What to Know
- Queens resident defied the odds thanks to the Department of Sanitation and was reunited with his lost wallet after throwing it in trash
- Avrohom Levitt threw out his wallet on W. 186th Street in Manhattan, DSNY tweeted
- The Department of Sanitation of New York helped Levitt by arranging a lost valuable search
In a seemingly impossible mission, one lucky Queens resident defied the odds thanks to the Department of Sanitation and was reunited with his lost wallet after throwing it in the trash.
It all started when Avrohom Levitt’s grey wallet fell into a shopping bag he used to throw away trash in his car when he was in Manhattan celebrating Purim.
"My wallet fell out of my jacket pocket," he tells NBC 4 New York. "I knew it fell between the two seats, I didn't know that it fell in the bag."
He apparently then dumped the bag, with the wallet still inside, in a trash can on W. 186th Street, before heading home.
Levitt had a tracking device inside his wallet. The tracking device posted its last known location as the Washington Heights apartment building where Levitt remembered throwing out the trash bag.
However, the garbage had already been picked up so Levitt called 311.
Fortunately, the Department of Sanitation has helped other people reunite with lost items in the past — like wedding rings — and so it arranged a lost valuable search at Interstate Waste Services, a waste transfer station, in Newark.
It was there that a sanitation worker dumped out garbage bags for Levitt to look through in hopes of finding his wallet.
In the end, he dug out his wallet — which contained $68 dollars and credit cards he needs for an oversees trip.
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After recovering his lost wallet and finding himself in that stinky situation, he stopped on his way home to pick up his favorite cologne, which he doused on the wallet — and himself.
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The experience left Levitt grateful and brought him “a whole new appreciation” for those who pick up the trash, he told The Post.
“I have a tremendous feeling of appreciation to everyone who was part of this,” he told The Post. “They are the kindest and sweetest. Everyone was so kind and cheerful.”
However, Levitt’s adventure seems to be all in a day’s work for the sanitation department, which tweeted “our pleasure to assist."
