They are just some of the 819 items that currently sit at the Lost and Found room of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), The Star reported today.
The daily spoke to a Lost and Found staff, Nur Afidah Zahari, who revealed that on average, some 1,700 items were left behind at the airport by absentminded travellers every year, and only about 26 per cent of them were claimed.
“Once, a Bangladeshi man came and said he lost a friend,” she quipped, citing another case where they found a plastic bag stuffed with voodoo dolls.
Other items that can be found in the room are MacBooks, passports, wallets, television sets, a British Airways pilot’s cap and even underwear. Also found were two Cartier engagement rings still in their boxes, Rolex watches, necklaces, and even wads of cash.
According to Nur Afidah, the room on the third floor of the airport, gets on average 10 calls a day from those frantically looking for lost items.
People did show up to claim their lost items, the daily was told, but there were also those who were turned away after failing to provide receipt of purchase or when failing to accurately describe their items.
The daily also spoke to Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) general manager Mohd Arif Jaafar, who said the standard operating procedure was to take hold of an item, which had been left unattended for 20 minutes in the airport’s premises.
“We will scan it for hazardous content, then catalogue and tag it.”
The items are then kept at the airport for a month and if no one comes to claim them after that period, the items are handed to the Customs Department or Department of Environment to be disposed off.
Mohd Arif said that while it may seem wasteful to some to dispose off items in such a manner when most could be either reused or given to charity, the airport was strict about its regulations. He however did say he welcomed the move by certain groups who have proposed such rules be changed.