DEA Raided My appartment, Now What!

[Nick D.]

I got a call from a tenant 2 days ago that there were several cops/agents at the apartment that I own and manage. It was the DEA, and they broke down the front door looking for a new tenant that just moved in recently and broke down his apartment door as well and raided the apartment.

My leasing agent ran the tenant search on the tenant and I read over the background report he sent me, and did not mention the drug trafficking history that this has turned into. After digging further into the situation the tenant was just arrested in Dec and released for distributing over 5000 bags of fentanyl and released on bond. How that didn’t show up in the background check, is beyond me.

Anyways, I went to stop by the apartment to see what happened, door lock was broken, and I looked in to see if anyone was there (since he lived with his girlfriend/wife and 1kid)

and the place looked trashed and abandoned. Hardly any furniture remaining, no beds and I saw the Warrant on the counter with what the police confiscated (guns,ammo,drugs the whole 9 yards).

So the apartment looks abandoned, I called the tenant with the warrant and his phone was off. I never have spoken or seen his girlfriend since they moved in. Since his phone was off and recently he was texting/emailed me about possibility moving out because He didn’t feel safe there, I assumed he moved out.

Turns out I was wrong and I had someone do a simple cleaning of the apartment the day after since it looked like they left. I had my cleaner leave like the table and folding chairs there, he basically cleaned out the garbage and food in the fridge so it wouldn’t rot.

Last night I got a call from the wife about her food missing and I tried to explain that it looked like you moved out. The door was open since the lock was busted in. I explained I tried calling her husband but his phone was completely off and now she’s heated over the situation. She’s hangs up the phone and one of my tenants called me and said she began dumping out the trash cans all over her parking lot and this has become a very messy situation.

I didn’t change the locks. I understand tenants had the right to privacy, that was not my intention. It looked like they moved out. I even left the bigger items there since I heard returned there for a trip back to the apartment to grab items. Apparently she didn’t grab everything. I have no idea if she even plans to live there still and I could use some help how to hopefully resolve this situation in the best manner.