Bronx Residents Left Without Mailboxes As Postal Service Cracks Down On “Mailbox Fishing”

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Published on February 16, 2017, 4:55 pm
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Did you ever hear of mailbox fishing? Most people have not, but it is a growing problem in Bronx.

Thieves tie a long string to a glue covered object, such as a crushed water jug and then drop the sticky object through the mailbox door.

According to Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., “at nighttime they come and they’ll pull up the string and everything that stuck to the object will be theirs.” The mailbox fishers are hoping to catch envelopes containing checks and credit cards.

Last November the Bronx Post Office removed over 100 of the blue collection boxes with the pull down doors.

They were supposed to be replaced with boxes that have narrow slots at the top to put in your mail.

That would prevent mailbox fishing. Most Bronx politicians supported the move, although they say they were not informed in advance. But now they are furious with the Postal Service. That is because it is been three months and most of the boxes that were removed have not been replaced.

Residents who depend on those corner mailboxes to mail their bills and letters are upset. Especially hard hit are the seniors and disabled who can’t walk to the nearest post office.

“The solution is very simple”, says State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, “give us back our mailboxes.” Dinowtiz is one of eight Bronx politicians who recently wrote a letter to the U.S Postmaster General, complaining that “the Bronx Post Office has yet to offer a timeline for replacement. Not only have they not said when they’re going to put them back, but they’ve told us they not put them back.”

The borough president says “I don’t think they see the urgency. Maybe it’s because it’s in Bronx.”

An attempt to get some answers form the Postal Service, ended up with getting the runaround.

 

 

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Jonas Bronck is the pseudonym under which we publish and manage the content and operations of The Bronx Daily.™ | Bronx.com - the largest daily news publication in the borough of "the" Bronx with over 1.5 million annual readers. Publishing under the alias Jonas Bronck is our humble way of paying tribute to the person, whose name lives on in the name of our beloved borough.