Monique Levesque is surprised at how quickly the fox depot has gained popularity in her Copper Ridge neighbourhood.

“Word went around quickly,” Levesque told the Star late last week. “I didn’t expect it to be such a big thing.”

Levesque had the idea for a fox lost-and-found depot when she noticed that the neighbourhood’s Facebook page was becoming cluttered with posts by residents. They were looking for items stolen by sticky-fingered foxes, or by people attempting to reunite items with their owners.

The foxes are known for stealing items from yards and porches on summer evenings, then discarding them across the neighbourhood.

Hoping to find a solution to the chaos, Levesque put a cardboard box in her front yard. She posted in the Copper Ridge Facebook group that her neighbours should feel welcome to drop found items in it. It was her daughter’s idea to call it the fox depot.

“I thought that was really funny,” Levesque said.

Before long, Levesque noticed people using the box, and more amazingly, being reunited with their lost belongings.

“I was like, ‘oh, my goodness, this is really working,’” she said.

According to Levesque, this is the worst year for fox thefts in the neighbourhood, attributing it to a larger number of fox pups.

When she looks out on the street in the evening, she often sees six at a time, gallivanting in the street.

“Every night, it’s like this. It’s hilarious. It’s super-cute,” she said. “They just own the neighbourhood now.”

Generally, Levesque thinks, Copper Ridge residents have a fondness for the foxes that traverse the neighbourhood in the evenings, then return to their den at the water station during the day.

Until, of course, possessions go missing.

Levesque’s box is now full of work gloves, children’s footwear, running shoes, sandals and Crocs.

The items most in danger of theft are made of leather and have laces, because the pups like to teeth on those materials.

When five or six baseball gloves went missing in one week, Levesque and her children joked that the foxes had clearly started a team.

In the past 10 days, Levesque estimates, around 70 people have stopped by her yard to check out the items in the depot, some looking for lost stuff, and others for the sheer amusement of seeing the project firsthand. Around 50 lost items have passed through already.

“The neighbourhood has been embracing the project,” Levesque said.

“People are very happy to find their stuff or find the stuff of people they know.”

Now that the fox depot is so popular, Levesque thinks she will upgrade the cardboard depot to something more solid and permanent for the years to come.

She enjoys seeing how the depot has brought the community together and brightened her neighbours’ days.

“I think if it brings a smile to someone’s face, we are already living in a better world.”