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Roomate stole & vandalized property, do I have a strong case?

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S

Shoppergirl

Guest
I let a mom I know (her DS is best friend's w/my ds) move in w/me on temp. basis. After less than 3 weeks I told her I'd like her out by the end of the following month, and told her not to pay me, but save her money so she could make other living arrangments.

Several petty things led up to this, but the thing that made her most angry is that she snuck her BF in my house in the middle of the night, after I specifically told her I never wanted to see her BF in my house at all - especially at night. She told me he was sick in hospital, all drugged up and couldn't drive home. I didn't belive this & told her so. She was very angry.

On the day she moved out she had her 20 year old DS & one of his freinds load the heavy stuff into her BF's truck. Her BF stayed outside. When the truck was all loaded, they all left but her...she was upstairs getting smaller boxes together. Me & my kids left breifly to go to the store - they were excited about having their room back. When we came back, she was just leaving my driveway....her BF in his truck in front of her, her 20 year old DS was not there.

When we went upstairs, we were greeted to a rotten pumpkin smashed into my carpet, a huge pile of garbage thrown together and several of my personal belongings thrown on top of that. Outside, she placed a pile a used kitty litter in my neighbor's yard, an elderly woman I sometimes have trouble with due to garbage flying out of my cans into her yard. Also, she had about 20 house plants in my front yard that all died, so she dumped them all out of their containers & left the large dirt clumps all over my front yard. She also ripped a toilet paper holder off the wall.

At first, I thought this was just an irrational childish act and immediatlly started cleaning up the messes. After we got things in order I realized she stole my cell phone. At first I wasn't 100% sure, as I sometime misplace it. But I knew I left it by the front door when I left, she placed some boxes in front of it, and now it was gone.

I turned the service off while I searched, I didn't want to accuse her unless I was 100% sure. Then as the day went on I realized she took several personal items of mine that I allowed her to used during her stay. So I filed a theft report against her.

It took the police a month to finally catch up to her, and of course she denied everything and acted surprised. The police couldn't do anything because she needed to either admit it or they had to find my things in her possession in order to charge her. She did agree to take a polygraph test, but 1 week later changed her mind and told the police to leave her alone, she didn't do it.

My kids can testify to the messes we came home to, and the missing items. But my DS, 9, is afraid since he is best freinds with this woman's DS. Obviously, I won't make him testify, but I think my 7 yr old DD will. I'm thinking we can prove that based on the messes she left she was in a very angry state of mind, and it's not unreasonable to assume that she went one step further and stole my things out of vengence.

What do you think?
 


J

JackieTroll

Guest
You cannot prove she stole your items. You lose. Don't believe me? Wanna bet? (yes. am compulsive gambler).
 

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