finders keepers or ...

MossRoad · Apr 15, 2004

If you're feeling really guilty, wait a few days, look in the local paper and see if anyone reported a lost chain. If not. Give it a good home. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Golfgar4 · Apr 16, 2004

( Golfgar..... please return my socket set to me..... )

Junkman,

Wow, what an amazing coincidence that I happen to find the socket set that belongs to someone that I end up becoming acquainted with on TBN! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

I feel bad that I made the effort of waiting around to see if the owner came back looking for it, and we didn't connect. I mean, here I was trying to do the honorable thing, and to be helpful to another human being who had obviously suffered a great loss. It would be the furthest thing from mind to even consider taking advantage of a poor soul who had suffered such a great loss.

Now I would be happy to return the property to the rightful owner, uh - you. Of course, I would also want to make sure that everyting was in order. I certainly would not want to unknowingly assist with the property becoming "lost" again. So keeping that mind, I'm sure you'll understand that I would like some verification that the sockets are, in fact, being returned to their rightful owner. All you need to do is provide me with a description of the box the sockets were in, the name of the street that I found them on, the date that you lost them, and, oh yeah, a description of the special engraving that was on the metal box. I'm sure that, as the rightful owner, you can understand and appreciate these efforts to protect your property. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

chucko · Apr 16, 2004

Guys,
I had to stop to work on my truck and some kids came up that I had to run off. Well this made me forget my snap-on tool set that was laying there. They must have come back and unhooked my chains causing them and my 100 lb tarp to come off.
Thank you for picking this stuff up for me I stop by this weekend and pick it all up

slowrev · Apr 16, 2004

Hope it's finders keepers, found a nice truck dead in the road the other evening with the keys still in it. Got the tractor and towed it home, well to it's home, it was my neighbor's truck /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif He got back home later riding with a friend and wondered how his truck got home. I just let him wonder for a day or so /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I guess the finders keepers thing depends on how valuable the found item is, but technically it still belongs to the origional owner untill declared otherwise by a court of law or a provision in current laws is met.

If you turn the found item in to the police would the owner of the lost item be charged with littering when he claims the item ? Hmmm a 1,000 fine for losing a 30 dollar chain on the road????
Or maybe a DOT fine for not having your load secured ? Creating a traffic hazard ? Involuntary manslaughter charge if the lost item caused a fatal wreck ? hmmm might be better not to claim the lost item......

Bird · Apr 16, 2004

( If you turn the found item in to the police would the owner of the lost item be charged with littering when he claims the item ? )

Not likely, in my opinion. In the first place you'd need a witness that could testify the owner, rather than someone else, dropped it.

Now I've been out of law enforcement for 15 years, and laws may vary in other places, but we used to have lots of folks call about "found property"; especially bicycles, but lots of other things, too. Those items would be impounded and the report sent to the burglary and theft unit to see if they could match the item with any theft reports or "lost property" reports and get them back to the rightful owner. If the owner could not be identified within (I've forgotten for sure whether it was 60 days or 90 days), the finder could "claim" the item, although they usually didn't and the items were eventually sold at auction. Of course, if the finder wanted to claim the item, he/she had to go to the city attorney's office and sign forms that would, hopefully, relieve the city of any liability should the owner turn up later, and stating that the finder would return the property or reimburse the owner in that event. In other words, more trouble than most "finders" wanted to go to. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

TWINKLE_TOES · Apr 16, 2004

Chris, I think you know the answer already. You picked up the chains several months ago and are now asking the question, is it OK?
If it doesn't feel good it probably isn't. We rationalize to make us feel better.

Everybody does it, If I don't someone else will, The real owner has no idea where he lost them.

Do unto others….

MidMichigan · Apr 17, 2004

I have found several things when I've delivered mail on the mail route including sledge hammer, screwdrivers, big alumimun kettle and an unmentionable that after telling my boss about finding it she had to go home and ask her husband what it was. The most expensive item found me instead of me finding it. I was driving with my family when I pulled up behind a delivery truck at a stop light. The rear door was open and there was a 2 wheel cart in the back as the light changed and he took off the cart dropped out and the rear door rolled shut. If I had been a little closer it would have fell on the hood of the van. We stopped and put it in the van but the truck just kept going he never knew he lost it and when he made his next stop the door would be shut so he won't have a clue how he lost it. After we picked it up we looked for the truck but couldn't find it. That cart sure does move alot of things around in the our garage now. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

PineRidge · Apr 17, 2004

I found a heavy black rubber truck tarp on the interstate last fall and when I pulled off to the side to retrieve it, a State Trooper pulled up behind me. Asked me what I was doing, and I said that I was going to remove the tarp to the side of the road so now one would get hurt. He asked if I wanted it and I said yes. He then backed up, called another trooper and they stopped traffic in the lane while they helped me drag it to my car and put it in back. I think that it must weigh at least 100 pounds. They just wanted it off the roadway before there was an accident. That is why I am called "Junkman" and I call this stuff "road kill"!!!! My wife claims that I was born under a fender at the junkyard!!


Junkman I lost that tarp. Please call me so that I can claim it. It was black and weighed about 100 pounds. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Junkman · Apr 17, 2004

You are welcome to it. All you have to do is come East and pick it up. I am not Chicken Delight and I don't deliver! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
PS...... can I give you some other things from the garage also. Save me the trouble of selling them on e Bay or taking them to the dump. If you come with a 40' box trailer, I am sure that I can fill it for you in a day. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

wroughtn_harv · Apr 18, 2004

( Is it finders keepers or keep your sticky fingers off of other peoples stuff as far as stuff found by the side of the road.)

I've picked up everything from lumber to tools to neat steel off of the sides of the road. There have been times when I observed the loss and tried to inform the lossee.

Where I see it as wrong would be picking something up and then seeing someone searching for it. Then not fessing up.

In about 83 I was inspecting a telco construction project out of Bakersfield California. As I was driving down a miserable silt and sand right of way when something odd shaped caught my eye in the dirt. I stopped and checked it out. It was a good American made machinest vice half buried in the dirt. I put a piece of two inch tube on it so it would fit in my receivers on the truck. A real stroke of good luck.

96 I had a 69 red one ton Chevy truck with a kick butt small block. She only got about four miles to a gallon and they were very short miles. Or at least it seemed like it.

There's a kid inside of me that I can't always control. I lit the tires up leaving a steel supply just because I could. A couple of days later I realized I'd lost my vice and chances are, well, you know welders, finders keepers.

A couple of weeks later a bud calls. He has a dilemma. He'd found this really neat vice in the bar ditch by Wylie Steel. But his wife wouldn't let him keep it without calling me first. She'd taken one look at it and told him that was something like I would make and before he got too emotionally involved he had to check with me first.

I got my vice back. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif