And it's not the usual traffic cones, text books and empty beer cans - two live hamsters and a false breast were amongst belongings found at a student home on Waterloo Road, Ashton, in Preston at the end of term.

David Bone, of Manchester-based CBS Property Group which looks after student accommodation in Preston, said: "There's been the usual crop of dumped hi-fi systems and scrapped Playstations.

"But then comes the bizarre stuff and every year generally brings a new surprise."

Other unusual items found in the city include a false leg and jar of pickled frogs.

But if those landlords were shocked, others across the North West made even stranger discoveries - from a set of pig's trotters in a fridge to a sado-masochist's bondage needle wheel.

Liam Collins, partner in the firm, said: "No-one knew what it was. It looked like a pizza slicer with points on so I left it in the cutlery drawer. It wasn't until a tenant recognised it and asked why it was there that I looked it up on the Internet."

But perhaps the strangest find was a retro dentist's chair – with a few tools of the extraction trade – set out in the basement that tenants had converted into a spooky surgery.

Liam said: "They don't come much weirder than the period dental surgery in the basement. That gave me a bigger shiver than 'Silence of the Lambs' ever did."

Other property left behind:

• A pair of thigh-high stiletto boots and a wig in a man's flat

• A blow up doll – found in a wardrobe as a landlord showed new tenants around for the next academic year

• A World War Two gas mask and a fake chest wig in the same box

• A collection of vintage 1970s Playboy magazines

• A framed, signed Ronaldinho shirt which was promptly commandeered

See our Weird World special in the Lancashire Evening Post every Thursday.

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