Furry handcuffs, a wheelchair, half a pint, a false leg and a CD guide to speed seduction. No, not a big weekend but just some of the items left behind in rental cars according to the latest survey from Europcar.

Given that the rental giant car-hires number in the thousand each day it is not surprising that the occasional piece of lost property or odd excuse is part of the package.

While the usual items such as keys and mobile phones featured highly, staff were surely surprised to locate a Scottish Piper’s black ostrich feather hat, 4 dozen light bulbs and even a mannequin.

It’s not just bizarre left-over’s that keep depot staff amused. Excuses for damage range from the slightly absurd to the downright unlucky. A country man had a horse decided to rest by backing his posterior during a break on a back-country road, whereas a Newport branch revealed a customer has claimed a lion has taken a large bite out of one his bumpers during an attack when visiting the Longleat Safari Park.

According to a spokesperson for the hire car group, there is a never a dull day in the crazy world of car rentals. This reasoning further enhanced by the man who drove into the back of a woman’s rental car in Derbyshire, claiming the cause was a toppling ice-cream he was attempting to consume.

Europcar staff have claimed that they often go to great lengths to return lost property, though no mention was made of the frozen confectionary.