Danny Schwab heard the front door security alarm from his phone and it woke him up.
It was 4:30 a.m. Thursday and the motion detector on the camera at his house in the Foothills neighbourhood had been activated. There was a man standing at the door. But because the video uplink is delayed by about 30 seconds, by the time he got out of bed and rushed across the hall to another room facing the street the man was no longer on the front step.
“The guy was standing at the end of the driveway trying to get back on his bike and my first reaction was if he was robbing us and took something from me he obviously needs it more than I need it,” said Schwab. “So I watched him for a bit and it just looked like a guy with his bike and his bag and all his belongings.”
Schwab watched him ride away down the street and went back to bed. He looked at his phone to watch the surveillance video and noticed the man wasn’t taking anything, but leaving something.
“It looked like he set something down on the table, so I went and looked out the front door and there was a wallet there, and I opened it up and it’s my son’s wallet,” said Schwab.
“I just though holy gee, that impressive, and went to look for him. I jumped in my truck and couldn’t find him.”
In the wallet was all his son’s identification, credit cards and $50 in cash. It had probably fallen out of his pocket when he got out of his truck, which was parked on the street, Schwab said.
“As he was riding by (the stranger) saw it and came and put it on the table and if look at the video you can hear him say, ‘I found this wallet,’” said Schwab.
“I don’t think he looked inside the wallet. I wanted to thank him and I was going to give him a hundred bucks. Some people are just deserving and that guy is deserving, without knowing his story. You do judge people without knowing their stories."
It’s human nature to assume somebody standing on your doorstep in the middle of the night, dressed to be out for an extended time in the cold, could be out scouring the neighbourhood looking for property to steal, and Schwab says it’s a heartwarming lesson to have his own preconceived notions proven wrong.
“I felt shame for assuming the worst,” Schwab wrote in a Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook post.
“Quick lesson to all. This world still has some wonderful people in it. Maybe we have to look a little past the cover. To the gentleman who dropped off my son’s wallet, thank you. You opened my eyes again.”
Schwab said if the man reads this story he would like him to come back to the house on Ochakwin Crescent to thank him in person for his honesty.
“I’d still like to reward the guy, he impressed the heck out of me,” he said.
