We all know how frustrating it is to realise you’ve left something behind in your hotel or holiday villa, but when it does happen it’s not always as innocent as a pair of pyjamas or the latest must-read book.

Over the years, we’ve made some pretty odd discoveries while cleaning our holiday villas and we felt it was about time we shared them with the world.

Finds include an urn full of ashes, a taxidermy baby elephant, a shrunken head, and multiple plaster casts of different sets of women’s breasts.

The top twenty strangest finds are as follows:

  1. A taxidermy baby elephant
  2. A bag full of human hair
  3. A shrunken head
  4. Signed copies of all of Julio Iglesias’ albums
  5. Plaster casts of different women’s breasts
  6. Ventriloquist dummy
  7. A samurai sword
  8. Five copies of Stephen Fry’s autobiography
  9. A set of Princess Diana memorial cups
  10. A full box of Cuban Cigars
  11. Oil drum of first pressed olive oil
  12. A collector’s book of dried butterflies
  13. Keys to a Ferrari 458 Italia (but no car left on site)
  14. 1kg of Marijuana
  15. A WW1 Gas Mask
  16. A live chameleon in a tank
  17. An entire wheel of manchego cheese
  18. Signed photo of David Hasselhoff in frame
  19. Box of dead mosquitoes
  20. A cowboy’s lasso

Our employees log all items they find after guests have checked out in case they need to be returned. These items have been found in our properties in Portugal, Mallorca, Turkey, Greece and Italy.

We always attempt to return items back to their rightful owners, however with many of the weirder finds, people are often unresponsive or decide not to have the items returned to them.

Managing Director at PremierVillas.net, Simon Jennings, said,

"We’ve been doing this a long time and some of the things we’ve found are just extraordinary. It’s interesting to see what kind of things people bring with them on holiday, and it can certainly be a hilarious moment when we do find certain things! We keep a tally of all items that are left behind, however most are things like chargers, towels and socks."

"It’s unsurprising that people were unresponsive when we tried to return the items listed above, and I doubt they’ll be getting in touch to retrieve them any time soon."