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Sometime between the mail delivery on December 23rd and the morning of Christmas Eve, residents say someone broke into seven of the large mailboxes at the Pomonok Houses in Queens.

"The whole door was down. I believe they were looking for check. You know it was Christmas and people wanted money. They opened all of the Christmas cards and all of the mail," said Pomonok Houses resident Sunilda Lopez.

While NY1 was talking with the residents, on a hunch, one of them checked the basement of one of the buildings and found a stash of opened Christmas cards, bills and letters on the floor.

Even though some of the mail was found, the rest of it remains missing.

Elected officials have found $700,000 in funding for select buildings, but residents say much more money is needed to cover all of the buildings in the complex.

"We need more. You can only do so much with 15 buildings, when there's only 35 buildings here. So we need better security," said Monica Corbett of the Pomonok Residents Association.

In the meantime, residents are worried a similar incident could happen sooner than later.

"These people know that these people are going to get a check in the mail, possibly next month they will break the box again and try to get it out. And I feel sorry for these people, because I know what you have to go through," said Pomonok Houses resident Sue Broizman.

Police and the US Postal Inspector were notified about the resident's discovery of the mail and are continuing to investigate the case.

The culprit could face thousands of dollars in fines, and up to three years in prison for each mailbox that was vandalized.