S.W. from outside of Connecticut writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
My condo has a rule that allows people to remove clothes from a washing machine after the machine has finished without a grace period. I have witnessed people keeping laundry in the machine overnight but when I happened to receive a short call (ten minutes) and returned for my clothes they were removed. Isn’t that legally called the tort of conversion?
Mister Condo replies:
S.W., you’d have to ask an attorney (I am not one) if this un-neighborly action qualifies as a tort of conversion. I guess your clothes would have to have been stolen, not just removed from the machine for there to have been an actual crime committed. Even then, I don’t know if there is a writ of “habias clothesius” that should have been served… JPardon my joke, as I am sure you were not happy to find your clothes removed from the washing machine. If another unit owner violated an association rule, all you can do is report it to the Board or Property Manager. Of course, if you don’t know who did it, there is almost nothing you can do. It’s too bad that people have so little respect for your personal property but you might want to consider delaying future phone calls for the short amount of time you need to keep an eye on your laundry. That way, no one can mess with your stuff when you’re not around. Good luck!