The Lee County Sheriff’s office confirmed 9 mailboxes were broken into over the weekend along Metro Plantation Road in Fort Myers.
"They're popping the locks and the mailbox door just hangs open. You can come down the street Monday morning, and 90 percent of the mailboxes are just hanging open,” said Bob Ormsby, owner of Pro-Quest Cooling, one of the businesses affected.
"We've lost a couple checks, we didn't catch a couple of bills that came through that weren't paid,” said Ormsby.
Nearly all the mailboxes vandalized belong to small or medium sized businesses, including Thread Source. Owner Troy Vaccaro said thieves stole his checks too.
"In our industry we're not necessarily the quickest paid suppliers."
Surveillance cameras are located too far from the mailboxes to capture any suspects.
The sheriff’s office and the postal service are investigating, but Troy says they haven’t offered a lot of solutions.
"I asked if I could forward my mail from the physical address to the post office box, that wasn't an option.”
Vaccaro and other business owners along the street are considering pooling money together to hire a private security guard who can patrol the area at night and on the weekends.
