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Theft in apartment complex

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thunked

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Colorado Springs, Colorado

Hello,

About 1 year ago I moved into an apartment complex in Colorado Springs, CO. After living here for several months, we got our garage broken into. I got my motorcycle, helmets, laptop, girlfriends jewelry and an urn with her late mothers ashes in them. After this happened I called the police and they told me there had been 8 incidents in the complex in the last month. I was shocked, as no one here had told me anything about that.

On my laptop I lost countless pictures, and my girlfriend is still grieving over losing her mothers ashes.

We had very tightly packed and LOTS of boxes in our garage that we just hadn't moved in yet.

Anyways, the police also told me they made several calls to the apartment complex to setup a neighborhood watch program in here - but the apartment complex did not respond.

So, in the weeks after this incident I setup a camera and was monitoring the complex closely. The apartment told me "we are going to replace the garage doors in a month". So my garage was basically unlocked until then and I was always up late at night making sure they wouldn't come and take other stuff - we took out all the valuables but we only have so much room in our apartment.

So as I'm out at night I tell residents that they might want to be extra careful about leaving stuff in their cars or garage that is even remotely valuable. ALL of the residents were completely shocked that they hadn't been informed of the string of breakins. So their response was to go to the office and ask what was going on?

Well I later get a call from the apartment complex manager and she asked me to stop talking to people about the breakins - theres nothing she can do and she's tired of talking about it. Meanwhile all 200+ residents are getting notices from the manager talking about "keep the noise down" "hey we're having poker night at the office" but not one mention of the very rampant breakins.

Now they're saying to renew my lease, and while they're lowering the rent for all the other new tenants mine is still 10% more than average for even bigger units.

Can I sue this shady complex to recover the monetary losses and to pay for the counseling that my girlfriend needs to deal with the loss of her mothers ashes? She was already a wreck about the loss of her mother, now losing the urn I think she needs counseling.

Thanks for any advice.
 


Cvillecpm

Senior Member
Probably not...you make claim for lost items on your renter's insurance and move at the end of your lease....why would you want to stay?
 

johnd

Member
Can I sue this shady complex to recover the monetary losses and to pay for the counseling that my girlfriend needs to deal with the loss of her mothers ashes? She was already a wreck about the loss of her mother, now losing the urn I think she needs counseling.

Thanks for any advice.

Hmmmmmm.

Can you sue? Sure.

Can you prove collusion? Most likely not.

Can you prove negligence? Probably not.

Counseling for mental anguish due to pilfered remains. When only the tenant is apprised of the contents in the garage (presumably the LL was not aware of a deceased's ashes in there). That's a novel concept. Hmmm. Most states have laws requiring the prompt placement (as in permanent) for deceased's ashes.

Next time you may want to immediately notify the LL in writing of any defects or security concerns, and if he does not repair in a reasonable period of time, promptly move out in order to mitigate your own damages.
 

aabbcc

Member
Theft at apartment complexes is fairly common. Always have renter's insurance and vehicle insurance.

You could try and find a better place to live when your lease is up. But, you may still have some problems with theft.
 

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