So I moved out of the city (Perryville, MD, pop 2000) to the country (Rock Run Road, 2 acres, only house on my “street”). No more using the townhouse mailbox cluster, now I had to dig a hole, sink a post, and have a good ‘ole American mailbox.
We were in a hurry to get everything finished while building the house, so when my builder told me I needed a mailbox set, I told him I’d do it myself. Having been told stories about evil mailbox marauders, I purchased a cheapy plastic one for about $5 at Home Depot, mounted it on a 4×4 wood post, and voila!!! I am a direct descendant of the Pony Express.
Until Saturday night, when it was destroyed…
The post is still standing, and the bottom of the mailbox is still attached to the post, but the rest of the mailbox is in tatters.
I know I was told it would happen, and I know I purchased a cheap mailbox to offset the replacement costs, but I was still pretty peeved about it. They destroyed my mailbox! They attacked me!!!
Now, being an industrious American, I figured now that I have time, I’d make me a iron-reinforced stone mailbox enclosure that could double as my bomb-shelter when they launch the big ones….but, my bro-in-law, who works for the Post Office, tells me that’s illegal. Something about having to give way to a car that might hit it, instead of splitting the car in two.
What’s THAT about? I can’t make my property resist destruction, in the case that someone who can’t drive might hit it??? Or I guess I should wait for the police officers to catch them? No thanks, I’d rather they be out prosecuting the real criminals, but please allow me to defend my property! I guess I COULD mount a motion activated video camera to get license tag numbers of every car that goes by…I’ll see if I can get a grant from MDOT for that.
You know, America has become the home of “take no risks because some idiot will mess up and then sue you”. When did bad luck or stupidity become the right of eveyone to profit from?
My $.02 Weed
Mailbox
Yeah, sorry about that.. didn’t know that was YOUR mailbox. I won’t come back.
Seriously – it wasn’t me – That you know what’s the you know what of a you know what.
Its a shame the world is full of people who really like the idea of doing things that really bother other people.
like the banks do…
Put a bag of pooh in the box every night. It’s just like the dye pack the banks put in money bags to blow up in bank robbers faces/pants/etc. Then when they come along and whack your mailbox, they get splattered with pooh. It won’t save your mailbox but it’ll be fun to think of the look on their faces when the pooh hit them.
Until the day…
Until the day you forget to grab your bag of poo before the mailman gets there, and then you’re sitting in Federal “Pound Me In The …” prison for Mail Tampering until you rot…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Roadside hazards
The roadside hazard stuff varies by municipality; the only thing the Post Office mandates is how far apart mailboxes can be (like mandating quad-boxes for twin homes, that kind of thing), road offset, height, and safety for postal carriers (no sharp edges, killer dogs that can grab their hands, etc.). It may be illegal to mount your mailbox on a boat anchor in your town, but here in Tooele, bricked-in boxes are normal.
If there is a restriction on mailboxes in your area, I’ve heard that stout two-inch steel pipe mounted just before your box does a pretty decent job, as does putting a smaller mailbox inside of a larger mailbox, and filling the gap between the two with concrete.
Really, the whole liability thing is mostly just people being too scared to do what they want to do. Yes, if some idiot hits your mailbox and dies because it was the Mailbox From Hell, maybe the idiot’s relatives will decide to sue you. I’d rather bank on the chances of someone hitting my mailbox accidentally being rather slim.
What you really probably want it one of these mailboxes. They don’t come cheap, but in one of the several articles I’ve read about them, happy owners have described being "awakened in the middle of the night with the sound of a ball bat, pipe or some other implement hitting the box, followed shortly thereafter by a scream.". I’d suggest mounting it on a standard 6"x6" wooden post. I believe you can also purchase these with solid 1″ steel dowels through the center. It won’t stop the ones that run over it with a car, but it will definitely cramp the style of amateur mailbox polo artists. And you can rest content that you weren’t the person responsible for designing this sixty-two pound beast.
Luckily for me, I live in-town now, where mailboxes tend to go unmolested due to low speeds, short thoroughfares, and numerous dead-ends. High velocity is essential for decapitating the boxes; at low speed, you’ll often hurt yourself, while going along at a good clip of thirty or faster gives you enough velocity to shatter the box, or the bat, without shattering your arm. Not like I speak from experience either 🙂
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Inside Slot
Weed, understand you were venting (rightfully so!) and not necessarily looking for people to provide solutions, but I have an idea…
…which I will give to you right after I announce that every small-time perp out there should fear the day I catch them vandalizing my property. Can’t get jailed or sued for taking a kneecap off some idiot who wants to enter my world of pain. Deference for the defense, in a sense. 🙂 Not that I’m violent or anything. And I still don’t believe in gun ownership.
Okay, my idea is to get rid of the roadside mailbox altogether. Instead, #1) mount a steel box with flip-top onto the house near the garage or near the front door. #2) Place a mail flip-lid onto the garage door or front door. The postal folks can toss the mail in the slip, and it will land on the floor inside. The only downside is that you can’t mail out but anyone can do that from work/office drop.
Sammy G
Mmm, good idea!
