Students, don’t forget to take your skeletons when you leave (From Bournemouth Echo)

Students, don’t forget to take your skeletons when you leave

7:00pm Monday 29th June 2009 in

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A SIX-FOOT snake, a life-sized skeleton and a few pairs of frozen chicken feet...

Although it might sound like a list of items from a rather grisly chamber of horrors, in fact these are just some of things left behind as students vacate their university halls for the summer.

The most common “ordinary” items left behind in student digs include mobile chargers, text books, iPods, toothbrushes and shoes.

But then there are the more bizarre things that make the mind boggle. Student housing provider Unite audited the lost and found booty from all their buildings, home to some 36,700 students.

Sales and marketing director Nathan Goddard, said the most weird and wonderful array of left behind items were found.

“After a year of working hard and playing hard, it is no surprise that students forget to pack everything at the end of term – and what they leave behind never fails to surprise us,” he says.

“From the risque to the ridiculous, we often wonder how these items make it into their rooms in the first place.”

Roger Rossano of StudentLet.org who accommodates around 100 students in Bournemouth, says you never know what you might find during the annual end of summer term purge.

“It never ceases to surprise me,” he says. “The most common items that get left behind are things like street signs, road names and traffic cones – we’ve even had cash point machine signs – almost anything that can be removed.

“What probably seemed like a good idea at the time though gets left behind at the end of term when they realise that they can’t take it home with them because of what their parents will say.

“We also find bicycles, skateboards and scooters – we even had an 8ft trampoline left behind.

“And there is also lots of loose change too. There are often piles of pennies lying around – it’s not unusual to find at least £10 worth of loose change in a house.

“Then there are the trolleys so we have to call the supermarkets to come and collect them because they are quite expensive – one trolley is worth around £170 each or lots of items have to be taken to skip so we do charge the students for that.

“We’ve not had any pets or livestock left behind yet but who knows?”

Lucy McQuillin from Bournemouth University said: “We are sometimes amazed at the items that are left by students at the end of term. On one occasion, a student left a brand-new bicycle.

“In the final term we remind students both verbally and through notices that rooms should be clean and left in good order. Students are asked to dispose of items they no longer want or to take them home.”