USC students return to empty home after ‘misunderstanding’ by student housing complex

A University of South Carolina student’s start to the new semester is “the weirdest,” he says.

After some time away from campus spent with family, Paul Billinson and his roommates at the Palmetto Compress student housing development came back just after midnight on Friday to find their apartment emptied of all their belongings.

The rent was paid through the summer and all the bills were in order, according to Jerry Colletti of New York, one of the students’ fathers. One of the students was at the apartment two weeks ago before he left to visit his parents.

“They opened the door, and there was nothing in there,” Colletti said Friday. “They slept on the floor last night. No blankets, no nothing. No pillows, no toothbrush, no nothing.”

It turned out, though, that burglars weren’t responsible. Rather, the management at Palmetto Compress took the blame for the mistake and promised to make things right.

That didn’t diminish the shock Billinson and his roommate Joe Barish felt after driving from upstate New York and New Jersey, respectively, to find an apartment with nothing but hardwood.

Opening the door, “both of us felt sick to our stomach,” Barish said.

Televisions, beds, a sectional couch, laptops, desks, even watches and jewelery as well as underpants were gone, Colletti says. In total, belongings for six students were gone, including from the people who lived in the apartment and from others who had stored things there for a short time in preparation to move at the beginning of the new semester.

The situation was made a bit rougher when they found some of their stuff in the dumpster. They’ve salvaged what they could with the help of property management, but some memories are lost forever.

“Childhood pictures are gone,” Billinson said.

Palmetto Compress is owned by PMC Property Group of Philadelphia, which also runs the Olympia and Granby Mill student-housing complexes as well as 612 Whaley, a nearby student-housing apartment building.

At first, the USC students thought they had been robbed. But Josh Harding, a company regional manager, said it was a mistake.

“The whole thing was an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Harding said. “We assumed the contents to be abandoned. We didn’t understand it was occupied. ... We are working with all the occupants and all the parents to make this right and to compensate them for any and all belongings that cannot be recovered.”

Harding could not explain how this mistake was made. Nor could he elaborate on the process the company uses for cleaning out units believed to be abandoned.

He said the company has not accidentally cleaned out the wrong apartment before.

Brent Olsen, a property manager on site at Palmetto Compress, said it was a “big mistake” on his part. He declined to comment on what happened.

Colletti and the students said they haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer yet. From what the students pieced together, confusion about which apartment was meant to be cleaned out might have led to their unit being emptied instead of one nearby.

The students also said a property manager told them a TV belonging to them was at someone’s house and was being brought back.

Harding, the regional manager, said he was unaware of these claims, but the company will investigate what happened. “Anything relevant to this situation will be reviewed.”

Colletti and the students said they contacted the Columbia Police Department. But department spokesperson Jennifer Timmons said “the complaint is not a criminal matter at this time.”

The students had planned to move from one apartment to another in the building, and the dates and times of the move were established with management, the students say.

As they begin moving into the new unit with a few new items and some salvaged ones, Billinson is happy the company is attempting to make things right.

“They are trying to do everything right,” he said. As long as they fix the problem, “they’re fine by me; but if they don’t, we’ll have big problems.”

But there’s one bit of good news for him: He found one childhood picture that was important to him, he said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2018 at 6:16 PM.