Great idea! The post office would never go for it, though… it would require mail carriers to walk door-to-door. The horror! I love my mail carrier, though… when the snowplows shoved four feet of snow in front of the mailboxes, she just came out in her 4×4 and drove right up the snowdrifts.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Not quite…
Actually Matt, our regular mail carrier, Betty (the one in the grey Saturn wagon) slipped and fell in the snow the day after Christmas and was replaced for a few weeks by a replacement (the one in the yellow Jeep). Betty is back part time now but Jeep girl still delivers once in a while. I suspect we’ll see the Jeep today with the new layer of white stuff. I’m guessing Betty would NEVER walk to the door to deliver in a mail slot.
Matt’s right
Matt’s right, the postal workers won’t come up to your door. My driveway’s not long, but there’s just no chance.
I’m torn between doing to manly man thing and building the indestructible mailbox or doing the smart thing. What I had in mind:
Build a mailbox on a swivel. So when they hit it, it just spins around on a pivot and returns to it’s normal position. It seems less manly to build something to just take the abuse instead of resisting it, but it also seems like a smarter solution.
Ahh, the tough choices in life.
I had seen something like that…
When our development was planned, they decided to use the gang boxes. Aparently the mailbox baseball in our area was a real problem at one point, so the post office urged the builder to put in the gang boxes. I don’t like them because i have to drive down the road to get my mail. (I know… aww poor me).
I frequent Lowes Home Improvement stores often, and noticed the other day that they make a mailbox hinge that swivels. They were in the area that carries all the other mailbox attachments / posts / numbers… etc.. Hope this helps. Where in Maryland is Perryville ? After leaving the service i moved back to Gaithersburg for a year while our house was being built. Now we live in Harpers Ferry, WV. It is a little out of the way, but a whole lot more affordable than Gaithersburg.
Cheers!
~Jon~
Where is Perryville, that mecca of mailbox vandalism?
If you take I-95 north, and cross over the Susquehanna river, you’re in Perryville. Right where the Susquehanna meets the Chesapeake. Havre de Grace is on the west of the river, and Perryville is on the right.
I had a gangbox when I lived in a townhouse, and the little kids would come over and want to play when I’d get home, so I had them get my mail for me. Maybe that could work for you???
Harpers Ferry
and Harpers Ferry is so much nicer than Gaithersburg, isn’t it!?
http://www.visitharpersferry.com/
EDIT by matthew: Linked.
I’m not sure…
I’m not sure anyone is judging your manhood based on your post box construction choices. You manhood is God-given and does not have to be earned, re-earned, proven, or re-proven. In addition (while I’m at it) you never had to be “made a man” nor did you have to pass some rite of manhood to be deemed worthy of the title “man”. You were born male and therefore have claim to the moniker “man”. Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.
Shrek
Shrek says, “Do ya think he’s compensating for something?”
<big grin>
—
Matthew P. Barnson
They Be Walkin’
Actually, the post office folks WILL walk to your door, and they go through training to do so, and anyone telling you that they are not allowed to leave the truck/transport, or that it violates policy, is feeding you a half-truth.
I contracted with the Postal Service for over a year, and I deal with them on a daily basis now with the business. The Postal Service saves the most money on automation bulk mail — meaning, the optical readers at the district sorting houses need to be able to sort the trash mail quickly. Then, the save money on the efficiency of their labor model. This comes from taking less time to deliver the mail. Getting in and out of their ride is an inconvenience and a hassle but it’s not against the rules.
Think about this — an oversize package that can’t fit in your box? Do you see Postal workers driving around in urban areas? They’re on foot.
— Sammy G
these shoes were made for walkin’… sometimes…
When we first moved into the new house, our mailbox cluster was about a mile away from the mail box. The USPS does have a regulation that states they can not go more than 1/2 mile from the mailbox to deliver mail, they will only leave a notice that you need to come pick it up. That was a real pain when we were ordering stuff through the mail. Now that they have moved some mail boxes closer, they are able to deliver packages to our door.
My mother-in-law lives in Colorado, and they still have mail carriers who deliver the mail to a box on the house. I am guessing that it all depends on the driver and the drivers area that they deliver in.
~Jon~
mail boxes
what happens when a car swerves to miss a kid big brick bos kill the driver or the kid? normal mailbox hey take it out I did with a two month old lexus no one hurt 375.00 dollars in damage and that included the new box I appoligized and went on I hope more people will understand
Accidents are OK….but
Most of the 5 or so boxes I’ve lost were most obviously intentional. The last one a few days ago was most definetly intentional. I could see the tire track in the grass before the driveway and I could see that there was no attempt to get the car/truck back on the pavement. They had made a beeline for the box then on the other side you could see the tires being turned to get back on the pavement. No doubt about it! I’m tired of this **** and poured a 12″ diameter concrete post and put one of those flexible rubbermaid boxes on it. BRING IT ON VANDALS!!!! HAHAHAHAHA
Being blamed…
When I was a teenager, my dad wanted us kids to go into business replacing mailboxes in Maryland because they got smashed so often. Second potential customer accused us of smashing the boxes so that we could replace them, and that business never got off the ground.
Truth be told, I’d rather replace the mailbox than have someone die to my Manly Mailbox of Doom…
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Matthew P. Barnson