And this just reminded me of an incident I had with a storage garage (well, smaller than a garage, but they had garage sized ones there). I hadn't been there for over a year. I came to get some stuff out and could not open the padlock at all. The key would not turn (and I was sure I had the right one). I bought another padlock and contacted the manager to assist in having the old one removed (their policy was any time a padlock was to be broken for reasons like this, contact them so they know it's going on). The manager came out to help with monster bolt cutters in tow. But the first thing he did after trying the key (which didn't work for him, either) was just grabbed the lock by hand and pulled hard on it. It popped right open. He said that often happens when they are weathered bad enough that the key won't work.
Now I doubt a small kid would have the strength or confidence to do that. But possibly some teens might have done something like that, or used some other tools to gain entrance, and left the disabled padlock there, or removed it entirely. We just don't know. A very thorough investigation might have fingerprinted the entire transformer box, but especially around the lock(s), and worked to rule out each print found.
