Ann Arbor woman hilariously documents people’s lost things on Twitter

ANN ARBOR – If you’ve lost anything in the downtown area, there’s a chance it’s been given a second life on Twitter.

Julie Weatherbee, who works by day in the University of Michigan’s IT department and live tweets City Council meetings by night, began tweeting photos of people’s lost things six years ago.

“The first one that I could find was in 2014,” said Weatherbee. “It’s a picture of a garbage can downtown and Aveda salon has practice heads -- so it’s a garbage can with a head on it. I tweeted, ’If you lost your head, it’s on the corner of Maynard and Liberty,’ which cracked me up.”

What began as an amusing attempt to change the narrative of abandoned objects transformed into a comical series which continues to this day.

“I try not to do actual lost things,” said Weatherbee. “I try to find things that just tickle me for whatever reason that are unusual or things that are in a weird spot. Losing your shirt, losing your pants, losing your shorts, those are always fair game because I can make that wordplay.”

For Weatherbee, it’s all about the captions. And what has surprised her most is the range of interactions the posts get. From adding to the imagined story of how the object got there to facilitating the collection of an object that a follower might actually want, the series has taken a life of its own.

Here are just some of her “Lost Things” posts: