If anyone needed a reminder to always check your pockets before chucking your laundry into the wash, here’s a cautionary tale from a florist who found herself short of almost US$9,000 after leaving a huge wad of cash in a coat pocket that was being washed at a laundromat.
According to an Apple Daily report today, the victim is a florist surnamed Mo, who for two years has run a flower shop on Walker Street in Hung Hom’s funeral business district.
Like a lot of florists, Mo raked it in over the Chinese New Year holiday — when fresh flowers are in high demand due to the belief that they bring good fortune — telling Apple Daily that this year she made about HK$90,000 (just under US$11,500) from the Lunar New Year flower market.
But at around 8am on February 7 — the third day of Lunar New Year — Mo took some clothes to be washed at her local laundromat on Bulkeley Street, a three-minute walk from her store. After putting her clothes in the washing machine, she went back to her store, and it wasn’t until 2pm that she realised she left the wad of cash inside a coat pocket in the washing machine.
She rushed back to the laundromat only to find that her clothes had been taken out of the washing machine, and set aside on a stool with most of the money gone.
By Mo’s count, just over HK$10,000 (US$1,270) remained in her pocket, with more than HK$70,000 (US$8,900) missing. She called the police, who looked through the laundromat’s CCTV footage, which showed a woman in a purple shirt pulling HK$100 notes from the washing machine — and occasionally looking over her shoulder at the laundromat’s CCTV camera.
Police are still looking for the woman, and Mo says she would even hand out a HK$10,000 reward to anyone who can help her track down the woman who stole the cash.
Mo told the newspaper: “I haven’t been able to sleep properly since I lost the money, and my heart aches; it wasn’t easy to earn that much money.”
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