Residential mail security has become a hot button issue over the last couple of years, as reported incidents of mail theft increase and become more serious. More than just the fooling around of some isolated hooligans, mail theft nowadays can lead to serious crimes like identity theft. Credit cards, bank statements, personal documents, basically anything that arrives through the mail can be used by criminals for their own nefarious purposes.

A mailbox, like any other container, is only as secure as it's designed to be. For many years, the traditional mailbox, which was designed with no safety features whatsoever, served America well; nowadays, however, its usefulness is beginning to wane. A sharp rise in identity and mail theft have shown people that the old-style mailboxes are more than just too small--they are also simply too easily-accessible to stay in use.

Residential mailboxes are typically small and flimsy affairs. This may not matter much if you never receive anything valuable through the mail. Chances are, however, in this era of internet shopping and freely-distributed credit cards, that occasionally, that flimsy little container finds itself holding quite valuable contents. If this in itself doesn't make you nervous, then maybe the practically epidemic rise in mail and identity theft over the past ten years will make you begin to think twice about where your mail is being kept on a regular basis