I’ve noticed that many mailboxes in my area get destroyed by kids driving by and smashing them with baseball bats.
We have a plain old mailbox sitting on one of those wooden mail box perches shaped like a T. My neighbors all have the same set up, so I don’t really have much inspiration to draw from. Maybe a fellow reader has dealt with this issue? I’m open to any ideas, including links to any mailbox invisibility cloaks. -Tatem
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Comments on How can I protect my mailbox?
ask your post office. i’d go in at a very slow time of day so they have time to talk. they may allow you to have a box at your front door. sure the mailman has to get out, but your mail would be safe & it’d be easier to retrieve.
Depending on the area, the mailman might or might not be able to get out of his truck to walk the mail to the house. Ours at the old house wasn’t allowed to walk to the houses, he had to drive up to the boxes. Our mailman now that we’re back in town parks his truck at the end of the road and walks to all the houses…but I can’t meet him at the edge of the sidewalk to get my mail from him even if I’m in the yard, because he has a gps that tracks him and he actually has to walk all the way to my front door to leave the mail. SMH. 🙂
My parents live in a small college town and their mailbox was stolen right off their house! Their solution: try to move the hell out of there. (Granted, they’ve had to deal with quite a bit of vandalism, theft, nuisance parties, and public drunkenness… and the cops never show up in time to do anything, and don’t have the resources to track down which drunken kid stole a birdbath this time… so the situation is a bit different.)
My parents live on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs with clusters of 4-6 houses up narrow uphill driveways. The mailboxes are all on shared posts at the start of each long driveway. They had numerous issues with mail theft where thieves would steal the entire street’s mail shortly after delivery. Looking for cash, checks, credit cards, etc.
My father contacted the post office numerous times, and requested a mailbox on their house instead, but they were told no. He said he was going to move the mailbox on his own, but then was told he could be arrested for violating such-and-such code…
So one weekend, he got all the neighbors together and on a Sunday they relocated every single pod of mailboxes to halfway up the driveways (as a compromise), probably forty or fifty boxes in total. It became like a block party, with wheelbarrows of cement going up and down the street.
Oh I have tons of ideas for you! We’ve got this problem around here too.
1. Put two fake mailboxes up on either side, this gives them a new target and yours in the middle is safe
2. My grandpa did the cement mailbox thing (we live wayyyyyy out in the middle of no where so the local law enforcement gave it the okay)
3. My other grandma didn’t want to hurt anyone so she got a flexible plastic one and put it on a little rotating wheel on her post. The swivel of the box keeps it from popping off and she can just take her hammer out of a morning and pop the dents out and the kids can try again later.
4. My aunt’s mailbox is off the road a way, so she built a wooden shell. It’s actually awesome, there’s a hole for her mail box, a drawer for newspapers and a cabinet for packages (that way they aren’t visible to anyone driving by). The wood is painted but distressed, so even if it takes a beating, it just looks “old” and it’s heavy enough to be sturdy but will give way if hit with a car at a good speed.
5. Fake security camera, my cousin pulled this bit. It’s on his house, and it’s obvious it’s there. And it looks like it’s facing the mailbox. It keeps all the mailboxes on his street safe, since they don’t want to be on camera at all. This might work with motion sensing lights? (ours tends to happen at night) or even outside dogs if you don’t have too close of neighbors, not much traffic and your don’t mind your dogs alerting you?
My mom lives in a rural area, and ‘Mailbox Baseball’ has always been an issue. We’re on the west coast, so plows are not a problem.
Instead of doing the ‘double mailbox’, she put the mailbox on a cross brace between two 4x4s that are taller than the top of the box. Kinda like a group mailbox setup, but with only one box and no roof. It looks very ornamental and tidy, plus covertly protecting the box. Unless the kids want to stop and just whack the top of the box, its a good deterrent and doesn’t seem like that was what she was trying to avoid!
We had this problem when I was a kid. We lived in a upper middle class neighborhood, but my mom and dad got a bit creative and pulled out the welding torch and some old ship chain. (literally chain meant to moor heavy ships. I think it came from an old shipyard) My oh so creative rents not only made an attractive post, but also wrapped the box with it. After it was installed, we found several attempts to take it out, but only found wooden remains of bats. Even attempts with metal baseball bats did little damage to the paint and broke a few dumb ass hands.
That thing stood immoveable and seemingly immortal for 30 years. (it outlasted my parents marriage and the next two of my dad’s) Hurricane Ike finally blew it over and away. My dad to this day mourns the loss of that mailbox.
