Inside the Portland Airport’s Lost and Found

PORTLAND, Ore .— Did you lose your leaf blower at Portland International Airport? Missing you accordion? Maybe you forgot your marriage certificate.

Over the past year, passengers lost 26,813 items at PDX. Those misplaced belongings ended up in the airport’s Lost and Found.

“Everything back here is lost,” said Noelle Steffanson as she walks through a neatly organized room filled with jackets, hats and bags.

“We’ve got a lot of jackets, sunglasses, ID’s, laptops, tablets, keys,” said Steffanson, who helps oversee the PDX Lost and Found./Read more Portland airport lost and found or Portland airport lost property

The Lost and Found looks like an oversized walk-in closet. Missing shirts and coats hang above huge drawers filled with misplaced toys, earbuds and phone chargers. Each items is cataloged into a computer database so it can be returned if a passenger comes looking.

“We log everything in by keyword, categories, description and where it came from,” explained Steffanson.

Fifty-six percent of the items at Lost and Found come from TSA checkpoints, according to PDX.

Glasses are the most common item turned in to the Lost and Found. There are boxes filled with glasses of all shapes and colors. Last year, passengers lost 3,116 glasses and sunglasses at PDX.

A walk through lost and found revealed an odd mix of recovered items. There was a hover board. Someone forgot their marriage certificate. There was a missing VHS tape, yoga mat, boxing helmet, tiara, pool cue and walking stick.

Employees say the most unusual items include a full-sized beach umbrella, massage table, accordion and leaf blower.

The most valuable items, like computers and phones, are kept for 90 days before they’re sent off to government auction. Cheaper items are held for 30 days and then donated to charity.

So what are the odds of finding a lost item? Pretty good. Lost and Found is able to return 24 percent of all items.

Passengers can improve their chances of finding misplaced belongings by calling PDX Lost and Found right away with a good description of the item and where they misplaced it.