Hello...Looking for a bit of advice on what to do here. This is the situation:
My husband and I live in an apartment complex in NJ. Our apartment is on the first floor/basement, and we have a patio. In our lease it states what we can and cannot use the patio for--examples are, we cannot use it to hang laundry, for storage, as a bedroom, etc. It does not say that we cannot use a barbecue of any sort on the patio, so we do so from time to time. We also got a memo-type thing from the apartment management company stuck in our door a month or so ago, which reiterated basically what the lease said about acceptable patio usage. Did not mention barbecues, but I believe it did end with the (and I'm paraphrasing here) "If you fail to comply with any of these rules, management will get rid of whatever it is that is not in compliance" statement that all of their handouts end with. Which, by the way, sounds fishy to me to begin with.
In addition, it is "general knowledge" among tenants that barbecues are "not allowed." BUT. It does not say in writing ANYWHERE that we cannot have one. We were never told by management that we could not use a barbecue on our patio. We use it responsibly and no one has ever complained to us about it.
I came home from work one day last week and our barbecues (there were actually 2 of them) were missing. Based on some information provided by a neighbor, I figured out that they were taken by building management or maintenance people. I contacted management, who though understanding, tried to tell me that barbecues are not allowed (seemed ambivalent toward my reminder that my lease did not state that), and that they had "an inspection" in my building that day, and that a maintenance person probably removed my barbecues. I contacted maintenance and was treated rudely, ultimately hung up on. I called management again and reported this; I was told that the manager would talk to maintenance, and that I should call her back "in a little while." Oddly, when I called her 3 or so times over then next couple of hours, she was "on another call" each time. When I got home from work that day, the barbecues were sitting on our patio again.
So, moral of the story is, some maintenance people came into our apartment (even if they only entered the patio, it is still our rented property) and took our stuff. Had I not had the neighbor's tip, I would have just called the police and reported them stolen, as there was no note, no notice, no nothing. Yes, we got our property back, but we have not heard any admission of wrongness, an apology, anything--for an act that we are sure is illegal. I'm not looking to crucify anyone, but we have the feeling that if maintenance (and possibly management) think that removing tenants' property without the tenants' knowledge is ok, who's to say it does not happen often, and will not happen again?
So please, someone, advise us--what can we do to try to make management realize the seriousness of this matter? The management does have a pretty good "don't ask/don't tell" type of policy with lots of things (pets, etc.), which we don't want to ruin for everyone, but--well, we're concerned about our rights here.
Thanks in advance...

