'Stolen' bike dumped by our home

SevenOfNine

Nearly 2 weeks ago a teenagers sized bike was dumped opposite our home, not in bad condition.

Husband brought it across to our house and phoned non urgent Police number. All details given, description etc & he was asked if he could put it in a 'safe place' until someone could collect it. Yep, in our garage.............so why is it still there!

Have called again & they promised collection but still no-one has come, presumably owner has not reported it nicked.

Now what? We just cleared out entire garage and sold our own 2 bikes to make space - don't want this cluttering up our property any longer. So much for doing your civic duty, now we seem lumbered with it.

Seems owner doesn't want it back so has still not reported theft, cops don't want to store it but neither do we. Tempted to stick it back where we found it.

Any ideas?

somethingcorporate

Take it down to the police station?

SevenOfNine

If I can get into my Hyundai i10..............

Fosterdog

If it hasn't been reported how do you know it was stolen?

If it was stolen it could be one not used very often, kept in a shed and been stolen from there without the owner noticing. Or an old bike that has now been upgraded to an adults bike as the teenager has grown and the old one just dumped.

I know you've done the right thing by keeping it safe and reporting it but it won't be a priority to the already overworked police when they have actual crimes to deal with.

Maybe call them and give them a final chance to collect or put an ad in a local paper/shop asking the owner to contact you.

PHYTHIAN

I seem to remember reading that 'finding' something abandoned and keeping it is called ' theft by finding'. You need to advise the Police (which you obviously have ) and if unclaimed then the property becomes yours after ( I think) 28 days.

Don't know if this is only when you physically hand it in to them though or if it's when you report it to them!

Kaye1

We had exactly the same thing- they came and took it next day.


The chap who came told us if no-one claimed it, it would be auction off and would probably make about £20.


Not sure this helps! Just as a matter in interest.

PILES

SevenOfNine wrote: »

Nearly 2 weeks ago a teenagers sized bike was dumped opposite our home, not in bad condition.

Husband brought it across to our house and phoned non urgent Police number. All details given, description etc & he was asked if he could put it in a 'safe place' until someone could collect it. Yep, in our garage.............so why is it still there!

Have called again & they promised collection but still no-one has come, presumably owner has not reported it nicked.

Now what? We just cleared out entire garage and sold our own 2 bikes to make space - don't want this cluttering up our property any longer. So much for doing your civic duty, now we seem lumbered with it.

Seems owner doesn't want it back so has still not reported theft, cops don't want to store it but neither do we. Tempted to stick it back where we found it.

Any ideas?

Get rid of it then ring the Police and report it stolen. That should get a response.

SevenOfNine

Fosterdog wrote: »

If it hasn't been reported how do you know it was stolen?
I know you've done the right thing by keeping it safe and reporting it but it won't be a priority to the already overworked police when they have actual crimes to deal with.
Maybe call them and give them a final chance to collect or put an ad in a local paper/shop asking the owner to contact you.

Fair point, we assumed it was nicked and dumped as opposed to just dumped (unlikely I'd have thought, it's in a saleable condition).

We weren't actually just doing the right thing by keeping it safe, the Police asked us to, now we seem lumbered with it. though I appreciate they have 'actual crime', we aren't a storage unit so if they were/are too busy to collect it they shouldn't have asked us to take it in.

Afraid I won't consider placing an ad anywhere
A) don't want every man & his dog bothering us trying to claim it
don't want to advertise our phone number or address
C) not paying for that

Have taken your advice to call again (well, yet again) & they've said a PCO will collect it (again). Will give them another week then it's going back out the front against the bush where we found it.

No wonder people 'mind their own business' - think we'll do the same in future.

Apoorwoman

Same thing happened to us, lovely bike that had been sitting in our lane for a couple of weeks. Called local police who said they would collect it when they had a van in the area.

Six months later and still no sign of them. As it was a really nice mountain bike and far too good to just dump, we put it on Freecycle and it found a new home the same day. Suggest you try the same.

snakepilsen

https://secureforms.ipcc.gov.uk/Pages/form_complaint.aspx

CKhalvashi

Kaye1 wrote: »

We had exactly the same thing- they came and took it next day.


The chap who came told us if no-one claimed it, it would be auction off and would probably make about £20.


Not sure this helps! Just as a matter in interest.

Herts police asked if I'd keep one in my garden for few days and someone would call to collect it.

It disappeared after 2 days (no call), although a neighbour did see police go down the back of my house, which would probably explain where it went