Like the midway game Whack-a-mole, the mail thieves in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows keep popping up all over the place. No sooner than one is smacked down by police or Canada Post and another pops up somewhere else.
The latest area to be hit was last Thursday in the Highland Park area of Pitt Meadows, near 124th Avenue and 188A Street.
Someone pried open the bottom of the old-style community mail box, which included Anne Ostling’s address.
She’s not sure what she lost but credits the thieves with having a good work ethic by getting up in the morning. She checked the mailbox at 7:30 a.m. and it was secure, then came from walking her dog just before 8 a.m. to find it broken into.
Canada Post since wrapped the box in cellophane to keep people from using the mailboxes.
She’s worried about bank and credit cards that are sent out ready for use without being activated.
“With the new touch technology, the thief could be shopping, or creating an identity of me from my unknown mail contents,” she added in an e-mail.
She wants the new style of community mailboxes installed as soon as possible.
“It’s such an easy fix, get a new mailbox done.”
Ostling talked to Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge MP Randy Kamp, but was told to call Canada Post.
“Randy Kamp has to do something. This is ridiculous. He’s got to lean on Canada Post. It’s his responsibility.”
Mitchell Funhouser reported the same thing in the same part of Pitt Meadows on Facebook and notes most of the community mailboxes in the area have been replaced with the more secure models.
Ridge Meadows RCMP say that so far this year, up to April 19, there have been 70 reports of damage to mail boxes, mostly from the rural, eastern part of Maple Ridge. That’s 27 more than for the same period last year, said civilian media spokesperson Dan Herbranson.