Roommate moved out and took a bunch of MY stuff! (grandmother, college)
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Based on my own experience, you're screwed. Consider it gone and a lesson learned.
I had a similar thing happen shortly after graduating college where a random roommate we took in to fill out the house skipped rent, stole a bunch of our stuff, and disappeared. We called the police and filed a report but the officer flat out told me that since the value of what was stolen was only around $500 they weren't likely to recover it. True enough, they accomplished nothing. We eventually tracked the guy down, but since he had moved back with his parents out of state we were told that even if we pressed charges there is nothing they'd do if he didn't voluntary show up to court since it's just a misdemeanor.
Oh, and we were threatened by the police because we took some of his stuff that he left and locked it in a room that he didn't have access to, with the intent of giving it back to him when he gave our stuff back. That's also considered theft and since they had us right there they would persecute us. Obviously, we put it back in a public area and he managed to sneak in at night or when we weren't around and get it back. Changing the locks was similarly illegal within the first month or so. Needless to say, we weren't pleased by the situation.
Based on my own experience, you're screwed. Consider it gone and a lesson learned.
I had a similar thing happen shortly after graduating college where a random roommate we took in to fill out the house skipped rent, stole a bunch of our stuff, and disappeared. We called the police and filed a report but the officer flat out told me that since the value of what was stolen was only around $500 they weren't likely to recover it. True enough, they accomplished nothing. We eventually tracked the guy down, but since he had moved back with his parents out of state we were told that even if we pressed charges there is nothing they'd do if he didn't voluntary show up to court since it's just a misdemeanor.
Oh, and we were threatened by the police because we took some of his stuff that he left and locked it in a room that he didn't have access to, with the intent of giving it back to him when he gave our stuff back. That's also considered theft and since they had us right there they would persecute us. Obviously, we put it back in a public area and he managed to sneak in at night or when we weren't around and get it back. Changing the locks was similarly illegal within the first month or so. Needless to say, we weren't pleased by the situation.
Good grief. Which cousin of his worked on that police force? :-) I can't understand why changing your OWN locks was "illegal" after he had moved out.
Good grief. Which cousin of his worked on that police force? :-) I can't understand why changing your OWN locks was "illegal" after he had moved out.
lol he knew no one on the police force that I'm aware of.
Regarding the locks, technically they weren't ours since we were renting from a landlord. I think changing them had something to do with the laws around evicting a tenant and the time they're provided to retrieve their stuff. The reason for the eviction doesn't matter. I think we also hadn't officially provided him a notice of eviction so we couldn't do anything to prevent his access to the house until after we did so and allowed the appropriate time to pass. Honestly, this was 15 years ago now, so I'm pretty hazy on the exactness of it.
If your ex-roommate is employed, and if the total worth of what she took is $500 or more (this may vary from state to state), see if small claims court is an option.
If you have photos of any of the missing items, provide them to the police along with your report. Give detailed descriptions of everything, especially the heirloom jewelry, and notify local pawnshops (give them the pictures, too - but as part of the police report to verify that they really were yours and you're not attempting an end run yourself).
And yes, call the police right now, or better yet, go down to the police station in person and file a report and talk to a detective. If you have no photos, draw pictures if you can. They don't need to be artistic, just recognizable.
Good luck. Your best bet for recovery is via a pawnshop or jewelry store which is not too fussy about where their vintage jewelry came from. You may have to buy it back yourself - but at least you'd have it. Keep an eye on Craigslist and e-Bay, too, as well as local auction houses and other places where vintage jewelry can be purchased.
See if you can find heirloom jewelry like yours on Ruby Lane etc,
rather than eBay, where they de-value items of worth.
Document all the similar items on other "better" auctions and antique sites
so to "do your homework".
The judge will use those numbers on your behalf when making a fair monetary assessment.
File a police report, and see where it goes, maybe you can get her to return the stuff with the threat of legal action.
In reality, unless you have proof that she took the stuff, not her boyfriend, a friend helping her move and guest at the party she had while you were gone, etc... there is very little that can be done. You are assuming it was her, a good assumption, but assumptions don't hold up in a court.
I am fuming right now! So I had a roommate, we'll call her Jessica. We roomed for a year and things quickly became...not good. She was originally a friend of a friend and she needed a place after she broke up with a ex bf and let her move in. She was on the lease and everything but she ended up being a horrible roommate, she was gross, left things all over, would just come in and throw her crap on the ground, would leave dirty dishes on the table, when she brought some of her stuff in from her storage place we ended up with a huge bug problem including cockroaches! Had to basically have the apartment bug bomb the place three times before we got rid of them all. Also, bed bugs.
She did pay her half of rent and utilities but I'd have to bug her to pay up or she'd say she "just forgot" or "had some issues"....always an excuse. Then she'd bring guys over and start making out on the couch right in front of me instead of taking it to her room. When I confronted her she'd say "hey the living room is mine to!" finally she met a new guy and she left to live with last week, I was gone for three days visiting my father while she moved out. I come home and turns out a ton of my stuff is missing, including sentimental stuff. Some more mundane stuff such as some DVDs/Blu-Rays, to two of my jackets, to some very sentimental stuff such as some jewelry I received from my mother after she passed!
I don't know where exactly her new bf lives but even if I did I bet she pawned it off by now. I doubt the police would care anyway. I just don't understand how people can be so heartless, rob you blind and hurt you without a care in the world. Especially when I let her move in as my roommate mostly to help her after her old bf issues. Then again on more than one occassion I overheard her lie on the phone to her parents and even to her employer about things willy nilly. Even called her work saying her grandmother died and she wouldn't be able to come in when really she just wanted to go out that day with her bf.
Nothing here says the OP contacted the ex-roommate to ask for the stuff back. That's the first thing the cops would say.
Pawn shops are usually required to hold things for a certain amount of time before they can put them for sale.
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