After their apartment threw out their things, USC students will be paid thousands

After returning to their Columbia apartment last weekend to find all their belongings purged, five University of South Carolina students will receive approximately $2,000 to $5,000 each from the apartment company, according to the father of one of the students.

Instead of a sweet send-off for her college-bound son, Jerry Colletti’s wife trekked from New York to Columbia last weekend to spend $2,500 on new furniture for their son’s apartment at the Palmetto Compress complex.

“Her and my son were putting together a desk all Sunday,” Colletti says.

It was all because of a mistake by the property management group that gutted their son’s apartment, leaving his and his roommates’ belongings in a dumpster and other scattered locations or completely missing.

Now the property management company is trying to make the situation right.

After some “negotiations,” Colletti said, the property management company is initially paying in the range of $2,000 to $5,000 to each of five tenants whose belongings were thrown out. The initial payout comes while a final list of missing items and values is put together for repayment.

“What we have is a little bit of money for a bed and a desk and (other items) for getting back on their feet before school starts,” Colletti said.

Josh Harding, a regional manager for the company that owns Palmetto Compress, would not confirm the initial dollar amount but said, “It’s being handled with all the other families as a private matter.”

One of the students confirmed they received $5,000 from property management.

On Friday, just after midnight, two USC students, Joe Barish and Paul Billinson, returned to their apartment at Palmetto Compress after a few weeks away. When they opened the door, all their belongings were gone. In total, five students’ possessions were missing, including items belonging to the people who lived in the apartment and others who were storing things there before they moved to a different unit at Palmetto Compress.

“Both of us felt sick to our stomach,” Barish said, after he and his roommate first saw inside their apartment.

Some of the belongings were found in a dumpster. Others couldn’t be located. But Barish and Billinson said a property manager told them that a TV was at someone’s house and being returned. Colletti said he recently heard that a couch was at a security guard’s house. Harding denied hearing similar claims.

Based on information received by the Columbia Police Department, the matter is not criminal yet, but is a still civil case, said CPD spokesperson Jennifer Timmons.

Aside from one on-site property manager calling the ordeal a “big mistake,” Palmetto Compress officials haven’t explained how or why the furnishings were thrown out. Harding called the incident an “unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Harding said the fully furnished apartment was assumed “to be abandoned.”

Billinson said he’s replacing the basics with the $5,000 he received — furniture, dishes, his wardrobe and other items, as well as decorations if he can.

“It has been truly a nightmare,” Billinson said, “but I’m glad the company is actually following through to some extent, and at this point we just have to wait for them to reimburse us so we can replace the other things that were thrown in the dumpster.”

“It looks like they are prepared to do the right thing” by compensating the students for their losses, Colletti said.

A list of all the missing belongings is being sent to property management. Harding said the company plans “to compensate them for any and all belongings that cannot be recovered.”

Colletti is hopeful when all is said and done, each student will be compensated completely for their losses. But still, everyone lost something that can’t be replaced.

A family heirloom went missing in the apartment purge, Colletti said — an antique watch that was given to his son by his grandmother.

“It had been passed down through generations,” Colletti says. “That’s gone. You can’t put dollar values on that.”

The Apartments at Palmetto Compress are owned and operated by PMC Properties of Philadelphia. The company also runs Granby and Olympia Mills and the 612 Whaley apartment developments. Along with Palmetto Compress, all are popular living spaces for USC students.

This story was originally published August 7, 2018 at 4:14 PM.