A single mother was shaken final week to seek out that every little thing she owned had disappeared from her new house.
Stephanie Gunia had simply moved into an Inwood Village house in La Vista, Nebraska, along with her three kids. The household had solely been residing there per week when she walked in to find every little thing gone. It turned out that her personal constructing administration was at fault, mistaking the household’s move-in for a move-out.
Gunia works a demanding job as a retailer supervisor at Kwik Shop, the place she had already put in 54 hours by Thursday final week. She picked up her youngsters aged 1, 3 and seven, and arrived house to seek out their house empty.
“I knew something was off when I first walked through my door and I didn’t see my doormat on the floor,” the distraught mom instructed Newsweek. “I look up and I see just a mattress in my hallway.”
Stephanie Gunia
At first, the constructing administration advised that she had been burglarized. She referred to as the police, however an officer discovered simply the locked door and home windows and no signal of pressured entry.
A neighbor instructed Gunia that he had seen two individuals carrying gadgets out of her house and tossing them within the trash exterior.
The mother was pressured to dumpster dive for her life’s belongings. The groceries she had simply purchased, her kids’s toys, and all their garments had been blended with trash throughout 5 completely different dumpsters.
“A lot of it was damaged,” Gunia mentioned. “You can’t really save most of it because it had beer and trash goop all over it.”
Some gadgets had been by no means discovered, together with money that was within the house, Easter treats for the youngsters, their social safety playing cards, jewellery, and priceless household heirlooms. Gunia refused to let her kids sleep on mattresses dug out of the trash.
Richdale Management Company, which operates Inwood Village residences, reportedly instructed Gunia that movers had been trying to evict a tenant and cleared out the improper house. The advanced issued Gunia a $250 present card. According to Gunia, the advanced additionally promised to ship cleaners to her house, however they by no means confirmed up.
The single mother mentioned her kids had been traumatized and struggled to know the incident, notably her 7-year-old son who’s autistic and has ADHD. Now he begins crying every time they strategy the constructing and begs to not go inside.
“Money cannot replace the hurt my kids are feeling or the family heirlooms, those ultrasound pictures, the baby books,” Gunia mentioned. “The main part I’m upset about is my kids losing their safe space.”
Even when property is deserted by a former tenant in Nebraska, landlords are required to offer discover earlier than disposing of their possessions. The former resident has seven days to say property if the discover is personally delivered by their landlord and 14 days if the discover is mailed, in accordance with authorized writer Nolo.
Newsweek reached out to Richdale Management Company for remark.
Update 4/20/22, 10:12 AM ET: This story has been up to date with remark by Gunia to Newsweek.