Lost and Found parts

[twerkinatthecarwash]

Hey everyone, quick question

How long do you hold on to parts you've found in your tunnel/wash? I'm talking, like, a spare tire cover or something like that. Is there any legal precedent for how long you must hold on?

Thanks in advance

 

[Earl Weiss]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM

 

[rph9168]

We used to keep them at least a month depending on the size of the part. Large parts lasted no longer than a month. Small parts we just kept in a barrel and emptied it when it got full.

 

[chaz]

Unless the item appears to be of real value, (rarely) it along with floor mats etc, are deposited in my dumpster and "saved" until the Friday pickup. I used to hang on to this stuff for a while, but quickly realized is all most all cases the stuff is left on the lot because people are too lazy to toss the stuff in the trash.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

The stuff I find is usually things like headlight covers, spare tire covers, and the occasional broken antenna. If the item is not broken, I save it for a while in case someone comes looking. If it is broken/damaged I get rid of it. If someone comes back looking...well it must not have come off here Floor mats, I just leave them at the vacs. If they are still there the next day, in the dumpster they go.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I guess I am the only one who used them to build my own car "One Piece at a time"

 

[cdreed06]

Earl if you ever need any more parts for that Psycho-billy Cadillac, let me know. We get our fair share here too.

 

[twerkinatthecarwash]

Yea, you guys are all pretty spot on to what we do. License Plates we hold for about a year, and normally its a week on everything else. We just had a lady come back and look for her rear spare tire cover after a week and a half and is furious that we didn't hang on to it. To be fair my site manager should have not ever said anything about throwing it away. I always tell people to hang on while I look and if its not there, or we threw it away, etc, I just come back and tell them we don't have it. We will be discussing this at our next meeting so I just wanted to see what you guys said to see if we were doing what other washes were doing.

 

[Earl Weiss]

If someone doesn't notice something missing for 10 days it could have gotten lost anywhere.

 

[rph9168]

As long as the parts weren't in the way we usually kept them for a while. In some cases we were able to use lost and found parts to replace parts from other customer's vehicles.

 

[Greg Pack]

I put a piece of painters tape on the part in question and write the date on it. I don't mind keeping stuff a while if it's not in the way, but when it comes time to do some equipment room clean up the date on it lets me know if it's time to throw it away.

I find a good bit of semi-valuable stuff at my car wash in the nice area of town around the vacuums and self serve bays. Some people just throw away stuff that I wouldn't- Folding chairs,working computer printers, etc. I suppose one man's trash is another man's treasure. Sometimes, it's obvious no one intended to leave it. A couple years ago I found an Iphone 4s. It was password protected and I couldn't get any info on the owner. I left it charged up and powered up so someone could call, but they never did. If I can't figure out by looking at the cameras and has no identifying marks on it all I can do is hang onto it a while and see if anyone comes looking for it. About three weeks ago I found a retractable step for an off road jeep. It appears new and they cost about $120. I really would like to return it, but you figure they give up looking after 48 hours. After thirty days holding time or so it will probably go on ebay.

You always have exceptions to people coming by quickly after they lose something. I had a guy come by one day looking for his lost floor mats. I told them I didn't have any by the description he gave me and asked him when he thought he left them. His response was "about a year ago". When I told them they had probably been thrown away many months ago, he got irate.

 

[rph9168]

I never told a customer that we threw something away for that reason.

 

[chaz]

How do you even decide what to keep. Today a bottle of "smart water", or so the label said was left on a vac island. It was there at least an hour while I worked on other things. You guessed it, just after I cleaned up someone came looking for it. I told him I don't remember seeing it, he looked in the last two cans to be emptied and then left. Was it just water?!

 

[MudMoney]

In the last 2 months I've had 2- 22cal. ruger air rifles in my cans.One had a screw missing that holds the stock to the receiver, other one nothing wrong. Both shoot great, as I already own other air rifles these are worth $150 each.Not stolen either, I live close to 2 rezs and lots of good stuff gets thrown as it was paid with taxpayer dollars.