Two people were exposed to a bat with rabies in Englewood, Arapahoe County officials said Tuesday.

The bat is the fourth case of rabies confirmed in Colorado this year and the first in Arapahoe County, the county said in a news release. Most cases of rabies in Colorado are found in bats — of the 55 cases reported statewide in 2023, 47 were bats.

The bat was found near Quincy Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, and two people exposed to the bat started treatment to prevent infection.

Any person or pet who came into direct contact with a bat, especially near that area, should contact Arapahoe County Public Health and their doctor.

Most exposures come from scratches or bites, but bat bites can be tiny and often painless, said Melissa Adair, Arapahoe County communicable disease epidemiology manager.

A bat with rabies was also found outside a Colorado Springs elementary school on May 14, El Paso County Public Health said in a Facebook post. The bat was found at Grant Elementary School but public health officials do not believe it came into contact with any students or staff, Denver7 reported.

Three other cases of rabid bats — one in Boulder County and two in Larimer County — have been reported so far this year, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

People can prevent rabies exposure by vaccinating pets and livestock and keeping them away from any wildlife and by not feeding or touching wild animals, including baby animals, county officials said Tuesday.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – If you live in Colorado Springs, you are living in one of the best places in the country!

So says U.S. News’ annual “Best places to live in the U.S.” list!

The list places the Olympic City third out of the 25 cities that made this year’s cut, coming in just behind Naples, Florida, and Boise, Idaho, and ahead of some of the usual suspects, like Austin.

The next-best Colorado city, according to U.S. News, is Boulder, coming in at 10th. No other places in the Centennial State made the cut.

The rankings analyze 150 cities, taking into account housing affordability, household income, quality of education, access to health care, crime rates, commute times, and air quality, among other criteria.

The full rankings:

1. Naples, Florida

2. Boise, Idaho

3. Colorado Springs

4. Greenville, South Carolina

5. Charlotte, North Carolina

6. Raleigh, North Carolina

7. Huntsville, Alabama

8. Virginia Beach, Virginia

9. Austin, Texas

10. Boulder, Colorado

11. Sarasota, Florida

12. Green Bay, Wisconsin

13. Charleston, South Carolina

14. Madison, Wisconsin

15. Lexington, Kentucky

16. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

17. Asheville, North Carolina

18. Omaha, Nebraska

19. Ann Arbor, Michigan

20. Fort Wayne, Indiana

21. Fayetteville, Arkansas

22. San Francisco, California

23. Greensboro, North Carolina

24. Lincoln, Nebraska

25. South Bend, Indiana

Copyright 2024 KKTV. All rights reserved.

After the sudden loss of her father, Drew Hodgson was left to settle his estate, including selling his Colorado home.

“There are some taxes that are due. I did what I was instructed to do which was mail these checks to the IRS and to the Colorado Department of Revenue before Tax Day, which is what I did,” she said.

She used a blue United States Postal Service box on post office property at Alameda Avenue in Lakewood, one she says she’s used before.

“It didn’t even enter my mind that somebody would be able to break into this box,” she said.

Thieves did, and two of her checks were stolen, “washed” and then made out to people she’s never met. While the bank flagged one of the bad checks, the other was cashed.

“It was thousands and thousands of dollars,” Hodgson said.

She immediately filed reports with Lakewood police, her bank and the United States Postal Inspection Service, who appeared — to her — to be less than surprised.

“The postal inspector that responded to my claim … his response was just ‘Yes, we are aware that this has been a problem. It has been happening at this location,’” she said.

When asked to comment on the Hodgson case, a spokesperson for the USPIS says they do not comment on open investigations. However, CBS Colorado’s previous reporting found it is part of a much larger problem — thieves robbing carriers for the keys used to access locked mailboxes.

According to the USPS’s own quarterly magazine, high-volume theft from mailboxes rose 87% from a little more than 20,000 in 2019 to 38,000 in 2022 and the number of letter carrier robberies jumped from 64 cases in 2019 to 412 in 2022.

In response the USPS says they’ve made “significant investments in the physical security of its mail receptacles and is hardening blue collection boxes, making access to their contents more difficult for criminals in all 50 states.”

How many have been upgraded in Colorado and how many are still vulnerable is unclear.

“They owe it to the public to either get rid of those boxes or have a warning at least on the box to let people know this isn’t a secure box,” Hodgson said.

Just last year the U.S Treasury Department issued a nationwide warning to banks about the rise in mail theft related check fraud. It included a list of red flags to watch for like large withdrawals to a new person.

The USPS offers the following tips to avoid falling victim to theft:

• Deposit outgoing mail through a number of secure manners including inside your local Post Office or at your place of business or by handing it to a letter carrier.
• Sign up for Informed Delivery and get daily digest emails that preview your mail and packages scheduled to arrive soon.