CENTRAL – In recent days, people in Central have found their mailboxes full of dead fish, SpaghettiOs and many other gross things.

Residents of the Indian Mound neighborhood said some of their mailboxes were recently filled with SpaghettiOs. Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said the problem even happened to one of his officers.

“Obviously this isn’t the first incident of this kind. One of my officers actually found soup in his mailbox a few days ago. And another neighbor had Cheerios,” Corcoran said.

Police believe this is most likely a prank, but it can be a serious crime. The East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office said stuffing items into other people’s mailboxes is a federal offense because mailboxes are considered federal property.

The only people who are allowed to put things in a mailbox are a licensed postal worker and the owner of the mailbox. It is against the law to put anything in a mailbox that will interfere with the postal worker putting mail in or obstructing someone from receiving mail.

“We have mailmen and mail carriers coming by. They’ll open a mailbox and things like that. When they see that, it can scare them. They’ll hit the gas to get away because they think it might be a snake or something,” Corcoran said.

The chief said officers are committed to apprehending those behind it and urged people to report it if something like this happens to them.

“Before you clean up, contact the police or sheriff’s office or whatever agency has jurisdiction where you live so they can photograph everything. If you have cameras, get the footage because we want to catch the people who do this kind of thing.”