Is There METH To This Madness?

Bacchus and my husband went out at five in the morning as usual. Sunday morning. This is our new mail box. Less than a month old.

The last one was whacked first with a wine bottle that nearly collapsed it. A month or so later the post was sheared, the box along with the paper boxes were some 100 or so feet away in the barrel pit. Now this morning.

However done, my husband could not get the handle straightened. It took a sledge hammer to straighten the bracket.

Our neighbor to the north suffered similar damage.

Our neighbor to the south suffered worse.

The master bedrooms in all of our homes are away from the road so we hear nothing in the wee hours of the morning. On weekends, however, we know there will be fresh deposits of trash.

After the last go round our neighbor and his wife cleaned up the bottles and rubbish. It is already starting to reappear. The farmer across the road plowed his field just this past week and already there are new bottles in the fresh dirt. So we'll clean the mess up again and again...

While I was out with my trusty digital documenting all this another neighbor stopped to report that a six foot section of his fence had been cut. And bottles abound.

Well, this isn't what I had in mind as a way for the neighbors to become neighborly but it will do. The young adult son (they tend to know more about some of this than we old folks) of one of the men told that meth users tend to drink the high powered malt beverages to satisfy a craving that comes from using. Something about the sweetness. I haven't a clue.

It was also mentioned that the current hot spot for drug deals is at the corner of Atlas and Lancaster. Well, it all figures. Why go across Lancaster to Atlas when you can swing through a nice residential area and create havoc? Location, location, location.

We were on our way to do some shopping last week when we noticed a car across from the house, stopped, with two young men in it. I mentioned it made me nervous since we were on our way out so we went around the block. The car moved on. We both commented on how horrible it is to be suspicious of something that at one time would have passed unnoticed.

Some neighbors have already gated their property. We intend to gate ours. It gives a whole new meaning to "gated community" but won't attract any monied buyers, that's for sure. It won't save the mail box but it just may save us and our home.