SCANDINAVIA - LOST & FOUND

Stockholm Transport's lost property room is a labyrinth crammed with misplaced stuff; from bags, scarves and books to the odd harpoon or hand gun. We talked to Bengt Widberg, who's a bit like the Charon of the Lost & Found Underworld but a bit more cuddly. He's been reuniting missing items with their rightful owners for over a decade. We were hoping to hear stories about severed limbs or lost souls, but it seems the Swedes are quite responsible with their belongings.

Vice: What's the weirdest thing you've seen here?
Bengt Widbery: A harpoon. Someone left it on a bus on the way to the airport. Since it's a weapon, we just called the police and had them come and get it.

Did no one claim it?
No, apparently there was something wrong with it, so they probably didn't want it anymore. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of it. We actually received another weapon a few months ago, a gun. It was a really fancy one, very expensive, but at first we weren't sure if it was real or just a toy. But we had the police come here at once to take a look at it.

What's the thing you receive most often in here?
It depends a bit on the season. In spring and autumn there are a lot of umbrellas. In summer, when it's warm and people take off their scarves and jackets, we get a lot of those. Books are always a big problem for us, we get about 100 kilograms of books a month. No one picks them up, so they go straight to recycling where they get burned and turned into energy, warming up people's houses and such.

There's a bunch of crutches here, isn't that a bit strange?
Yes, you'd think that they'd need them to get out of the trains. It's not really something that you just forget. But we get a lot of them, and sometimes we even get wheelchairs. They're from people who've gotten ill on the bus or train. When the ambulance arrives to take them to the hospital, the wheelchairs are left behind. No one wants to come and retrieve them afterwards, so most of these things are sent away to charity after three months.

Has anyone ever forgotten their dog, or some other pet?
Oh, we don't get any pets here. Except a couple of months ago, on the commuter train they found a paper bag filled with hay. In the hay there was a small mouse, and when they continued to search through the bag, they found more. Six little mice hidden in the hay.

Did the mice end up here too?
No, we wouldn't be able to keep them here. The people who found them asked around if anyone wanted them. The mice all have good homes today.

Have you ever gotten anything really disgusting?
Yes, several times. Mostly it's food. Kids forget their school bags a lot, and they have their lunch boxes in them. Some of the places we get things from send stuff to us once or twice a week, so by the time the food arrives here it's pretty nasty. Especially in the summer, when it's warm. The smell is horrible! We just have to throw it right away.

Do you get any expensive stuff, or is that stolen before it gets here?
No, we get laptops and wallets with money in them all the time. But the owners usually pick those things up right away, whereas gym bags and scarves stay here longer.

Once we got a bag full of money here. There was this old lady who didn't trust the banks with her money. So instead of putting her money in the bank, she carried it around in a plastic shopping bag, one of those grocery bags. She took the bag with her everywhere she went, but then one day she left it on the train. There was 84,000 kronor in it (about €8,400), and all of it was still in the bag when it got here. She was really happy when she got it back.

Has anything been here more than once?
We get a lot of shopping bags here, ones that are popular amongst old ladies. Once, we had one here that had three or four of our stickers on it, so it had been here several times before.

SANDRA SVENSSON & KATHARINA POBLOTZKI