PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 12, Dec. 15, 2005

Personal treasures await in limbo in lost and found

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

A computer. A blood-test kit for diabetics. A violin bow. What do these objects have in common? They all wound up lost – and found – somewhere on the Urbana campus.

Virtually anything portable and removable has been forgotten in a library, a gym, on a bus or even on a street, say students and staff members responsible for dealing with found property and fielding inquiries from lost owners. A lone shoe. Basketballs. Watches and other jewelry. Bottles of medicine. Sweatshirts, socks and clothing of all sorts.

A cooler full of food was once left behind at Willard Airport, apparently by a hungry passenger with a distaste for airline cuisine.

Staff members in many buildings maintain a cache of items that have strayed from their owners and were turned in. While there is no central repository for found items on campus, many items, especially valuables and public property – street signs, for example – are turned over to the campus police.
“It’s a lot of work just keeping up with all of it,” said Ed Kavanaugh, a telecommunicator who handles found property for the Division of Public Safety. A police report is generated for each found item turned over to the police, then it is recorded in a log and stored with similar items until the owner claims it.

Megan Casey, a native of Oak Lawn, Ill., who is a junior majoring in business administration, works at the reception desk at the Illini Union, a popular destination for meals, studying, meetings and other events that naturally ends up with a large collection of forgotten eyeglasses, misplaced cell phones and other property. The spreadsheet used to record found objects recently listed a staggering 812 items that had been turned in since January. Items in bold type on the spreadsheet are those that have been claimed by their owners; red type indicates the objects have been donated to a local charity, Casey said.

Casey, who has been working at the Illini Union since January, said that perhaps the most unusual object turned in to the lost and found at the Union was a wrapped gift.
“In the winter we get about 500 scarves,” she said, in addition to numerous sets of keys, student ID cards and other belongings.

David Mackinson, a 19-year-old sophomore from Pontiac, Ill., who is majoring in international trade and in Spanish, works at the reception desk for Garner, Forbes and Hopkins halls, three buildings that are among a group of six undergraduate residence halls on Gregory Drive in Champaign commonly called the six pack.

“A girl came in this morning who had lost her keys, her book bag and coat,” Mackinson said.

The cache of found items at the desk that day included textbooks, assorted apparel and an iPod, Mackinson said, but alas, not the items the caller may have misplaced at the six pack or elsewhere.

Building service workers turn in many items that have been forgotten in lounges or other public areas; sometimes objects are left behind or misplaced when students are moving out at the end of the semester, said Andi Cailles, an area coordinator for the Housing Division at Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Hall.

“When we find stuff at the end of the year, we keep those things for 45 days,” after which the items may be donated to local charities, Cailles said. Other items, such as the violin bow and the diabetes test kit, may be kept up to a year or two in hopes that the unidentified owners will turn up.

“It’s always so hard to let stuff go,” Cailles said.

Brett Byrd, security director for the university libraries, said that a student once called his office hoping to recover a lost rosary. Since it had not been turned in, Byrd said he “went and looked for it because I thought it was probably pretty important to them.” But, as sometimes happens, the treasured item was not recovered, at least not by Byrd.

Among the most frequently misplaced items are cell phones.

When a misplaced phone is turned in to the lost and found at the Intramural Physical Education Building, “we try to leave it on in case the owner calls,” said Kristin Duitsman, assistant director of member services for the Division of Campus Recreation. “Then when we answer their phone, they ask, ‘Who are you and why have you got my phone?’ And we tell them that we’d love for them to come get it because it’s been ringing off the hook.”

Labeling items might help reunite more owners with their lost property, as students and staff will try to contact property owners by phone or by e-mail if they find a name or room number on a found item.

Each unit has its own unofficial policy for the length of time, usually ranging from a few weeks to up to six months or more, that unclaimed items are retained before they are donated to local charities or destroyed.

And some items may have second, useful lives. The campus police donate unclaimed eyeglasses to the Lion’s Club, unclaimed tools to the campus Facilities & Services Division. And unclaimed briefcases and suitcases may be used for training or demonstrations involving the police department’s canine officers, Roxie and Nala.

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