Bender mailbox swiped from Sunbury home

Bender the mailbox stood proudly alongside the driveway of its home in Sunbury, attracting plenty of attention from locals. But a thief has gone a step too far and left the Futurama character legless.

The Bender letterbox in all its glory before it was stolen.

If you thought the terms bender and legless couldn’t be used when describing a letterbox you’d be wrong.

A Sunbury family was left devastated when their letterbox, made in the shape of Futurama character Bender, was left with just its legs after thieves stole it.

The letterbox belongs to Carolina Parisi and Greg Scanlin, who couldn’t believe it when they woke up on Monday morning to find just Bender’s legs left.

Ms Parisi posted in a Sunbury community Facebook group on Monday that the couple’s kids were really sad at the discovery and pleaded for the public’s assistance to help locate the letterbox.

Just the legs of Bender left after thieves stole the letterbox.

Mr Scanlin said when they bought the house they weren’t sure on the idea of having Bender as a letterbox, but they had come to love him.

“Bender has been there for many years and I actually bought the house about six-months ago and Bender came with it,” he said.

“We were thinking about what to do with it, whether we wanted to keep it or not, and we realised it was such a local icon we couldn’t get rid of it.

“We decided to keep it and love it now and of course it got stolen and the number of posts it has generated on Facebook has been amazing.”

The letterbox is so popular with community members, Mr Scanlin said it is often used to help with directions in the area.

“People say stuff like ‘my kids drove past there every day for five years and they’d say g’day Bender’ and another person said they saw it the other day and stopped for a selfie,” he said.

“It’s a way you direct people around the area, you say ‘drive past Bender and it’s the second on the left’ or whatever.”

The family has had an offer from someone who is willing to help them build a new Bender if it’s not returned.

“We have actually had a guy who is a steel fabricator contact us and say he would be happy to help us out and replace Bender or whatever if we can’t find him again,” Mr Scanlin said.

“We are really hopeful to get him back but if we can’t get him back we probably need to get a new one or something because something has to go there.

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“It’s such an icon in the neighbourhood that we’ve got to do something.

“If we can’t get Bender back we might have to commission a new Bender and have an unveiling or something.”

Victoria Police confirmed the incident and said they are currently investigating the incident.

They are asking anyone who witnessed the incident or with information to come forward and contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.