Lost and found on the buses
NZ Bus duty supervisor Jo Anderson calls herself the Sherlock Holmes of lost property.
And like any good detective, Anderson goes to great lengths to crack a case.
She has used her snooping skills to successfully reunite owners with many items left on Auckland buses, including an architect with his irreplaceable project work and a gamer with a bag full of Dungeons & Dragons gear.
But some cases unusual than others.
Just before Christmas a child ended up in the NZ Bus depot’s lost property department, Anderson said.
‘‘We had a child here, she must have been about three or four, and basically the mother had three kids, they were doing their Christmas shopping in Newmarket , it got a bit hectic, the kids ran for a bus, but they must have run for separate buses and she kind of lost track of one,’’ Anderson said.
‘‘We found the child, the driver brought her into the depot and then consequently for about twoand-a-half hours we were babysitters.’’
Anderson has also been able to reconnect a very grateful Brazilian tourist with the $5000 she misplaced in a travel wallet that had slipped down between the seat and the side of a bus on the City Link route.
‘‘She came in and she was on the floor, she was kissing the ground, and she was ecstatic.’’
All items are logged in the lost property computer database, and Anderson recommended bus users ‘‘don’t lose faith’’ if an initial call to the depot does not immediately turn up the missing item.
‘‘Call back the following day, sometimes a bus can be out on the are more road until midnight and it is not until the bus is back at the depot that cleaners find the items.’’
The depot’s lost property phone line runs hot all day, every day.
Anderson said the lost child and missing money were extreme examples, but a skilsaw, a set of suitcases, a folder of legal case notes and enough varied musical instruments to start an orchestra were among some of the more unusual items to pass across the lost property desk in recent times.
The bus depot in central Auckland currently has a lost property cupboard and drawers brimming with the commonly left-behind items of sunglasses, wallets, cellphones, house keys, car keys, swipe cards, school uniform pieces and umbrellas.
Groceries also get forgotten when people exit the bus.
Any money from unclaimed wallets is given to the Auckland City Mission and over the years cellphones have been donated to recycling programmes like the the Starship Foundation Mobile Phone Appeal.
Passports are handed to police. As much as Anderson enjoys solving a good mystery, she recommends the ‘‘forgetful’’ label their possessions with a name and phone number to increase the odds of stray items returning to their rightful owner in a timely manner.