I live here Monday - I probably have your stolen stuff

There is a lot of petty theft in Eugene.  A.  Lot.  I don't want you to underestimate the amount of theft and vandalism here, just because it's a small-to-medium city, the population density is pretty low, people tend to be well-educated, and there are lots of butterflies and green trees and happy, smiling children.

There's also enough meth to fuel China's work force for a month.

Over the past few months, I have noticed a strange trend.  In the narrow and seldom traveled gap between the buildings next to my building, freshly stolen items often appear.  It's never anything too valuable, just bike wheels and workout clothes and, once, a complete set of Spanish flashcards.

Why does all this stuff end up in that alley?  Well, I have a theory.  Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?  It's a bunch of garbage (a bunch = hundreds of thousands of square miles) that is stuck in the middle of the ocean, slowly disintegrating.  It ends up there because it's kind of a dumping ground for the ocean currents:

I think that the alley behind my office is the Great Eugene Dumping Ground for Valueless Stolen Crap.  Check it out:

The high pressure zones of rich professionals and cars, which are just asking to be broken into, provide the valueless crap, but they also push the petty thieves with their stolen goods away from the business district of downtown.  At that point, the thieves start going through the bags they've ripped off, and unconsciously get stuck in a loop they're very familiar with¹ - Public Defender's office to the various required counseling places to the drug dealers in the alley(not pictured).  They are forced off the actual streets by the nerdy looking bicycle cops, drop all the crap they don't want to keep behind my office, then break the loop and run off towards the bike path.

After not too much time, the ANGRY RED ARROWS OF METH! force them back to repeat the cycle day after day.

Anyways, what I'm saying is that, you know that bike you had stolen?  I probably have the cast-off pieces of your destroyed lock.  The bike is long gone, though.  Sorry, dude.

¹Am I saying that there is no hope for these people?  No, there are a lot of really dedicated workers trying to get them out of this loop....  On the other hand, I once watched a fight break out at the halfway house because they guys living there didn't agree on how to best water the lawn.