People in a Katy neighborhood say they are fed up after their mailboxes were broken into again and again, and residents say the missing letters and packages have started to include medication they rely on. Paul Hernandez said the mailbox on his side has been broken into at least four or five times in the last few months, and he and his neighbors have filed police reports and postal inspector reports with no change.
“Something has to be done ultimately. I mean, not today, not tomorrow, I mean now,” Hernandez said. The repeated break-ins have left residents looking for answers while mail continues to disappear from the neighborhood.
William Darby said the theft is hitting him where it hurts most: the mail from the VA that brings his asthma medication, blood pressure medication and cream for sores on his head. “I’m getting frustrated over it because my medication from the VA, comes through the mail, if I don’t get my medication, I got asthma medication coming in, I got blood pressure medication coming in, I got cream coming in for bad places on my head,” he said. Darby added, “Without my blood pressure medicine, I get frustrated.”
Mail theft in the neighborhood has been going on for months, according to residents who say they are tired of filing reports and seeing little relief. The United States Postal Inspector’s Office said it is aware of the theft in the neighborhood and is investigating, while ABC13 said it cannot confirm the Katy area is being hit with internal mail theft.
That uncertainty is part of what has frustrated residents most. Darby said he thinks it could be an inside job, but the claim is unconfirmed, and he said the problem feels like a repeat of an earlier theft when, he believes, someone had a key. “Nothing we can do about it, but it makes me angry that somebody is stealing from us, and it’s not the first time, the time before that - they had a key,” he said. Darby also said, “Somebody’s getting a key somehow or another.”
For Hernandez and his neighbors, the question is no longer whether the theft is real. It is whether the investigation can stop it before another round of mail, medicine and personal items vanishes from the same boxes residents say have already been hit too many times.