A company called SurvivorBoxx has solved this problem! They sell mailboxes that spin around when hit by snow, vandals, etc. I have had one for years and it has saved by hundreds of dollars in replacement boxes. They are very nice looking too! Here’s their website: http://www.survivorboxx.com
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ask your post office. i’d go in at a very slow time of day so they have time to talk. they may allow you to have a box at your front door. sure the mailman has to get out, but your mail would be safe & it’d be easier to retrieve.
Depending on the area, the mailman might or might not be able to get out of his truck to walk the mail to the house. Ours at the old house wasn’t allowed to walk to the houses, he had to drive up to the boxes. Our mailman now that we’re back in town parks his truck at the end of the road and walks to all the houses…but I can’t meet him at the edge of the sidewalk to get my mail from him even if I’m in the yard, because he has a gps that tracks him and he actually has to walk all the way to my front door to leave the mail. SMH. 🙂
My parents live in a small college town and their mailbox was stolen right off their house! Their solution: try to move the hell out of there. (Granted, they’ve had to deal with quite a bit of vandalism, theft, nuisance parties, and public drunkenness… and the cops never show up in time to do anything, and don’t have the resources to track down which drunken kid stole a birdbath this time… so the situation is a bit different.)
My parents live on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs with clusters of 4-6 houses up narrow uphill driveways. The mailboxes are all on shared posts at the start of each long driveway. They had numerous issues with mail theft where thieves would steal the entire street’s mail shortly after delivery. Looking for cash, checks, credit cards, etc.
My father contacted the post office numerous times, and requested a mailbox on their house instead, but they were told no. He said he was going to move the mailbox on his own, but then was told he could be arrested for violating such-and-such code…
So one weekend, he got all the neighbors together and on a Sunday they relocated every single pod of mailboxes to halfway up the driveways (as a compromise), probably forty or fifty boxes in total. It became like a block party, with wheelbarrows of cement going up and down the street.
They got their mail on Monday no problem. 🙂
Oh I have tons of ideas for you! We’ve got this problem around here too.
1. Put two fake mailboxes up on either side, this gives them a new target and yours in the middle is safe
2. My grandpa did the cement mailbox thing (we live wayyyyyy out in the middle of no where so the local law enforcement gave it the okay)
3. My other grandma didn’t want to hurt anyone so she got a flexible plastic one and put it on a little rotating wheel on her post. The swivel of the box keeps it from popping off and she can just take her hammer out of a morning and pop the dents out and the kids can try again later.
4. My aunt’s mailbox is off the road a way, so she built a wooden shell. It’s actually awesome, there’s a hole for her mail box, a drawer for newspapers and a cabinet for packages (that way they aren’t visible to anyone driving by). The wood is painted but distressed, so even if it takes a beating, it just looks “old” and it’s heavy enough to be sturdy but will give way if hit with a car at a good speed.
5. Fake security camera, my cousin pulled this bit. It’s on his house, and it’s obvious it’s there. And it looks like it’s facing the mailbox. It keeps all the mailboxes on his street safe, since they don’t want to be on camera at all. This might work with motion sensing lights? (ours tends to happen at night) or even outside dogs if you don’t have too close of neighbors, not much traffic and your don’t mind your dogs alerting you?
My mom lives in a rural area, and ‘Mailbox Baseball’ has always been an issue. We’re on the west coast, so plows are not a problem.
Instead of doing the ‘double mailbox’, she put the mailbox on a cross brace between two 4x4s that are taller than the top of the box. Kinda like a group mailbox setup, but with only one box and no roof. It looks very ornamental and tidy, plus covertly protecting the box. Unless the kids want to stop and just whack the top of the box, its a good deterrent and doesn’t seem like that was what she was trying to avoid!
We had this problem when I was a kid. We lived in a upper middle class neighborhood, but my mom and dad got a bit creative and pulled out the welding torch and some old ship chain. (literally chain meant to moor heavy ships. I think it came from an old shipyard) My oh so creative rents not only made an attractive post, but also wrapped the box with it. After it was installed, we found several attempts to take it out, but only found wooden remains of bats. Even attempts with metal baseball bats did little damage to the paint and broke a few dumb ass hands.
That thing stood immoveable and seemingly immortal for 30 years. (it outlasted my parents marriage and the next two of my dad’s) Hurricane Ike finally blew it over and away. My dad to this day mourns the loss of that mailbox.
A company called SurvivorBoxx has solved this problem! They sell mailboxes that spin around when hit by snow, vandals, etc. I have had one for years and it has saved by hundreds of dollars in replacement boxes. They are very nice looking too! Here’s their website: http://www.survivorboxx.com