How many items does the TTC’s lost and found get in a day? —Kathleen Stevens, Beaconsfield

The facility, on the mezzanine of Bay station, gets an average of 100 to 200 objects a day—a total of roughly 45,000 per year. When it rains, the lost and found is deluged with brollies. In winter, it snows hats, mitts and scarves. The start of the school year brings bookbags galore. Each new article is first itemized in a searchable database. Staff do their darndest to reunite us with our lost crap, scouring goods for clues about the owners’ identity. When prescription drugs are found in a purse, for example, the TTC will contact the pharmacy. Their diligence has netted respectable results—about 36 per cent of all items are successfully returned. The rest, after a 90-day holding period, find a home on the TTC’s year-old on-line auction site. You don’t know the meaning of forgetful until you’ve checked out some of the stuff left on the TTC in recent years: snow shovels, false teeth, VCRs, a wheelchair, cats and dogs, a karaoke machine, oxygen tanks and an artificial eye. Somewhere, someone is missing a brand-new French Provincial–style luxury chair, still in its box.

• Categories: Public Transit