Call 911 at the first hint of a fire. If it is not an emergency, call 477-5784. There is a new criminal scheme going around the nation, and it could hit us. People who send monthly bills by leaving them in the mailbox with the flag up are vulnerable. By driving down the street, the criminals look for mailboxes with the flags up, remove your outgoing mail and then put the flag down.
Some criminals hit postal deposit boxes late at night.
Next, they make a copy of your check so they have a sample of your signature for later forging. Here's where check washing gets its name. The criminal now soaks your check in a chemical solution that removes what you wrote on the check, but not the printed portion of the check. Now the check washer simply rewrites the check to himself or to cash and finds a bank at which to cash it. Don't mail your bills by placing them in a mailbox after the last mail pick-up of the day.