CENTRAL — Over the past few days, people in Central have found their mailboxes filled with dead fish, SpaghettiOs and many more gross things.

Residents in the Indian Mound subdivision said that a couple of their mailboxes were filled with SpaghettiOs just the other day. Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said this issue has even happened to one of his officers.

"Evidently it's not the first episode of this. One of my officers actually found soup in his mailbox a few days ago. And another neighbor had Cheerios,” Corcoran said.

The police suggest that this is most likely a prank. However, it can be a serious offense. The East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office said stuffing items in other people’s mailboxes is a federal offense because mailboxes are considered federal property.

The only people allowed to put things into a mailbox are an approved postal worker and the owner of the mailbox. Putting anything into a mailbox that would obstruct a mail worker's ability to insert or someone’s ability to receive mail is against the law.

"We have mail people that come along and there's mail ladies that come around. They open a mailbox and something like that. They see that and it can scare them. They hit the gas to get away from it because they think it might be a snake or something like that,” Corcoran said.

The chief said officers are eager to catch the individuals behind this and ask people to report it if it happens to them.

"Before you clean it out, contact the police or the sheriff's office, or whatever authority there is where you live so it can be photographed and everything. If you got cameras, get the camera footage because we like to catch the people who are doing this."