Thieves May Target ‘Stuffed’ Mailboxes

Mail recently deposited in the mailboxes outside the Simi Valley post office may have ended up in the wrong hands, postal officials said Wednesday.

But it’s not a typical case of mail being misrouted.

Instead, postal officials believe someone has been stealing mail by blocking the mailboxes’ openings to make it appear that the boxes outside the Galena Avenue station were full and then snatching the letters. So far, the post office has received reports of mail dropped off on Feb. 11 and 13 not reaching its destination.

“Quite a bit of mail [from the 11th] didn’t get where it was going,� said Terri Bouffiou, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service. “So we have to assume that it was [stolen.]�

Roxann Barr, a Simi Valley resident, was one victim of the alleged theft.

She says that on Feb. 13 she attempted to mail about 20 bills, totaling nearly $8,000, that never reached her home business’ creditors.

She alerted the post office as soon as she traced the problem to the overstuffed mailbox.

“I know [the letters] had stamps on them because I used a book of stamps,� she said. “And if it didn’t have the correct address it would come back to me, so I knew it had to be the post office box. It was full to the brim. I even had to push it down.

“I felt if this happened to me, everybody should know about it,� she said.

To help prevent further thefts, the post office will be adding an extra pickup on Sunday. But residents, they say, should never leave their mail in an overstuffed mail drop box.

“If it is full, people can reach in and pull it out,� said Bouffiou. “If you are not confident it is going to drop down, do not put your mail in.