Early on the morning of Christmas Eve, Highland Drive residents woke to find their mailboxes wide open – and empty. All standard mailboxes – as far as the eye could see – appeared to have their collective silver tongues hanging out. Only the new-fangled styles and locking boxes seemed to be unmolested.
Residents who had not emptied their boxes the previous afternoon, after the mailman made his rounds, lost their mail to the predacious cowardly mail stealer. This cretin prefers to violate good citizens’ faith and trust – rather than make an honest living for himself.
Sheriff’s Deputy Solorio came out to have a look – and he actually attempted to gather some fingerprints from boxes which hadn’t been touched since the theft. He found a DVD cartridge box (addressed to someone several blocks away) near one of the opened boxes and took it along to possibly extract prints. NNV has yet to hear whether an investigation is underway and whether the deputy has made any progress.
If you did not empty your box of its 12/23 mail, you may be a victim. You may not become aware of a theft until important expected mail doesn’t arrive – or until your identity has been stolen. If you were gone overnight on 12/23, you might never have been aware that your mailbox was open because, when the mailman delivered the mail on 12/24, he simply put that day’s mail in your box and closed the door. There would be no way for you to know whether you were removing one day’s mail or two day’s mail when you emptied your box on the 24th or later.
If you think you may have been victimized, call the Sheriff’s office at (408) 299-2311 and make a report. Meanwhile, get your ducks in a row by determining as best as you can what was in your mailbox. If you were expecting holiday gift checks or end-of-year dividends, better call the senders ASAP. Good luck. We’ve been the victims of mail theft twice (but not this time!) and the ensuing mayhem is simply not pretty!
Watch for the next edition of NNV in early February.
Thanks,
Judy Thompson
New Neighborhood Voice
Copyright© 2004 by Judy Thompson. All rights reserved. Updated 12/28/04.