Community Chat

[kivah]

@chickenbutt

A few days ago, my roomie told me he was expecting a package the following day. It was mid-morning and I was in my bedroom with my little lhasa --- and my dog starting barking -- so I new FedEx was at my door.

I live in a nice area - but there's lots of homeless and addicts roaming around. I'm on nextdoor dot com - and every week, someone is complaining about their packages being stolen from their front door - or someone stole their mail. We have community mailboxes - around 30 mailboxes in a stucco frame. They pick the lock. They also follow the UPS and FedEx trucks - so u have to be fast in getting ur deliveries. 

Many of the thieves are caught on their cameras -- but it's rare for them to get caught.

[Sushismom]

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Even locked boxes have been broken into. The vast majority are easily opened using a screwdriver. 

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Having a locked box at least protects me from the unprepared thief.  

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Good point and so true!   I remember when I had my first auto alarm installed and some people saying stuff like 'well, if somebody REALLY wants to get into your car they WILL get in'.    Well, no shirt, Sherlock!  But locking/alarming things is a definite deterrent over not locking or alarming them at all.  Duh, right? 

I never understood the notion that locking is silly.  So, just leaving your box/house/car/etc unlocked makes more sense?  not

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And how many mail thieves are unprepared? 

[Lipstickdiva]

In my neighborhood, our mailboxes are on our house, not out at the curb.  All the locked mailboxes I have seen wouldn't work to be attached to our house.  Plus, I don't think it would accomodate all the mail we get.

If I could find one that would work, I'd definitely contact my local post office and find out if it would be okay to install.  

[Colinka]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, so I apologize if it has. Did you know that you can go to the USPS website and sign up for something called "Informed Delivery"? I receive an email every day which shows actual scans of any mail or UPSP packages which are due to be delivered that day. It helps to know what should be in my mailbox when I get home from work. It won't prevent theft, but at least you know if something important was taken, and take steps to contact the sender.  Most of the time I only get junk mail, as most of my bills, statements, etc. are now sent electronically.

[Blahblahvampemer]

For the first time in ages, I put a bill in the mailbox.  Then a woman came to the door, I didn't want to answer, and before she got in her car, she ran back and stole our outside temperature gauge.  We didn't realize that at the time, but she must have thought it was a camera.  She then stopped by the mailbox and stole the bill.  Luckily it was on our secondary account, and it only has one direct deposit.  Wells Fargo was great and immediately closed the account and will mail us some free checks.  

I'd love to send everything to a mail drop, but UPS and Fed Ex stink at taking large amounts of mail and packages.  We're also supposed to sign for everything via UPS, but today he just dropped and ran.  

I'm tempted to have the mail delivered every Saturday by doing a weekly hold.