Staff and volunteers arrived at the charity store to discover donations had been scattered down the length of the store driveway, many of them left sodden by overnight rain.

Manager Steve Barrott said he had lost count of the number of times this had occurred during his eight years at the store.

“We leave the gates open so people can drop stuff off [overnight], but it’s not worth it,” he said.

The Keppel Street store has rear lane access via Seymour Street, and it is here that someone made a mess of the donations.

“I don’t know why they do it,” a clearly frustrated Mr Barrott told the Western Advocate.

A rain-proof after hours collection box is at the rear of the shop in the laneway and he said there were four or five boxes left in there when volunteers left on Wednesday afternoon.

“There was stuff strewn right down the road,” he said.

“It makes you cranky and we’ve got volunteers who are cranky and I don’t blame them ... it took them a couple of hours to clean up.

“People are genuine when they donate. They don’t want to see all their goods thrown around.”

Store volunteers spent much of the morning salvaging what they could of the sodden items, but much had to be thrown away.

In addition to yesterday’s mess, Mr Barrott said items are often taken from the donation box or rubbish is dumped.

Yesterday was no different: empty cat food tins, biscuit wrappers and disposable plates were among the items strewn in the laneway.

Mr Barrott said any profits made by the store go back to helping the community  through vouchers for rent or bills and free clothes when needed.

He encourages people to make donations to the store during business hours so that items will not be destroyed or stolen.

The Salvation Army Family Store is open 9am-4pm weekdays and 9am-1pm on Saturday.

The laneway gate will now only remain open on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.