Imagine coming home to your apartment only to find that your sweet treats have been taken by someone else.
It would be bad enough if it were a roommate with sticky fingers who took your snacks. But what if you live alone?
One tenant of an apartment complex says she returned home one day after her apartment complex’s maintenance staff had been working in her unit—only to find that a sealed package of miniature Hershey’s Chocolate bars inside her refrigerator had been opened and eaten.
She says her package of Martinelli’s apple juice was also disturbed, and she found packaging for bottles of juice she did not drink in her trash.
An apartment’s maintenance mishap
In a video posted to TikTok, Brittany (@omoabrittany on TikTok) says she came home to find the mess of the items, which she found concerning as a tenant.
“Let me tell you how my apartment was getting some treatment done,” she says in the video. “I come back—I left this, this was sealed. I just bought this,” Brittany explains, pointing to the Hershey’s Chocolates bars in her fridge.
Brittany says the maintenance workers must’ve taken her treats.
“These people opened my fridge, opened the candy and was eating it and left it here for me,” she says. “OK, cool. I said, let me now come over here to check on some more of my snacks. They also drank my juice, and instead of being a good thief, they left the evidence—see them? See the evidence? What? What can possess you to enter somebody’s fridge that you don’t know? You came to work and you left. You ended up stealing. You ended up stealing my stuff. Jesus is lord.”
In the caption of her video, Brittany elaborates that there were even wrappers left around her apartment outside of the trash can.
“They even left candy wrapper on my balcony steps for me to see …. Just no shame,” the caption reads.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Brittany via email regarding the video.
Multiple viewers advised her to contact her leasing office to see if she could be compensated for the juice and candy that she says was taken by maintenance workers while they were in her home.
“Oh nooooo please call the leasing office omg,” one commenter wrote.
“I’m always home when maintenance comes in,” another said. “The nerve. call management.”
“I’d be on the phone with someone IMMEDIATELY!!!” a further user added.
In a follow-up video, Brittany says she reached out to hear leasing office before posting the video to TikTok, and replied to a commenter that she was going to be reimbursed for the items that were taken.
The history of maintenance workers with sticky fingers
Generally, the taking of someone’s property with the intent to deprive them of the use or access to their own property constitutes theft in a legal sense.
Maintenance workers have previously made national news for abusing their access to apartments to take items from them, as well as mailboxes and packages delivered to complexes where they work.
It is unclear based on the videos posted whether or not Brittany will seek legal action.
Others were of the mind that even if they usually offer some kind of refreshment to maintenance workers who repair parts of their home, they still preferred staff to only take what is offered to them freely by the resident.
@omoabrittany They even left candy wrapper on my balcony steps for me to see …. Just no shame 😭 #fyp #foryou #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp ♬ original sound – OMOA BRITTANY
“I’d gladly offer drinks, coffee ect,” one commenter wrote. “In fact I always make a habit of it, but to just take and rummage through cabinets/the fridge…. absolutely not.”
“There’s a difference between being given something vs. taking something,” another commented.
“I can’t imagine it would be okay to EVER just help yourself to someone’s stuff without given permission or being offered??” a third added.
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