When Mike Schmidt had his trailer stolen, he knew what to expect.

Any other time a vehicle had quietly disappeared from his business, it had never made its way back. Why would this one be any different?

Still, frustrated with the theft of the trailer – which his snowmobile racing team uses to tow its vehicles around Ontario – he posted a photo of it to Facebook, just in case somebody knew something.

People started sharing it immediately. A few minutes later, Schmidt’s phone rang.

A friend said he had seen the trailer on his way to work that morning. He went back to the same spot, and realized that it was still there.

“It was like ‘Holy cow, we found this trailer in less than 15 minutes,’” Schmidt said in an interview.

Schmidt suspects the trailer was stolen sometime Sunday, although he doesn’t know that for sure. He last saw it Saturday night at his Cambridge business, and noticed it was missing Tuesday evening.

Once he learned that it had ended up at an apartment complex in Brantford, he placed a call to Brantford Police.

Officers were dispatched to the apartment complex, where they confirmed that the trailer – which Schmidt says is worth at least $20,000 – was indeed there.

Inside were dirtbikes, a moped, an ATV, and other recreational vehicles – none of which had been in the trailer when it was taken from Schmidt, and some of which had been reported as stolen.

Schmidt went down to Brantford to see it for himself. Less than a day later, the truck was back home in Cambridge.

“It’s not even been 24 hours since that post … and I have my trailer back already. I can’t thank everybody enough,” he said.

“It’s just incredible how quickly this happened.”

Schmidt wasn’t the only person who got something back as a result of his Facebook post.

Tuesday night, he got a call from somebody else who recognized the pickup truck parked next to the trailer in Schmidt’s photo – because it had been stolen from him.

“I must have said ‘wow’ a million times in the last 24 hours, because I still can’t believe how well it worked,” he said.

Although police did recover the trailer, they have yet to make any arrests in the case. Since the trailer was parked at an apartment complex, it’s difficult to determine who brought it there.

Officers have been talking to residents of the complex and other people in the area. Police say that they are also working to figure out where the other items in the trailer came from, and whether they may have been stolen as well.

With reporting by Marc Venema