Baby Carrots Will Always Remind Me of Boxford’s Creepy Carrot Mailbox Incident

In the summer of 2020, while the rest of the country was getting mystery seeds from China delivered to their mailboxes as part of a nationwide brushing scam, a Massachusetts town was on edge after its own puzzling mailbox surprise.

Once voted one of the safest towns in the nation by ConsumerAffairs.com, Boxford, Massachusetts residents felt anything but safe after strange pieces of mail started popping up on Main Street.

On July 16, 2020, residents reported finding images of dogs taped to their mailboxes. It’s not a normal thing for someone to find while getting the mail, but seemingly harmless. But the following day, on July 17, the same homeowners who received pictures of dogs found eerie, threatening, handwritten notes inside of their mailboxes with an ominous message that read: “One pill and he’s gone…BEST CARROT think before you swallow.”

The notes had a single baby carrot taped to the center.

The Boxford Police Department shared a photo of one of the notes to its Facebook page, which also included a hand-drawn angry face along with a second indiscernible sketch.

Boxford Police said similar notes to the one shown here were found between the 600 and 700 block of Main Street, an otherwise idyllic New England country road made up of acres and acres of fields, old picket fences, and roadside egg stands.

One neighbor, Zane Zeeh, sent us a photo of the note that was left at his home, adding that the day before a picture of a corgi was taped to the mailbox. Zeeh doesn’t own a corgi, however, and the note left at his house was more bizarre than it was threatening. Written in highlighter, his note read, “How do we solve the Israel Palestine conflict? This guy knows” followed by some other illegible text and lastly, a baby carrot with a hand-drawn smiley face on it.

While unnerved by the baby carrot notes, homeowners were equally frustrated that no one’s security system caught any suspicious activity, citing the distance between the homes and the mailbox being too far away for a camera to pick anything up.

I'm sure like many people who followed this strange story, trips through the produce aisle have never quite been the same, and baby carrots will forever be synonymous with this creepy mystery.