Photo by maxedaperture.

The District’s neighborhood listservs provide one particularly valuable service to jittery residents: they’re searchable repositories of suspicious activity. Shady newspaper salespeople, magazine peddlers, people dressed as utility technicians — just a sample of the alleged scam artists who prowl the city’s residential streets in search of their next victim. Recently though, we’ve noticed another class of accused scammer popping up on the listservs: the guy who sells meat out of a van — who some residents aren’t just afraid will swindle their money, but perhaps also their digestive health.

“I would hope someone in our 10,000 list community who has seen them (and had their products?) could advise if they made sure that the vendor had all the needed DC business and Health Department licenses/approvals,” wrote one Cleveland Park listerserv member in October about a visit another listserv member received from Butcher’s Choice of Baltimore. “I do not want anyone here’s first “experience” to be at a local ER.”

“Did they want to be paid in cash as well? Right now, seems “fishy” to me,” she added.

In response, MPD Detective John Paprcka said that the meat seller “certainly sounds suspicious,” and advised residents in Cleveland Park to call 911 if they ever felt threatened. “Burglars often go to work when you go to work,” added Paprcka.

The shady meat salesman reappeared on the Metropolitan Police Department’s Fifth District listserv yesterday.

“I just had a gentleman from [Capital Meats] knock on my door around (3pm) this afternoon. He offered to sell me the meat that was left in his van,” said one poster. “Both his van and his sweatshirt had the logo on it, but it was very strange and unsolicited and with the recent burglaries on Adams I felt a little uneasy. Just wanted to pass it along and alert my neighbors.”

Ward 5 firebrand Kathy Henderson responded this morning. “We do not tolerate these unlicensed steak peddlers in our community,” Henderson fired back. “Each time these fast-talking individuals offer their unsanitary, barely refrigerated meat for sale we call the police.”

So is the District overrun with a bevy of rotten steak hucksters?