Diamond Wedding Ring Lost in School Dumpster in Van Nuys, CA...Happily Found.

  • from Redondo Beach (California, United States)

If you lose your ring or other metal item of value, don’t wait, time will work against you, please call as soon as possible. 310-953-5268

I received a call about 9:00 AM from Kathi, she lost her diamond wedding ring the day before, and was wondering if I could help. I asked her how it happened that the ring was lost, and she explained that she was at a school where she worked, and was toweling off her hands after washing them. She believed that the ring inadvertently came off in the paper towels, and were thrown away in the trash. I asked if the containers were still in their place, but she informed me that the janitorial staff had cleaned them all out and put all the trash in the dumpsters. It seemed as if it would be a « needle in the haystack » search, but I told her I would leave immediately.

When I got to the school, I saw that it was a very large one, which had many dumpsters. I then became disheartened. Kathi met me and took me to an office complex in one corner of the school where it was that she worked which had its own dumpster corral. When I looked, there were 4 dumpsters. Under closer inspection, one had green waste, one was empty, and one was just cardboard recyclables; that narrowed the search down to one dumpster which was overflowing with the exact same black plastic bags. I started pulling bags and looking in them for anything that might show it came from an inside container, as most of them had food in them, and looked as if they were from the outside cafeteria. I emptied about half of the dumpster and detected one bag, which was full of foil pull tops from milk containers, every one of them sounding like a gold or platinum ring. Kathi came over and I explained that we needed to try to look in each bag to see if there was something she recognized in order to speed the process, because I would be there all day going through each bag, so we began the looking. All of a sudden she recognized a pamphlet, so we took that bag and emptied it out on the ground, and I began my detecting. Many more foil pull tops, and then all of a sudden after getting a good signal and putting my pin pointer in, I moved a paper towel, and there was her beautiful diamond ring. Kathi had her back to me when I grabbed the ring, I picked it up and held it out to her when she turned, to her total surprise. She told me how her husband worked extra to save for this ring to give her for their 25th anniversary. Funny thing is she had not told him of the loss, she told me she didn’t have the heart to let him know after he had worked so hard for it. Then not 15 minutes after I found the ring as we were standing there talking, the trash truck came in and emptied the dumpster! I told Kathi that we « dodged a bullet » on this one; WOW! So happy to have made her day!

 

Don’t let the County beach cleaning machines take your lost valuable, call as soon as possible! I will work hard, using the most up to date metal detectors, to help you find what you thought might never be found again. I search, Beverly Hills, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, Northridge, Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Venice Beach, Zuma Beach, and all parks, yards, gardens, and ponds (to 5 foot depths) in all of Orange County, all of Los Angeles County, and Ventura County.

6 Comments »

6 Replies to “Diamond Wedding Ring Lost in School Dumpster in Van Nuys, CA…Happily Found.”

  1. Dave Millman dit :

    Amazing timing to beat the trash truck by 15 minutes! Great find.

    1. Steve Smith dit :

      I know I could not believe it when that truck rolled in!

  2. Wow, timing really was of the essence with this recovery!
    As Dave already said, great find, and great job!

    1. Steve Smith dit :

      Thanks. Most of the time it pays off to get out and search right away.

  3. Bill Jones dit :

    Amazing recovery, well done

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