economy has done to people.”

Contact Staff Writer Liz Kellar at lkellar@theunion.com or (530) 477-4229.