roommate threw out all my food, medication, cooking supplies, etc : legaladvice

I’ve posted on this board before about a troublesome tenant I had. I left for an extended honeymoon and he decided to me out when I was out of the country and caused me a lot of headache with his difficulty.

I just got home and noticed my cupboards in the kitchen have completely been emptied. This included hundreds of dollars of medication, spices, brand new sauces, gifts from family, etc. I asked my other roommate who had been living in my home and he told me he saw him and his gf throw out all my stuff. It is well over $500 worth of items. Just one item I had was a brand new $30 bottle of chia oil and he threw out around 20 bottles of cooking items.

I just got home from my trip and noticed two entirely empty cupboards in the kitchen. Just so you know those cupboards were all my belongings that you two threw out. There were hundreds of dollars worth of vitamins, spices, medications, tea, and food. I expect you to reimburse me for all the items you threw out that was absolutely not authorized by me. This all happened in the time frame of me leaving and you moving out which is approximately four months. I am not sure why you thought that was an okay thing to do. I can estimate damages to $300. Please send this to me via Chase Quick Pay, Venmo, or Square. Thank you.

Is it possible to seek damages? I already refunded his deposit unfortunately. I have photos of the cupboards before and the current empty cupboard. This is in California.

edit: he responded that there was an ant infestation and it was necessary for him to throw out all my items in order to keep a healthy standard of living and that they were expired anyways. I don’t think this is a valid excuse to throw away sealed brand new vitamins, etc. and even if they were expired they are not his to throw away. I know for a fact the majority of items were completely sealed and I threw out anything half eaten because I knew I would be gone for a while.

Intentional disposal of another person's personal property without properly notifying, or at least making reasonable attempts to notify the owner, is wrong. The civil action is known as "conversion". Conversion gives the true owner the right to sue for his/her own property, or the value and loss of use of it, as well as going to law enforcement authorities since conversion usually includes the crime of theft.