ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Purses, mobile phones and even a prosthetic limb are among the bizarre items found by cleaners from the Stagecoach East bus company in the UK.

One employee even claims to have discovered a sleeping passenger during his night time shift. "What's the strangest thing I have found left behind?" said cleaner Luis Santos, "Well, one passenger... he was sleeping under a seat. I didn't know whether he was even alive or not. So I gave him a little touch with the sweeper: he was alive."

Stagecoach driver Ahmed Adu says that far from finding passengers' habits annoying, they actually enhance his working life. "I really enjoy my work, it is fun and we find a lot of funny, funny things left behind," he said.

The company, which has depots in Cambridge and Peterborough, shared details of unusual finds when unveiling two new bus washing machines capable of cleaning 100 buses an hour.

Stagecoach claims the machines are both more efficient and more eco-friendly to use because they are quieter, faster and use only recycled water.

People have a habit of leaving unusual items behind on public transport. A report by Dublin Buses out last year revealed that cleaning staff had retrieved e-scooters, false teeth, a guitar and even a live rabbit from its own vehicles.

And a recent report revealed that Transport for London retrieves around 200,000 items a year from its buses and underground trains - and that these have included a bollard, a parachute, a wedding dress, a box of cooked frogs and a glass jar filled with bats.