UNITED KINGDOM — Have you ever just left something behind instead of packed or thrown it away during a move? If you have, then you’re not alone. You may not have even abandoned one of the more interesting – and surprisingly common – items on a list that the average person probably doesn’t even know exists. According to a recent survey by The Deposit Protection Service (The DPS), naughty sexy toys are not just on the list of items most frequently left behind by tenants – they are at the top of the list.
Among the stranger goodies that landlords or management teams have find themselves disposing of each year are oddities including a milk bottle filled with blood, corpses, a glass eye (later claimed), illegal immigrants, a panty tree constructed of ladies’ panties, blow up dolls, and wall-anchored handcuffs.
Kevin Firth, client services director for The DPS, says that “Cleaning up after tenants who have made a hasty exit is an unfortunate part of the landlord’s lot.”
Depending on the tenant in question, of course, that unfortunate part can become unusually interesting.
More than 1000 landlords chose to speak with The DPS, a government approved organization created to protect tenant deposits, and they had some fascinating stories to tell.
“One landlord who found a false eye, threw it away thinking it was a joke, only to have the tenant telephone asking if it had been found,” Firth told ResidentialLandlord.co.uk. “Three landlords even told us they found a dead body on their properties, while another found an urn containing ashes and then received a call from the tenant asking for her husband back.”
Firth wonders whether Britons are “just incredibly forgetful, or whether there are some exhibitionists who want all this stuff to be found.”
Why a person would want their landlord to find dead pets, rotting fish, or illegal immigrants is anybody’s guess, but the Top Ten items left behind by British tenants are:
1) Sex Toys
2) Trash
3) Rotting food
4) Furniture and appliances
5) Cats
6) Condoms
7) Pot plants
8) Dirty diapers
9) Dead animals
10) Porn
