Tenant accusing of lost items during room showing

[Carlos Lez]

Dear fellow members, I am confronted with a weird accusation that I haven’t seen in 15 years of managing student rentals. We have multiple properties rented to students living in different rooms. We start showing rooms to prospective tenants right around a month before lease expiration. We have a blurb in the lease that has the tenant agree that with a 24 hour notice we will be showing their room. We barely spend a minute in a room to show the layout to prospective students.
subsequent to a showing yesterday I get the following email. I am seeking advice on how to  address this and help me with a response. We don’t require but advise tenants to carry renters insurance which they usually don’t carry. We don’t know what transpired and if any of this is even true. The email;

when I returned to my room this morning I noticed that my room looked out of place. I know you guys had people come look at the rooms Saturday afternoon between 3 & 5. My suitcase was opened when I returned and I had a bag that was ripped in it. I know some of my drawers were left a little open and my heels were out of place when I returned. I took photos of how my room looked before I left with timestamps and took photos of how it looked when I returned with timestamps. I am concerned because I had money in my wallet that was left in my room that is now missing. I think that if you are showing people the rooms this is an invasion of privacy of someone to go through my things. And I expect the money to be returned to me.

[Chris Seveney]

@Carlos Lez

I agree with other poster and tell them they should notify the police as it was not us and someone else may have broken in and they should also contact their renters insurance.

This is a common scam we have seen all the time on the multifamily side and also tell people to take valuables with them or lock them away.