PITTSFIELD — If the U.S. Secret Service had simply asked her, Alicia Powers would have gladly allowed its agents to use her hair salon — across from a parking lot at the back of the Colonial Theater — as a resting place on the day of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Pittsfield.

“I’m the type of person who would have provided them with coffee and doughnuts if they had asked me for permission,” said Powers, the owner of Four One Three Salon at 54 Wendell Ave.

But they didn’t ask Powers or their landlord, she said.

Instead, they taped over a security camera on the back porch, broke into the salon, used the restroom, ate the mints on the counter, and left the room without cleaning up the restroom or locking the back door on the way out.

Powers said the Secret Service’s Boston office apologized on behalf of the agency. She also said Pittsfield police officers, all the way up to Police Chief Thomas Dawley, have helped and supported her in her efforts to hold those responsible accountable.

The person she spoke to at the Secret Service confirmed that the woman who overheard the Ring camera at about 8:12 a.m. on July 27 was from the agency. She also said the agency offered to cover cleaning of the salon and any damages, and also foot the bill for the business’s private alarm system “because it was going off for so long.”

“I was pleased with his apology. It’s a little bit of accountability. Again, I didn’t mean to do anything,” Powers said.

What particularly disturbed her, however, was that the agents left the room so vulnerable after they left.

“We’re a small company. We’ve all worked incredibly hard to build this company,” she said. “This is our livelihood. And it could have been taken away from all 12 of my employees in an instant.”

A voicemail message left Friday at the Secret Service’s Boston office seeking comment went unanswered by press time Friday, but Secret Service spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie told iBerkshires, which first reported on the incident, that the agency had reached out.

“We value these relationships highly and our staff would not enter a store or direct our partners to enter a store without the owner’s permission,” McKenzie said, according to the report.

Even though the apology helped, Powers still feels hurt, disrespected and a little angry.

“When they cleaned up, they left the tape on my camera and my back door completely unlocked,” she said. “What could have happened in the hour and a half or two hours that you left the building unlocked?”

A native of the city, Powers worked in salons across the country before opening Salon Four One Three in a former law office over five years ago.

The Secret Service first contacted Powers that Tuesday and conducted a security search of the building on Thursday. In the meantime, Powers headed to Cape Cod for a vacation he had already planned.

At 8:12 a.m. on Saturday, Powers was alerted by her phone that something was going on on the salon’s back porch.

“She walked around the porch, walked around the side of the building and then jumped back on the porch, grabbed the chair, jumped up and snapped the camera,” Powers said of what the footage showed. “That caused the camera to go completely black.”

Powers drove home from Cape Cod, arriving at 1 p.m. and checking her phone upon arrival, told her that people began entering the building at around 12:42 p.m.

How does she know? “Because I have cameras everywhere,” she said.

For two hours, people came and went from the salon, she said.

“From the communications I heard from the emergency responders, someone dressed all in black was telling them all afternoon to come in and use the restroom,” she said. She heard a similar story from Berkshire County sheriff’s officers as she drove to work at 4 p.m., after the crowd that had gathered to catch a glimpse of Harris had gone home.

Powers contacted Pittsfield police and told them what had happened. They confirmed that the officers had not used the salon’s restroom and then put her in touch with a Secret Service representative in New York.

“He told me it couldn’t have been them; that’s not their job. They’re asking permission,” Powers said she was told this by the New York Secret Service. “And he ended the conversation by asking, ‘Do you think we need to deal with this now, given what’s going on here?’ And my response was, ‘Sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t deserve to deal with this now, either.'”

Powers said she doesn’t normally seek media attention. “That’s not OK,” she said, however. “I’m a very private person. I don’t normally put myself on display like that. … I just wanted some kind of accountability.”