At the airport auction, a catalogue of what people lose

Dozens of strollers. AirTags tracking nothing. Fake Rolexes still in the box. A 2022 Honda CR-V (silver). These are just a few of the thousands of items left behind at Pittsburgh International Airport over the past year. They now sit sorted in boxes and on tables in an inconspicuous warehouse behind a Washington, Pa. car dealership, where they await purchase at the airport’s annual auction. “We’ve had some taxidermy in the past. People have left stuffed alligator heads,” the Allegheny County Airport Authority’s public affairs director Bob Kerlik tells Pittsburgh City Paper . “You name it, we’ve had it here at the airport.” This year, that includes piles of belts, dozens of laptops, doorstopper sci-fi novels, and more than 20 cars. West Virginia auction impresario Joe R. Pyle’s company is running this year’s auction, which is open for bids through Sept. 8. Kerlik says the items fall into three categories: personal effects left somewhere in the terminal, abandoned vehicles, and Airport Authority tools and equipment “that have reached the end of their useful lives.” A stuffed Daniel Tiger looks up at me from a box. A charging case contains a single earbud. A box of rings catches the fluorescent light. “We do everything we can to try to reunite lost items with their owners,” Kerlik says. If unclaimed after 30 days, the airport takes ownership. The Joe R. Pyle auction warehouse in Washington, Pa. Credit: Colin Williams I ask him about all the abandoned cars, why somebody would leave a working vehicle just sitting there. “A lot of times, we don’t know,” he says. “People go on vacation, they’re moving, they feel like the car is not worth enough that they want to bother to come back and get it.” Other car owners may have passed away before they could return to Pittsburgh.  Kerlik says the airport works with authorities to determine who holds the vehicle title. “There is a who