Left-behind item message
Send this on turnover day, after you are sure the item is theirs and it is not trash or something from a prior stay.
{Guest name}, while turning {Property name} I found {Item description}.
It is at {Where it is}. I can hold it until {Hold until}. Reply in this thread if you want it, and say whether you will pick it up or you want a shipping option we both agree on first.
If I do not hear from you by {Hold until}, I will treat it as unclaimed. I will not throw out an identity document or a payment card. Tell me if the description does not match anything you packed.
When to send
Send this on the turnover, the same day the item is found, once you believe it belongs to {guest_name} and not to the owner, the cleaner, or a guest from last month. {item_description} should be specific enough to recognize and boring enough to be safe: “a blue children’s jacket, size 6, left on the bedroom chair,” not “a jacket plus the papers that were in the pocket.” Do not describe document numbers, card numbers, or anything that looks like a password. {where_it_is} is your storage, not their old room: “labeled in the hall closet at the property” or “with me, off site.”
{hold_until} is a date you will actually honor. A week is a common choice for clothes. Passports and payment cards are not clothes. The template says you will not throw those out. Follow that even after {hold_until}, and use whatever lost-document process you already trust. This message is not that process. It is the ask.
If you are not sure whose stay it came from, do not guess a guest and ship a stranger’s medicine to the wrong city. Say less, or ask both recent guests only if the item is harmless to describe.
Timing tip
Turnover day is the right day because {item_description} is accurate while the item is in your hand. A week later you will misremember the color. Send it before the thank-you note if both go out, or skip the thank-you until you know whether the item changes the tone. Finding a phone is not a moment for a generic thanks in the same bubble.
Give them {hold_until} in the property’s local date, and do not ship before they answer. Shipping first “to be helpful” spends money they may not want to repay, and it can send a child’s toy to an address they no longer use.
If they are still in the region on checkout morning, {where_it_is} can include a same-day pickup hour. Offer that only if you can be there. A pickup window you miss becomes another thread.
Common mistakes
Photographing a wallet open, a passport photo page, or a laptop screen is the serious mistake. If you take a photo to show them, show the outside of the object. The template does not ask for a photo. Use one only to identify a common item like a charger. Do not attach an image of anything that could be used as an identity.
The second is listing every object in the home. “Also, did you mean to leave the half bottle of soap” trains them to ignore you. {item_description} is the thing a person would travel back for, or the thing you are not willing to throw away. Consumables the listing told them to leave are not a left-behind item.
The third is a moral note. “You need to be more careful” does not help them get the jacket back. Describe, hold, date, stop. If the item is damage rather than property, use the incident report and a different message. A broken lamp is not {item_description}.
When they answer
Agree on shipping in the thread before you pay for a label: who pays, which address, and that the address is one they are willing to put in the thread. If the platform is a poor place for an address, follow the platform’s rules rather than inventing a side channel in this template. The template keeps the decision in the thread on purpose.
If {hold_until} passes with silence, do what you said you would do for an ordinary item, and write one line that you did it. Then you are done.