AUSTELL, Ga. — An Austell renter is trying to get her belongings back after she said her apartment complex mistakenly thought her unit was abandoned.
Te'ona Bol said the company went in and removed several items from her unit including furniture, a TV and jewelry.
She said she can't get answers from them about where her belongings are now.
"As soon as I came in, I noticed immediately. I'm missing an end table right there and table right there and my couches were messed up," Bol said in her nearly empty apartment.
Bol said when she returned to her apartment after being out of town for the weekend she immediately saw it was in shambles.
Someone had even removed her son's bed.
"All of my jewelry, sound system -- you can kind of see where they went through it, took whatever they wanted," Bol said, adding that clothes were left behind.
She shared emails with 11Alive that showed the apartment management team had contacted her while she was gone about entering her unit. Bol added that she replied within minutes, asking them not to go in until she got back.
Before she could return, she got another email stating they had drilled her locks.
The management company, Ru Me Property, wouldn't answer questions on camera about what happened but sent a statement saying in part, it had determined the tenant had abandoned the property and all efforts to provide proper notice and allow the tenant time to reclaim were documented. The company adds that it acted within contractual and legal requirements.
Bol said that she was up to date on her rent and doesn't understand how the company concluded the unit was abandoned.
"I understand they said the apartment was abandoned," Darryl Cohen, an attorney said. "Hardly if she was up to date with her rent could they conceive that it could be abandoned -- it was not abandoned."
He added that removing items from Bol's apartment would be against the law.
"It's called burglary -- that's a crime," he said. "They cannot come in there and if they took your items that's also theft in addition to the burglary. That takes it from a civil case to a criminal case, and what they did is abysmally wrong."
Bol said the apartment complex hasn't said where her missing items are – nor when they'll be returned.
"Between then stealing from me and what the rats have done, I'm literally left with nothing," she said. "I cried, I was completely distraught."
She filed a police report, but she said police told her this is a civil matter, not a criminal one.