A man living in a Dallas, Texas, building said his belongings were randomly removed from his apartment and tossed in the trash — an error made by management.
Johnny Abney and his daughter lived in a luxury mid-rise apartment called The Hamilton in Deep Ellum. He told KDFW management mistakenly entered the wrong unit and cleared his things in late July.
“They cleared out my refrigerator full of groceries,” Abney said during an interview with the news station. “They came to my door and cleaned everything out from my clothes to my daughter’s clothes, toothbrush, bathing items, pretty much left me with nothing.”
He added that people snagged his belongings from the dumpster after maintenance discarded them. Management admitted to the error and said maintenance was supposed to go into the unit next door, according to KDFW, citing a police report.
Items that management could recover from the trash were returned to Abney. However, he said that most of it was damaged. The next day, he was contacted by an agent who revealed that the apartment was not in his name and was being leased by his former girlfriend, who had moved out, the outlet reported. He was subletting the place and paid almost $3,000 per month.
Abney’s attorney, Jason Friedman, said that management “bullied” his client and gave him only 24 hours to sign a new rental agreement, according to the New York Post. When he refused, he was shown the door.
A lawyer representing the apartment complex said that if Abney submitted a new application, it would have been rejected because he violated the terms of the original lease agreement, per KDFW.
Abney plans on suing the apartment building for these actions. He said the situation impacted him financially, and he lost thousands of dollars worth of belongings. Personally, he told the Post that coveted items such as his grandmother’s urn and family photos also were thrown away.
In a GoFundMe fundraiser created last week, Abney said the situation has forced him to start over. He is reportedly staying with family for the time being.
“Me and my daughter will have to find a new place out of the blue and buy everything from scratch,” he wrote.
