Need a Lawyer

Hey everyone,

TLDR: Apartment management let a third party vendor in our temp unit after a fire incident. The vendors threw away all our new supplies and stole $4k. No one claims responsibility and we can’t find a to help. 3 months and ongoing. Please share advice and lawyer contacts.

I normally don’t post, but I’m in urgent need of a lawyer. The apartment that me and my girlfriend stay at had a small fire in my neighbor’s (who I share a wall with) apartment. Our apartment was affected by only smoke and soot, but all good our possessions needed to be confiscated for deep cleaning. We had unfavorable conditions, now in a temporary unit but has several problems (some outlets not working, some lights not working, poor insulation to cold, loud neighbors who stay up too late). The first day after moving i the temp unit, we were ransacked and robbed by a third party vendor employed by the apartment management. They threw away hundreds of dollars worth of new supplies we bought and stole ~4K worth of money from our bags and wallet. They also stole anything that was salvageable: toilet paper, Nintendo pro switch controllers, iPhone chargers, but those were returned. The money was not returned and they claim that they “opened an internal investigation.” I haven’t heard from them since and I’m thinking it’s bad and they are protecting they’re guys. Management keeps pushing us off to return to our apartment. Neither the vendor or management claim responsibility and one lawyer we talked to said it’s tough to prove the money and amount that was missing. Now I’m three months in a poor condition unit that I didn’t intend to stay in for long (which is why I didn’t complained about all the things wrong), management is. Dodging and screwing me over( all I got was one month’s rent even though they admired the let the vendors in and gave the ok to clean “house”), and I can’t find a lawyer to help us out or see that we are at least owed something in this terrible situation. I work 8-5 so I can talk to most layers or business for advice on a given day. I need help finding a lawyer who can help me out, and most of all I need someone who can be on my side bc I’m the only patty affected negatively and no one will take responsibility. I’m stressing about this several days a week, and I’m kept on a short leash bc management keeps sending us away and telling us to “come back in 2 weeks for updates” for 3 months. I’m starting to feel like they don’t know anything and just want to dodge us and a difficult conversation.

Any advice helps. Thank you guys and peace.

P.S. Also any detailed info is appreciated. I’m relatively new to Houston and clueless to legal stuff. Here for my first job after college. And I know that lawyers can be expensive. Anyone know if I have to pay before hand for this? I just have so many questions. Thanks.