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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael The blue mailboxes of the United States Postal Service differ from the yellow ones in Germany in that one could insert letters and even small parcels by opening a relatively large flap at the top, placing the mail or parcel on top of it, and then snapping the flap shut, launching the postage item into the interior. Sadly, this is now history!
Apparently, Criminals from the New York Bronx found out years ago, that the content inside the mailboxes could be extracted out by lowering a sticky insect trap on a string into the mailbox through the flap, and pulling out any postage items that got entangled with the trap.
This trend now appears to have arrived in our increasingly disorderly San Francisco, with rising complaints from postal customers indicating that mailbox theft is on the rise. In response, the United States Postal Service was forced to replace the old blue mailboxes with newer, more secure ones. Instead of a drop-off slot, these new mailboxes have a narrow opening that is secured by metal teeth and can only be used for depositing flat letters. This technology was previously only known to me from mailboxes in Germany belonging to millionaire urbanites and slot-type bank safes for cash heavy businesses.
Mail theft was relatively rare until a few years ago. It has always been considered a federal crime. If a mail thief is caught, it is not necessarily a local prosecutor who takes action, but rather a more stringent federal official, and the offense is tried in a federal court. However, the federal authorities seem to be less willing in recent times to investigate such offenses. There's even a growing number of reports of mail carriers being robbed on their routes,
What interesting, though, is that instead of legally intervening and bringing a few mail thieves to justice, the Postal Service now reduces the size of the mailbox slots. This inconveniences the majority of ordinary citizens, who could previously insert smaller packages into the mailbox, and must now travel to the next post office for every padded envelope.
Even our apartment building was recently hit by mail thieves: One night in November, they broke into the intercom system outside the lobby door, opened the front door and then pried open the combined mailbox for all tenants (Figure 4). Usually postal workers carry the master key for these boxes to open them at the top and drop mail into individual slots. Our property management reacted quickly had everything repaired within a day. A report was made to police, but it is highly likely that nothing will come of it due to too much bureaucracy and too little prospect of success.
Reporting live from the city under criticism.
Michael and Angelika
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