Mailbox Mayhem Rural Residents Around Cheney Tired Of Vandals Bashing Their Mailboxes

Crime stalks the quiet country roads near Cheney.

It’s not murder or robbery that haunts the neighbors here, but violence all the same. The aggravating nuisance of mailbox bashing has people on edge.

Residents living on these rural routes are angry because destruction of their property continues year after year and authorities seem helpless to stop it.

“The frustration is it keeps happening,” said Sue Quinn, who lives among the pine trees on Depot Springs Road.

“We kind of accept it’s going to keep happening,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to live like that.”

Hardly a mailbox in the area has gone unscathed. Bent and battered boxes dot the roadside. Some residents try to straighten boxes that weren’t completely destroyed by vandals, but the result is pretty pathetic.

There are lots of new mailboxes, too; they are usually attached to reinforced posts sunk deeply into concrete to withstand the next attack.

For many people, their mailbox is a personal expression and a kind of welcome sign to visitors and friends.

Up and down these roads, boxes are decorated with animal figures and clever paint schemes. Some rest on sturdy posts of welded chain links and old machinery. Others are built to look like cabins or bird houses.

So it’s understandable that residents feel injured and violated when the boxes are bashed to pieces.

“Some people take it with a grain of salt. Some people are pretty irritated,” said Dave Portwood, who lives on Short Road.

Quinn said her frustration started about five years ago after the first mashing destroyed her former box.

To replace it, a friend gave her a handmade wooden mailbox as a birthday gift and assured her the vandals wouldn’t strike twice. Sure enough, it got walloped, too.

Then, she and her husband, Bob, installed what they thought was an indestructible plastic mailbox mounted to a reinforced stand.

That box stood unmolested for a time, but then someone stole the mail from inside it, including a check from an insurance company. Quinn stopped the payment on the check and got a new insurance check issued.

After the mail theft earlier this year, the Quinns opened a post office box in Cheney at a cost of about $100 a year. Now, all of their mail is delivered there.

They kept their plastic mailbox for newspaper deliveries.

Last month, vandals pulled the box from the ground along with other mailboxes next to it. The couple now has what is left of the wooden birthday mailbox standing in its place.

The same night, vandals struck the length of Depot Springs Road, leaving boxes and their posts strewn along the roadway, she said.

Angry at the repeated vandalism, Quinn once again filed criminal reports about the incident. She called the postmaster, postal inspectors and county sheriff to complain.

“As a taxpaying citizen, I have a right to get my mail delivered at my home,” Quinn said.

Investigators haven’t solved the problem because it is only a case of vandalism, she said.

“Nobody got hurt. Nobody got killed. Therefore, it takes a back burner,” she said.

Bob Quinn said, “The system is set up not to do anything.”

Investigators said they would like to stop the vandalism, but it’s hard to do unless someone can identify a suspect or a vehicle.

Postal inspectors said the damage is probably the work of kids who get their kicks out of beating up mailboxes in the dark of night.

“They are usually bored,” said postal inspector Jim Bordenet. “They think it’s fun, exciting.”

A movie a few years ago featured a scene involving mailbox bashing.

“Every time they show that damn movie we get a rash of these incidents,” Bordenet said.

Parents could help by telling their kids it’s wrong, he said, and that it could be dangerous.

Bordenet said he was involved in a case in Indiana some years ago where a farmer turned a shotgun on a car full of mailbox bashers. One youth was seriously wounded.

“Usually, it’s a neighbor kid doing this to their neighbor,” he said. “It’s not a neighborly thing to do.”

Sheriff’s deputies said they know about the residents’ frustration, but there’s little they can do to stop the problem.

The Sheriff’s Department has one deputy patrolling the southwest county south of Interstate 90 and west of U.S. Highway 195.

Patrol deputies often are kept so busy responding to emergencies they have little time for routine patrols on rural roads where the vandalism occurs.

The department has just a dozen plainclothes investigators working on property crimes in the unincorporated county.

“We are taking it as seriously as we can,” said Sgt. Jeff Tower. “But without a solid lead, it’s real hard to follow up on this.”

Quinn said her neighbors provided deputies with a description of an older sedan that might have been involved in the vandalism, but the description produced no results.

Depot Springs Road resident Roger Potter said his box has never been bashed, probably because it’s visible from his house.

On Short Road, Portwood said he once found some odd objects inside his mailbox, including a toy horse, a U.S. Army holster and some bandannas. Another neighbor found necklaces draped around a box.

The items could have come from a burglary.

Portwood said someone is apparently obsessed with mailboxes.

“I don’t mean to minimize it,” said Detective Sgt. Jim Goodwin, “but it’s one of those kid things that pops up once in a while.”

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