This seems common in the industry at large. At my job it's impossible to fix an issue unless someone specifically puts in a ticket for it. I look at all the bugs in the code taunting me. Little landmines either nobody has stepped on yet or was too lazy to write a ticket for. Some tickets languish for years in the tracking system we use until the almighty scrum master doles it out. I am in hell.
It’s been a while, I actually forgot a bit about the process, and I got it mixed up. Point being: tasks without a clear business driver were regularly brought into the sprint by devs.