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If your car is stolen, you may just get it back with more than you bargained for.

More than 26,000 cars were stolen in Washington last year according to the Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force, and if their owners are fortunate enough to get them back, they鈥檙e often saddled with a time-consuming new problem: they need to clean up and clean out their vehicle.

It happened to Alaina Nieto. Her car was stolen for the second time in January. When she got it back, Nieto said police called and told her the car was at an impound lot.

鈥淕arbage bags of clothes and toilet paper and just tools and random things,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat wasn鈥檛 in the car? There was a ton.鈥�

So what do you do?

鈥淲e had called the non-emergency line and asked, 鈥榃hat do we do with this stuff?鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淎nd they just kind of said, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 up to you.鈥欌��

鈥淲ere you surprised?鈥� 成人X站 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.

鈥淚 was very surprised,鈥� Nieto said. 鈥淚 felt like maybe more care should be put into getting other people reunited with their stuff.鈥�

Nieto found a hand torch. An iPod Touch. Dozens of tools. And even Christmas ornaments.

A lot of people would鈥檝e just thrown it all out. But Nieto sorted through it and found a flute with a local public school sticker on it. She managed to track down the owner through social media.

And then a blue velvet bag caught her eye. Inside: a paw print and a small bag of cat fur.

She knew it was important. We鈥檒l get back to that in a bit.

Getting a car back full of random items happens a lot more often than you might think.

成人X站 7 connected with Nieto through a Facebook page called PNW Stolen Cars. It has over 150,000 members and when 成人X站 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon posted to ask about people鈥檚 experiences in situations like this, she received more than two hundred responses.

One man found a machete. He said the police told him he could keep it.

One woman said deputies told her a drill wasn鈥檛 reported stolen, so it was hers.

And another woman found three extra laptops left in her car, even after she told officers they weren鈥檛 hers.

鈥淚f I鈥檓 investigating that, that would more than likely tell me that those are stolen,鈥� King County Sheriff鈥檚 Office Detective Mike Ramirez said of the laptops case. 鈥淪o I would seize them temporarily and try to see if I could find the owner by serial number.鈥�

成人X站 7 met up with Detective Ramirez at Banker鈥檚 impound lot in Renton. He works for Covington Police through their contract with the Sheriff鈥檚 Office.

So what exactly is the policy?

What are your rights and what steps should you take if you get your car back with strangers鈥� valuable stuff still inside?

鈥淒o I call police and say, 鈥楬ey, these things are not mine? You might have thought they were mine. Can you take them off my hands and reunite them with their owners?鈥欌�� Sheldon asked.

鈥淚f you don鈥檛 want it, we take it,鈥� Ramirez said. 鈥淲e store it. And, you know, at some point, whatever happens to it, it鈥檒l stay in storage for years. And then we figure out what we do with it later on. We have our policies. Every department has a policy, what they do with property.鈥�

Unfortunately, for items that aren鈥檛 worth much, that are hard to trace back to an owner, or things like garbage and other messes, it鈥檚 up to the car鈥檚 owner or insurance company to clean out.

鈥淭he residue of fentanyl stays, it lingers and it sticks to the surface,鈥� Ramirez said.

And what if you find and turn on something like a cell phone that has GPS tracking?

鈥淎ll of a sudden somebody comes knocking at your door, [saying,] 鈥楬ey, you have my phone!鈥� 鈥極h yeah, I found it in the car.鈥� Technically, you鈥檙e in possession of stolen property, right?鈥� Ramirez said.

He said in a case like this, there鈥檚 an obvious paper trail, like a police report.

鈥淵ou have an explanation as to what happened,鈥� he said.

Despite all the cleanup Nieto had to do, she wasn鈥檛 going to throw out that blue velvet bag.

鈥淪o there was a barcode,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I called the animal hospital and I just said the pet name on it.鈥�

Emma Loomis. Emma, the cat.

The vet connected her with Kristina Loomis, who told 成人X站 7 that Emma was particularly special to her daughter, Sabrina.

鈥淚 immediately broke out in tears,鈥� Loomis said. 鈥淸Sabrina] had requested to have her paw print to remember her by.鈥�

When Sabrina鈥檚 car was broken into, they thought they had lost this last piece of Emma forever.

鈥淭o get this phone call out of the blue. It was amazing,鈥� Loomis said. 鈥淪he didn鈥檛 have to call us. She didn鈥檛 have to track us down鈥� but she went the extra mile to make sure that they got back to us.鈥�

Nieto said she did it because she knows what it feels like to be a victim.

鈥淚t messes with your sense of security,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t makes you feel violated. And I just wanted to help anyone who I could.鈥�

So what about other departments鈥� policies?

Seattle Police said they seize evidence, but sometimes officers don鈥檛 know what belongs to the owner and what is stolen. If you find valuable items, you have to advocate for yourself and tell officers to come pick them up.

The Pierce County Sheriff鈥檚 Office said owners often tell them about found property and they鈥檒l book it for safekeeping as they try to track down the owners.

Everett Police said they really try to talk to the car鈥檚 owner as soon as they find it abandoned. That way they know what items to take to try to return them.

In all three cases, departments said they look to seize evidence and anything that might be stolen but may need people to speak up if they find a valuable item鈥攅specially one with a serial number鈥攖hat can be traced back to its owner.

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