'Excuse me sir, but is this your leg?'

The world of lost and found often throws up some fascinating goods. But having become so used to replacing items rather than reclaiming them, will the end of the boom years change all that? wonders Brian O'Connell.

UPSTAIRS IN THE Irish Cancer Society shop, on Castle Street in Cork city, volunteers sift through dozens of bags of public donations. The contents include standard charity shop fare, from 1980s paisley shirts to endless volumes of chick lit, and the odd framed sacred heart picture. Yet, in other piles, expensive leather jackets, handbags and designer accessories spill out of carefully packed bundles.

Many are dropped in by local nightclub owners who, having failed to make contact with the owners, decide to donate the items to charity. Others are left in by bus company employees, gym workers or tailor-shop owners, with the range of goods and items both diverse and substantial.

EVERY SO OFTEN, some of the best items are auctioned off separately by the store in their monthly window sale. Customers, some of whom will have tracked the expensive items for weeks, often queue around the street on the morning of the sale, getting top-of-the-range goods and accessories for knock-down prices.

And who says charity and wealth are mutually exclusive? The practice of discarding luxuries is not just confined to charity outlets.

It seems that, in Ireland, we have developed a habit of leaving our possessions behind, as expendable items become passé and replacement is preferred to retrieval. In recent years, with a few extra bob in our pockets, leaving fake Gucci handbags or tailored Paul Smith jackets in blurry nightclubs was simply not that big a deal. And certainly not worth the hassle of trying to track them down afterwards. We could always just replace them with a flex of our credit cards.

That was then, though, and with changing economic times come changing attitudes. So, are we about to repossess our personal possessions?

The phenomenon of goods being left behind by customers is nothing new to those working in the hotel industry. In fact, instances of forgotten belongings are so common that one British hotel chain, Travelodge, announces a list of the most bizarre items left behind, or forgotten, in its premises each year.

While the most common items left behind include mobile phones, chargers and items of clothing, hotels all over the globe have also noticed a large increase in the number of electrical goods turning up, such as Blackberries, satellite navigation systems, PlayStations, and Nintendos.

Included in Travelodge's list of the most bizarre items found in 2007 was an urn of ashes, a pet cat (called "Princess"), a blue glass eye, a Lord Mayor's chain, keys to a Bentley and a remote-control helicopter.

HERE IN IRELAND, the experience is no different. Paul Madden, director of the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis, says the hotel has had to designate storage space to items left behind by guests.

"In the last few years we've noticed more and more mobile phones are left, and you always have items of clothing, bits of jewellery, watches and so on," he says.

Every six months or so, charity shops in Ennis are given any goods that haven't been collected or reclaimed, and Ireland's prosperity has certainly added to the charity shop haul.

Mostly, guests leave items behind due to simple human error, or because of the effects of a late night in the hotel bar.

"From time to time we do get odd little items left behind, such as a teddy bear, where there wasn't a child staying in the room, and so on," says Madden, "I know myself if I stay in a hotel I'll unpack my shirts and hang them up, but I would never open a bedside locker or drawer and leave stuff there. It's too easy to forget it that way.

"Often, though, we'll find clothes left on the back of a chair in a room or lying on the bed, and you have to wonder how people don't see it. But pretty much every week we find something."

But times are changing, and perhaps more recession-conscious guests will mean a smaller lost-luggage compartment in the months ahead.

"We could have 200 guests a night here, so the lost-luggage cupboard can get quite full," Madden says. "In the last four or five years we have noticed that people haven't been coming back for goods as often - perhaps it's because they have had that extra bit of expendable income. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues to develop, or if our customers manage to leave behind their relaxed attitude."

PADDY JOE HARRINGTON has been running a shoe repair and garment alteration outlet, Paddy Joe's, in the English Market in Cork for over 21 years. Inside the door of his shop, a large fluorescent paper sign warns customers that any goods left longer than 31 days will be donated to charity. Four years ago the volume of goods being left behind by customers forced his hand, yet he thinks the tide may be about to turn.

"I've been here a long time, and I found that during the good times, when there was no talk of recession, people went off and replaced things, be it shoes or clothing, and didn't worry about not collecting items if it didn't suit them," he says.

"That was the reason we decided to put the sign up, as we were giving so much stuff away to charity shops that space was at a premium." Although the sign is given prominent placing, there are still customers who don't heed the advice.

"Recently, a leather jacket worth €250 was left in for us to put a patch on it. After two months, and having called the owners several times, we donated it. With every piece of clothing we donate we always give the owners one last chance to come and collect goods before we get rid of them."

ASIDE FROM SHOES and clothing, Paddy Joe has lost count of the number of umbrellas left in the shop. They, too, make their way to charity shops, although he expects to make fewer and fewer charity shop runs this year.

"During the last recession in the 1980s, very few people left stuff behind in the shop," he says. "It has only been in the last 15 years that people preferred to replace items than come in for them. That attitude still exists a bit, but in the next year I can see it going back to the way it was."