Chapel Hill to hold online unclaimed items auction

Lost and stolen BlackBerries or iPods will be sold online to help local schools pay for a history textbook or a calculator.

Chapel Hill announced recently its plans to participate in an end-of-the-month online auction of unclaimed items. The town currently possesses 15 bicycles and 127 other miscellaneous items including phones, cameras, yard equipment, clothing and jewelry.

“This is unclaimed property from the police department, either things that were (lost) or things that were stolen, and things that were found from a robbery,” said Coco Hall, purchasing and contracts manager for Chapel Hill. “Most of it is probably from arrests that were made.”

Hall said police must hold the items in possession for at least 180 days before they can list them as unclaimed. Then, a notice must be publicly published for 30 days.

After this period passes, smaller items are submitted to an eBay-style auction at PropertyRoom.com.

Hall said according to North Carolina law, profits from the online auction must benefit Orange County public schools.

Flora Parrish, records supervisor for Chapel Hill police, said most of the items on the website come from police departments nationwide.

“It’s a good webpage for people to go to because obviously any electronic stuff … it does work,” Parrish said. “You can get some really good stuff there.”

People who have lost property can try to identify their items at the police department, Parrish said.

“They would have to have some kind of proof of ownership,” Parrish said. “Someone just can’t come in and say, ‘Oh, I had this and this stolen.’ But people try to do that, especially (with) bicycles.”

As a general rule, there should be a police report already on file for the lost or stolen item, Parrish said. Some bicycles and electronic equipment also have serial numbers that people can use to identify their belongings.

Rather than sending unclaimed bicycles to auction online, the town donates them to the ReCYCLEry, a non-profit organization that gives bicycles to people who volunteer with the group.

Rich Giorgi, founder and director of The ReCYCLEry, said he has not seen anyone come to the non-profit and find his or her stolen bicycle there.

“A lot of times they come in and say their bike is stolen, and they look through our stuff, and they don’t see it,” Giorgi said. “But if someone did, we’d obviously help them fix it up and get them on the road.”

Although most of these items are small electronics, Parrish said others are more obscure.

“We have a couple of musical instruments,” she said. “We have a really nice little ukulele and a little bitty harpy type instrument.

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