Landlord’s Airbnb Guests In Adjacent Unit Broke In To My Home, Stole My Property, Vandalized Both Units

Never had a situation like this happen before, not sure what next step to make.

I rent a place in California that is connected to another unit that my landlord rents as an Airbnb. I was out of town for two months. During that time, I was informed that there was an Airbnb guest that had unapproved guests and someone had vandalized the Airbnb, stolen one of the art installations in my yard, and broken into my unit. I told my landlord to go on in and inspect it and he sent me some videos and pictures from which it appeared nothing was missing.

I recently returned, and when asking about any recoupment via Airbnb for my art, I learned that we only had the information for the one whose name was on the rental, and from the security footage he was very clearly not the one responsible, and moreover, Airbnb wasn’t helping with the case anymore because apparently my landlord had taken too long to gather an estimate of the damages, so I just resigned myself to this being a slight loss.

It wasn’t until a few days back at home that I noticed that a bunch of my records had been stolen… namely, they picked and chose the rarest and most valuable of my collection — roughly one armfull — so I didn’t notice at first because the vast majority were still there. So now I’m really angry and fully intend to seek recourse.

Talking to my landlord, I learn that the unauthorized guests had recently been identified because it turned out they were fairly popular YouTubers, and they had recently uploaded a video that not only showed them staying there, but also blatantly showed them damaging the place, and one of the YouTubers is very clearly the person who is visible in my security footage.

My landlord doesn’t have the time to pursue this, despite the fact that his losses were even greater than mine, but he’s given me full permission and encouraged me to pursue it on our behalf and will sign any documents/make any appearances necessary.

However, the police told me that all they could do was take a report. And I’ve been calling lawyers for a week now, and I can’t find a single one who would handle a case like this… additionally, it’d have to be taken on contingency, because I absolutely cannot afford any sort of legal fees myself, and my landlord is not in a great position currently either and it’d take a hell of a lot of convincing to get him to invest in only potentially recouping some of his losses… though it’s not completely off the table. And as much as I’m annoyed by his failure to resolve this through Airbnb, for one, I know how notoriously difficult their support is and how busy he is, and besides, seeking any recourse against him would absolutely not be something I’m interested in… he’s been a wonderful landlord and is a victim himself in this situation.

I’m lost. It seems like this is a pretty open and shut case considering there’s two different sets of video evidence showing the vandals/thieves, and they are successful public figures who are using their footage of themselves committing the crime to amass over a hundred thousand views on YouTube, but it doesn’t fall under any of the typical areas of practice lawyers have listed online (landlord/tenant is the only thing that comes remotely close). Should I maybe look into small claims court? If I file the police report, I doubt I’m supposed to conduct the investigation and make the arrests myself, but the cops aren’t going to either. There must be something I can do! Thanks you guys.