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Georgie Pettit means business. In one hand, the middle-aged brunette clutches her dog-eared bidding number. In the other is the auction catalogue, in which she has noted the lots she hopes to take home. On her lap lies a tabloid newspaper, where she keeps track of the day's take: lots 2, 4, 9, 13 ...

When Pettit bids on a lot, she attracts competition from the less committed, who sense she's on to a good thing. They almost always give up before long, but today Pettit has lost out to an opponent she didn't quite bargain for. Today, I was bidding on lot 18. And I got it.

I've come to Greasby's auction house, in the bleak south London neighbourhood of Tooting, mostly as a voyeur - walking away with lot 18 was a bonus. For days, London chins have been wagging about this modest weekly sale - not for the high grade of its stock but for its poor quality.

Greasby's game is luggage, but it's not new and it's not empty. It is the stuff that has been lost at Heathrow Airport, and after it does the rounds - sitting on rain-soaked tarmacs, riding humming conveyor belts, languishing in dark, moist warehouses - it's shipped to Greasby's, where Pettit picks it up at a bang of the auctioneer's gavel.

Three Tuesdays a month, she wakes up at 4:30 a.m., gets in her Honda and makes the drive south from her Cambridge home to this former stable across from an overgrown railway. She arrives as the doors are opening and surveys the merchandise shoved into baker's racks and heaped on the floor. She takes note of the "nice German cases" - they fetch the most on eBay - and uses her intuition, boosted by the tarot cards she consults the night before, to rate the others.

She has no idea what's inside, but hopes that when she returns home that night - usually not until 7 p.m. - she will hit pay dirt with an Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt or a pair of 7 For All Mankind jeans to sell online. In five years as a Greasby's regular, she has found banknotes in the pockets of beachwear, including Egyptian pounds totalling $90, and even credit cards. She has also found vomit-stained towels and mouldy sweaters. "The first suitcase I bought was dodgy," she says. "Disgusting. Now, when I open a case, I shield my eyes and hold my nose."

All suitcases sold at Greasby's contain a mish-mash of articles deemed unworthy by the in-house pickers, who have first crack at them. Before they reach the block, all electronics - iPods, cameras - are stripped out. New clothes and shoes are removed and sold by the bag. And pristine toiletries are gathered in baskets. What remains has not been washed or even folded. It's just shoved back into the case, which is then zipped up and tied shut, not to be reopened until the buyer has paid in full. It's like a crude throwback to Let's Make a Deal: I'll take door No. 2, Monty!

London has been scandalized by this most unorthodox auction, which promotes Samsonite wheelies as if they held Renoirs - when, in reality, they hold the threadbare teddy bear of a doubtlessly distraught child, along with his mother's best underwear. BAA, the outfit that runs Heathrow, says on its website that the money it gets from Greasby's goes to charity, but officials won't elaborate on which one or how much they get. The company also says the luggage in question has been languishing unclaimed for at least three months; at that point, it says, the original owners have long since written it off.

(Scott Armstrong, a spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which manages Canada's busiest airport, Toronto Pearson, says bags that haven't been reunited with their owners are the responsibility of individual airlines; in the past, lost bags have been donated to the Salvation Army or used to test new baggage-handling systems.)

But a few weeks ago, word got out that Greasby's had been handling luggage processed by Heathrow's Terminal 5, which opened in a state of chaos just two months earlier.

Indeed, Londoners are scandalized - though not all of them, it seems.

After the evening papers broke the story of the Terminal 5 luggage sell-off, the curious hordes descended on Greasby's. The next sale was so well attended that its entire stock sold out. Stragglers who visited subsequent sales turned up to a depleted showroom, so picked over that the only luggage remaining was bruised and empty.

So, did the papers get it right? Did Greasby's break the three-month rule?

"Never," argues Christine Sachett, owner of the auction house. Even if Greasby's wanted to nip bags before the requisite three months, she says, there would be nothing to nip. The luggage repatriation system at T5 is too sophisticated.

"Thirty years ago, my father built this business by selling luggage. He sold more then than we do now." Sachett asserts that, these days, only "0.005 per cent" of all bags that pass through London airports are abandoned.

"The amount of luggage we sell is negligible compared to the number of people that go through Heathrow."

"The scandal is not in our selling it," she adds. "It's that people are walking away from their bags. They have no insurance, they don't know how to keep them safe. Passengers have to take a bit of responsibility for their luggage."

She has a point. Last year, 42.4 million bags were lost or delayed by airports worldwide. Simple mishandling was the main culprit, but also at fault were missed connections, weight restrictions, ripped tags and security rules like carry-on restrictions.

Few among us are lucky enough to emerge unscathed, even from a weekend trip. Model Naomi Campbell was arrested for allegedly harassing a police officer after her baggage went missing in Terminal 5. And just three weeks ago it was reported that Kate Moss's eight designer bags had fallen victim to the luggage fiasco.

Scott Mueller, a veteran of the U.S. airline industry and a former baggage-services manager, wrote the current bible for those naive to the dangers that await their luggage. In The Empty Carousel: A Consumer's Guide to Checked and Carry-on Luggage, he extols the virtues of proper, visible ID, distinguishing items with ribbons or tape, and checking baggage all the way through to a destination. He says following these steps will improve your chances of avoiding a problem.

"But the bottom line for any air traveller today is to ask yourself: 'If my luggage is lost, delayed, pilfered or damaged, how would that affect the outcome of the purpose of my travel?' " As he says in his book: "If you can't replace it, live without it or seal the deal without it, don't pack it."

Mueller adds: "Whether it is Heathrow, Denver or Fort Myers, where new baggage systems have been used and were complete failures, the problem will only get worse with no sight of things getting better."

This is good news for Greasby's regulars - a motley bunch equally at home at flea markets and rummage sales. But they undoubtedly miss the salad days when the auction was London's best-kept secret. Lining up at the cashier to pay for their swag, they grumble about once-bargain prices now being pushed higher by rookies.

Pettit assures me that I've overpaid for my $64 Alpine case. As I unzip it, I can sense the glares coming from the crowd. They survey my take for the day: two baseball caps, a musty wool coat, a tan jacket, a sweater, two knit scarves and a pair of black leather gloves. Clearly this is not the stuff of a supermodel.

But it's good enough for Pettit, who wanders over and benefits from my brief show of goodwill. "Take it," I say. "You'll get more out of it than me." She wedges it into the Honda's passenger seat.

"I like to have one bag beside me for the ride," she says. "Just to have something to pick through."