SAN DIEGO (KGTV)— Locals noticed something bizarre inside USPS drop-off mailboxes: a sticky substance found on the delivery door.
Reports came from locals using mailboxes at USPS stores in Point Loma and La Jolla.
Judy Chayka, of Point Loma, went to the USPS store on Canon St earlier this week to drop off her and her husband's ballots.
Chayka said she noticed her mail wasn't falling down the chute. Instead, they were sticking to the back of the delivery door.
"Both of them had like a severe, sticky glue type substance on them," Chayka said.
Chayka said she then tried the next mailbox over, and the same thing happened. She asked the USPS employee inside to put an 'Out of Order' sign on the mailboxes with the sticky residue. Chayka said they told her, "We can't do that."
Chayka said a USPS supervisor eventually cleaned the mailboxes, but she still wanted to warn the public to drop their ballots off inside.
"I just think everybody's vote deserves to count," Chayka said. "If people are getting their votes stolen out of mailboxes that have glue on them, that's not a good thing."
Chayka is not alone. A day later, the same thing happened to Maria Zvetina when she was dropping off her company's mail at a La Jolla USPS store.
Interestingly enough, Chayka and Zvetina work for the same company in separate locations. Both offices happen to be located right across the street from a USPS store.
"It looked like lime-green slime," Zvetina said. "I took out two of the pieces [of mail], and there was green slimy stuff all over it. It was sticky."
Zvetina also tried getting an 'Out of order' sign on the mailboxes and said she warned people to drop off their mail inside the post office.
"Is it a ballot thing? Is it for money?" Zvetina asked. "I had to tell people walking up the street with their mail [to not put their mail in there]."
ABC 10News reached out to USPS about these mailbox tampering cases.
A USPS spokesperson told viewers, "If you experience a foreign substance on your blue collection box, please alert the local post office."
With regards to election mail, USPS said it will "provide a national update on how things are going and on our security measures here":
