An Austin man was charged Monday with two counts of felony burglary for allegedly stealing two different lawn mowers during broad daylight.

Scott Aaron Ellis, 37, is in Mower County custody and awaiting a court date. In addition to the two felonies, he also faces a third count of misdemeanor theft.

According to a criminal complaint, a 34-year-old Austin woman called police on Friday at around noon to report that a lawn mower had been stolen from her garage in the 1000 block of Eighth Avenue Northeast.

The woman said she knew the suspect but not by name, and she described him as a white man in his 40s. She said the man had mowed her lawn for her on several previous occasions and she had paid him cash.

The woman also said she had noticed things missing from her garage before but she wasn’t sure if the suspect took them.

A neighbor told police that the same man routinely walked through the neighborhood and asked people if they needed their lawns mowed, the complaint states.

Police later found Ellis, who matched the first woman’s description, with a lawn mower on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Eighth Street northeast. The mower was not the reported missing one, but police asked Ellis about the reported theft, and he allegedly said, “If I show her where it is, is she still going to press charges?”

Ellis then admitted that he took the mower from her garage, but ditched it in a bush because it wasn’t working, the complaint states. He said be “borrowed” the second mower that police found him with. Ellis was then arrested.

The first mower was found in a nearby bush, and both mowers were returned to their owners.

Records indicate that Ellis has a lengthy criminal history, which includes a number of theft and burglary convictions.