More Mail Theft in Carbon Canyon

UPDATE: 25 January 2012:  A simply-worded e-mail to the general Chino Hills City Council mailbox has yielded a response from a council member who lives in the Canyon, the Sheriff's Department captain (who lives in the city), and the department's Community Services Officer--the latter asking for more information about the rash of mail thefts as recent as last Sunday night and going back to just before Christmas.  Anyone with information to report on the incidents can contact the CSO at the Sheriff's office in Chino Hills. 

As recently as last night and going back to just prior to Christmas, a new rash of mail theft has been taking place throughout Carbon Canyon.  A neighbor had a credit card account hacked into and a few thousand dollars worth of charges put onto it.  At least one of the charges was for an Anaheim business.  Another neighbor reported that there was a local resident's bank account accessed by the thieves, as well.

In talking to the mail carrier in this area, the only advice the postmaster can give is to pick up each day's mail as soon after delivery as possible (in Sleepy Hollow, this generally means mid-afternoon during the week and about Noon on Saturday); not to leave Friday or Saturday's mail in the box over the weekend; and to get, if possible, a locking mailbox (which this blogger has had for several years now.)  Some existing clusters are so narrowly situated, though, that the larger locking boxes may not be feasible.

Otherwise, there would have to be very regular patrols of the area during the evenings by law enforcement, which may or may not be instituted.  Even if this were done, though, patrols can only take place at certain times and thieves could still operate around whatever schedule was developed.  Still, it seems reasonable to expect some attempt to patrol the area more often to give some effort to head off further trouble.

Ironically, about seven or so years ago, the postal service installed a clustered mailbox unit with locking compartments for individual households at both the Canyon Market and Sleepy Hollow Community Center parking areas.  While the former has remained, the latter was quickly removed because it was placed on city-owned property.  Why the City and USPS were not able to find a suitable location for the unit would be important to know, especially because mail theft continues to be a problem.