PHOENIX -- Several Valley real estate agents are doing their part to prevent a new kind of crime.

They are asking homeowners selling their foreclosed homes to sign disclosure forms saying they’ve been told stripping their homes is a felony.

"Now I can sleep at night know I've given my clients all the information," Cari Gililland said. "What they choose to do from that point is their decision.”

The east Valley Realtor said she is often surprised by what is missing from the foreclosed homes she is trying to sell to eager buyers.

"It just kind of blows your mind that someone would do that,” she said.

Gilliland said owners of foreclosed homes started stripping their homes about one year ago, at the height of the foreclosure crisis.

"People will take the light fixtures. They’ll take the sinks. They'll take the kitchen cabinets. They'll take the carpet. All kinds of stuff. They'll take anything. Anything they can get their hands on,” she said.

"I've never seen anything like this,” Debbie Davis said.

She has worked as a mortgage banker for 18 years.

Before the foreclosure crisis, she had never heard of homeowners in foreclosure stripping their homes; now, however, it’s a problem for every real estate agent she works with.

She encouraged them, including Gilliland, to have clients sign disclosure forms about the consequences of stripping a home.

She said it protects the real estate agent from legal action.

She also said many homeowner don’t realize appliances and fixtures in their foreclosed homes belong to the bank.

"It's certainly not a problem that we're done taking care of or done dealing with,” Davis said.

Gilliland said stripped homes are harder to sell because stripping a home lowers its value and the value of homes surrounding it.

She hopes informing clients of foreclosed homes that they are committing a felony if they take anything will discourage them.

If it doesn’t, the FBI might.

Agents tell CBS 5 News they are going after homeowners who strip foreclosed homes.

Kailash Bhatt, 43, was indicted in April for selling countertops and cabinets on Craigslist that he took from a foreclosed home he owned in Anthem.

The FBI has arrested four other homeowners, and it said more arrests are on the way.