Nightmare before Christmas: Fillmore low-income tenants say housing staff stole their Christmas gifts

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Here’s a Christmas story that’s not so holly-jolly: Timothy Lee lives at Thomas Paine Square Apartments, a low-income housing complex in the Fillmore. He and his in-home caregiver, Aveda Hussain, spent a month carefully picking out and wrapping Christmas presents for their friends and families. 

Then, just a week before the holiday, every single gift disappeared. 

When Hussain reviewed video from the apartment’s doorbell cam, she said, she was shocked. The unlikely grinches appeared to be not just any burglars, but the property’s on-site management and maintenance staff, Hussain said.

A three-and-a-half-minute Ring camera footage provided by Hussain shows Lee leaving his unit at noon on Dec. 11, and then four people — three of whom were identified as management staff by multiple tenants — unlock the unit’s security gate and door and enter. Sixteen minutes later, they walk out with several boxes. 

At one point, one of them tries to remove the Ring camera. “This shit drilled on the wall,” he says. “You gotta drill it off to take it off.”

Another of the alleged burglars then moves a heart-shaped wreath and partially blocks the camera’s view of the alleged staff members leaving the unit. They were carrying packages that, Hussain said, look remarkably like the gifts she and Lee had purchased and wrapped earlier. 

Four tenants at the complex identified three of the four people on camera as working for Domus Management Company, a Lodi-based firm that tenants say has a reputation for negligence.

The staff members have been fired, according to Cathy Metcalf, the president of Domus. Metcalf did not say how many staffers were fired. 

“Staff did enter the unit, as evidenced by the ring footage, and remove what they referred to as trash,” Metcalf wrote in an email on Dec. 18. “However, that is a violation of Domus policy and they have been terminated effective today.”

Metcalf said that staff were told the unit was vacant and that its tenants had “turned in the keys to the office staff.” She said “squatters” were living in the unit who were “related to the original tenants.” The company is in the process of evicting them. “The attorney is working on the notice,” Metcalf wrote to Mission Local on Dec. 19.

This is news to Hussain and she said Metcalf did not provide any evidence of this. Lee has been living in the unit since 2021 and is unaware of any eviction proceedings. Hussain, Lee’s caregiver, has her own place of residence, an apartment she is renting in San Francisco. 

The video shows two different entries — one with two people and the second with four. These take place over an hour. 

At 12:55 p.m. on Dec. 11, two women come up to Lee’s unit, use a key to open the door without knocking, and enter. One shouts “Maintenance!” 

Multiple tenants, including Hussain, quickly identified the pair as women who work on-site at Domus’ office. 

At 1:05 p.m., the pair leaves the unit. As they are leaving, they discuss entering through other means. “I wonder if we can get into the … We can lift that…” one of them says. “Garage?” both say at the same time. 

At 1:23 p.m., the two women return with two more people. Again, they enter with a key. One of them, according to four tenants who reviewed the film, is a maintenance worker. 

No one Mission Local spoke with could identify the fourth person, a woman with curly hair wearing a dark green coat and dark glasses. 

At 1:38 p.m., one member of the group seems to notice the camera and tries to remove it, without success. Another then blocks the camera with the wreath, and the group begins carrying boxes in their arms and heading out of the unit. 

Hussain said her heart “dropped” when she went into the room where she and Lee had wrapped and stored all the presents — a bedroom they called their “Santa’s workshop” — and found the gifts gone. 

She said she recognized the boxes being carried out as Lee’s presents: a “Nightmare Before Christmas” advent calendar, a Build-a-Bear Christmas stuffy, two Hallmark books, a Nutcracker book, a Jesus advent book, Merry Brite Christmas houses in a red box, and a Grinch decoration. 

And those are just a small part of all that was stolen, Hussain said. She reported the list of missing items to the police. All told, Hussain estimated, the gifts cost her at least $2,000. 

“The Grinch really did come here, and he really did make it ‘A Nightmare Before Christmas,’” Hussain said. “It was hellish.”

When asked to comment, Bobby Sisk, who is a steward of the property’s owner, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and sits on Thomas Paine’s board of directors, said he would defer commenting on the case to Metcalf from Domus. 

Another tenant at the complex, Rhonda, said that a bike and some power tools disappeared from her unit’s garage that same day. The garage lock did not appear to have been picked, Rhonda said, leading her to suspect that whoever took the items may have had a key. Rhonda also reported her missing items to the police. 

When Rhonda saw the footage from Lee’s unit, she said, she was shocked. “I couldn’t believe it,” Rhonda said. “We are all in disbelief.” 

Hussain turned in the video footage to the police. She also reached out to the office of her representative at City Hall, District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who said he had heard about the incident from other tenants.

“I’ve seen the footage, it is pretty damning,” Mahmood said. “We jumped on this as soon as we heard from her yesterday, to make sure she gets the justice she deserves.”

Mahmood said he and his office are “doing everything we can,” including following up with the police department and connecting Hussain and Lee to other city services that might be able to help. 

“This is not what should be happening in the holiday season, or ever,” Mahmood said. “The residents deserve to feel safe.”