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Photo by Bob Pennell Mallory Denny checks the tickets on unclaimed wedding gowns at Archie's Drive-In Cleaners on West Main Street in Medford. Missing anything lately? Lots of us are, say cleaners, shoe repair shops By JULIE SWENSEN Have you forgotten that cotton dress shirt you left at the cleaners? Have those shoes you brought in for new soles slipped your mind? Judging from what some business people in town have to say, quite a few of us have brought things in to be cleaned, repaired or processed, or ordered items and never picked them up. And some of the unclaimed items -- including wedding gowns -- have been at the stores for years. Shop employees who call to remind customers find that many of them have forgotten, but others have moved without leaving a forwarding address, or their phone has been disconnected. Some have died. One customer at GE Messinger Shoe Repair in Medford, however, did come back -- four years later -- to claim his cowboy boots. He'd been in prison. A patron at Pacific Diamond Jewelers in Medford brought in a bracelet for repair, moved to Colorado and then -- five years later -- remembered the repair job and called the shop, owner Phil Cam said. The jewelry store also has held onto unclaimed watches and rings (even wedding rings.) And even eyeglasses are forgotten occasionally. At Dr. Dennis R. Kantor's office, office manager Beckie Kantor said that about four or five times a year, people forget about new glasses they've ordered. Patrons who come back a year later to pick up their "new" glasses find that the prescription is not as sharp as it would have been a year earlier. The shop keeps the glasses for a year. If by then they're still unclaimed, but have been paid for, they're donated to the Lions Club. If the glasses are not paid for, the shop recycles the frames. "We're stuck with the lenses," she said. Camera shops also have kept developed photos that have never been claimed. Probably seven or eight rolls of film a year aren't picked up at Total Camera & Video in Medford, manager Bud Thomson said. The pictures are usually kept for a couple of years, then thrown away. GE Messinger Shoe Repair tries to give unclaimed shoes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. But forgetting shoes, jewelry, eyeglasses and photos doesn't seem to happen nearly as often as people bringing clothes to the dry cleaners and then blocking them out of their minds. "We keep everything," said Janet Hale, a manager at Black Oak Cleaners, where unclaimed items include a short mink coat, a formal dress, coats, shirts, pants, comforters and blankets. After two years or so, items are donated to Goodwill, and comforters and blankets are given to homeless shelters. At Archie's Drive-In Cleaners in Medford, several wedding dresses have been left at the shop for a couple of years, manager Cheryl Keys said. If the dresses still aren't redeemed by then, Archie's ends up selling them to cover the cost of cleaning and the box, which alone is about $30. You may have seen one of the wedding dresses for sale on display in one of the company's Ashland stores. The store now seeks advance payment for cleaning wedding gowns -- as well as the cleaning of leather items, because the shop contracts it out. Three leather jackets have been at the shop for nearly two years, though the customer has been reminded three times. Besides wedding and leather attire, the shop has accumulated sleeping bags, a mattress pad, drapes, dresses and blouses, and pants that were brought in to have zippers installed. "They just forget 'em," Keys said. She recommends that people put their claim checks on the visor of their car so they won't forget. Although these dry-cleaning shops have held onto items for years, state law requires them to keep items for only 180 days -- after that, they can dispose of them. So if it's been six months since you brought that shirt in to be cleaned -- you'd better get moving. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA