Lost and found

[overstim.livejournal.com]

Lost and found posts are pretty common here, and they always irk me.

"I found xxx in a cab, let me know if its yours". Well, if I lost something, and I'm pretty sure it was in a cab, I'd call the cab company, not check LiveJournal. The sense of responsibility and community here is impressive and rare and heartwarming, but also often counterproductive.

So I got to thinking– should we designate some public space as an all-purpose lost and found? Say, if you find anything within a .5 mile radius of Davis Square, you'll drop it off at Diesel, or the Somerville Theatre or something. That way if I lose something, I'd only have to check one place, not every person I know, several school bulletin boards, several LJ communities and several Craigslist pages. Think some local business would be interested in this?

Comments

[misterthorn.livejournal.com]

I don't think Diesel or the Somerville Theater are going to want to pay their staff to maintain a lost and found for the Davis Square community, but you could always ask them. Actually, I always thought if you found something valuable, your local police station was the best place to take it. This used to be true, anyway, don't know if it still is.

But all that said, I don't find such posts counterproductive at all. An irrelevant email in my inbox once (or even a few times) a day is hardly a spanner in my works, anyway. If lost/found posts became the majority of what was appearing, then maybe that's the time to think about starting a separate community, just to deal with lost and found in Davis Square, but I don't think we're there just yet.

[overstim.livejournal.com]

its not like it would take an extra employee to keep a box under a counter.

and im not talking about the posts being disruptive to the community, im talking about people who find things in davis square, and rather than leaving them where they found them, or reporting them to the police, TAKING care of them themselves and posting here that they found them.

yeah, this ^

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

We've already got enough lost and found from our own customers without mixing in random stuff from the street! :)

We're going to open an umbrella, hat and single-glove store soon.

It's not about paying someone to maintain it, it's just a huge clutter, and it's also a responsibility. Valued items like iPods should be dropped at the police station, IMHO, as someone might actually check there.

~Ian/Somerville Theatre