The Tokyo police take care of your umbrellas, your keys and even your squirrels!

(AFP) – Have you lost your umbrella, your keys or maybe a flying squirrel? In Tokyo, don’t worry! The police are certainly taking care of it.

In Japan, lost objects are rarely separated from their owner for very long, even in a megacity like Tokyo, which has 14 million inhabitants.

“Foreign visitors are often surprised to find their items,” says Hiroshi Fujii, a 67-year-old tour guide, describing the Tokyo police’s lost and found center.

“But in Japan, we always expect that to be the case.” It is a “national characteristic” to report objects found in public places, he explains to AFP.

“Throughout generations, we pass on this habit of pointing out the objects we have collected,” adds Mr. Fujii.

At the Iidabashi district police center in central Tokyo, around 80 employees ensure that objects are properly listed and stored using a database system, its director Harumi Shoji told AFP.

Everything is labeled and sorted to speed up return to its rightful owner. ID cards and driver’s licenses are among the most frequently lost items, she said.

– 70% of valuable objects found –

But dogs, cats and even flying squirrels and iguanas have already been dropped off at police stations, where officers take care of them “with great sensitivity”, not hesitating to consult books, the internet , or even veterinarians for advice.

More than four million items were handed over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in 2023, and around 70% of valuable items such as wallets, phones, computers and important documents have been reunited with their lucky owners.

“Even if it’s just a key, we note details such as the shape and that of the keyring it’s attached to,” Ms. Shoji explains in a room filled with objects, including a huge bear. plush.

In the space of one afternoon, dozens of people came to recover or look for their lost items in this center, which groups together items left with station staff or in small local police stations in Tokyo if they do not are not claimed on site within two weeks.

– Umbrellas, star object –

If no one comes to the police station, the unwanted item is sold or thrown away after three months.

The number of lost items processed by the center is increasing as Japan welcomes a record post-pandemic influx of tourists and gadgets become smaller.

The trendy lost items are wireless headphones and hand fans, which are landing more and more frequently at the lost and found center, which has been in operation since the 1950s.

The star object remains the umbrella: a huge space of 200 m² is devoted to it. In 2023, 300,000 were brought and only 3,700 of them were returned, the public preferring to buy an umbrella, at a modest cost, rather than start looking for the missing person.

“We have a floor reserved for umbrellas… during the rainy season there are so many that we have to store them on two levels.” Just so as not to lose them.

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