What size mailbox do you have?
3Had to buy a new mailbox for the first time in a long while. Car took out the row of mailboxes and part of the neighbors fence. Didn’t want to miss mail delivery so I went to Lowe’s last night and picked up a “normal” looking mailbox. (Wasn’t thrilled with the selection, but didn’t really have time to shop around.) When I set it out this morning, I noticed most of my neighbors had taken the opportunity to upgrade to a larger box. And after doing some research this morning, it looks like the post office is now (as of 2015?) recommending a larger “T4” mailbox.
But since the mailboxes are at least 500 feet away out of sight by the main road, I’d rather have more of my packages delivered to my door. So is a “small” mailbox better? Is that selfish?
- 10 comments, 31 replies
- Comment
I have a larger mailbox – not so much because of packages but because it’s a locking mailbox and the slot size must meet minimum USPS standards. Anything that doesn’t fit through the 10 x 1¾ slot still means it’s being dropped off at the front door.
Some years back we had kids in a pickup with a bat drive through neighborhoods whacking mailboxes as they drove by. My neighbor filled hers with cement. Kid broke his arm doing it to hers. That stopped that activity. And since he ratted out his friends, they all got caught.
Locking sounds good, although it would prevent the small bags/padded envelopes from fitting in.
@Kidsandliz Back before WWII, when my father was a Letter Carrier on a rural route, there was a row of boxes on posts that got destroyed four times in three months, always late at night, and never with the car ending up in the ditch. The guy who had the last box in the row was getting a bit annoyed with having to dig a new hole and set a new post each time, so he put his on an l-shaped piece of pipe that was dropped into another pipe set in the ground, with two pieces of two-by-four to keep the arm with the box in position. The arm was about five feet long, far enough back that he figured the vandal wouldn’t get the upright. Well, he was right. That night, the jerk who’d been doing it struck again, but this time the last mailbox didn’t go down under the car’s tire, it skated up over the fender, smashed the end of the windshield, swung around and bashed the back glass as well. In the morning, it didn’t take long to find out who’d been doing it, since a smashed back glass is pretty unusual. The son of a certain older jerk was the perp, and one of the boxes he’d been targeting belonged to the sheriff’s brother-in-law. Words were exchanged, and the kid spent a long while walking everywhere because the sheriff swore that he’d get run in for reckless driving if he was just sitting in the front seat of a car for at least a year.
@werehatrack Just returns for that kid LOL
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack Every once in a while, these make it on over to r/prorevenge.
Make your new one 5701 cubic feet just to knock this guy down a peg!
@zachdecker
WOW, that’s pretty BIG!
@Lynnerizer @zachdecker Now now no box envy allowed.
@Felton10 @Lynnerizer @zachdecker
Seems to me he’s compensating for something.
@zachdecker Okay, I’m putting Casey, IL on my list of places to see one day.
“Big things in a small town” - I love it!
I don’t have the option to choose what size mailbox since I live in a condo. We have a special lock box spicificly for packages.
Since I’ve been helping out with my mother in law I’ve been having my packages delivered to her house, she’s got a regular size box. One of the things I worry about when I’m expecting a delivery is that they’ll leave it on the ground next to the mailbox. They’ve done that in the past and I was just lucky to have seen it myself before it was stolen. Her mailbox is out of sight, across from the driveway, on a fairly busy street. I wouldn’t expect any package to be safe unless it’s inside the mailbox or delivered to her porch. If we didn’t have such a problem with porch pirates we wouldn’t have SO many options to have our packages delivered to third parties/local businesses.
Do I think you are being selfish, HECK NO!!
Wether it be cookies, cash or something more personal, I like to show my mail carrier love around the holidays.
@Lynnerizer
What the heck kinda of jack ass mail man leaves packages on the ground outside the the mailbox, let alone on a main road. I’ve never herd of such a thing in my area, all our packages are brought to our doors. I would call the post office or go up there every time it happens. Is that even legal to do? I guess I’ve seen it in city areas but we even still have walking mailman in sub my grandma used to live in.
That is sort of a personal question don’t you think. Sort of like asking any anyone been in your box lately.
@Felton10 it’s not the size of the box that counts, but how you stuff it.
My mailbox fits nicely in one of @carl669’s alternative Meh-metaverses.
And that’s where all my fuckwad Mail hangs out and awaits me.
I can’t see who puts mail/packages in the box. And there are so many different delivery services/contractors tossing stuff onto the front porch that I have no idea who my “regular” mail carrier is – if there is such a thing anymore.
The new box is roughly the same size as the old one, but a different shape. Since I’ve already put the new box out there, I guess I’ll just wait and see if they bring bigger stuff to the door or just “make it fit”.
@walarney Welcome to the world of privatized postal service being pushed by one political party in particular for the last 40 years or so.
Wait until you see what happens when the quality and just basic delivery depends on you not being poor and able to afford paying to recieve mail, not just send it. All in service to killing “mail in voting” which is used predominantly by voters of the other party.
@mike808 @walarney
Not sure that was even a thing 40 yrs ago…
@chienfou @walarney It was added as a “two-fer” by The Orange Menace, until it was too late to flip-flop on COVID.
Privatizing the profits and funnelling them to the top, and socializing the costs and sticking them to the middle and bottom has been the M.O. since the lie of “trickle down” was invented.
@chienfou @mike808 @walarney Actually there was just some decent research done about “trickle down” and the major finding was that this was not happening; the wealth remained at the top of the heap and they were getting much richer at the expense of everyone else who got no “trickle”.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @mike808 @walarney
There was never any evidence that the trickle-down theory would produce ANY of the results that it promised. It was an economic fantasy made up of whole cloth to protect the wealthy, tho originally focused on tax policy (not privatization).
@compunaut @Kidsandliz @mike808
Granted, but tell me how that (TdT) impacts USPS which is the subject we were discussing…
@chienfou @compunaut @mike808 Hey this is meh… we wander down all sorts of side paths on a thread…
@Kidsandliz
some ot those paths are getting a bit over-travelled IMHO…
@chienfou Well yes, especially if politics gets implied or is out and out mentioned.
@Kidsandliz
A small mailbox will make your package look bigger.
@mike808 Wish you would that to the person who delivers our mail. They are always having problems stuffing packages in my box.
@Felton10 Maybe your box is a little too small and shoving even normal sized packages into it is a tight fit.
If you ask around, I’m sure someone could come over and stretch it out a bit. I would volunteer, but I live too far away and I have my own box to tend to that keeps me busy.
At great personal risk to myself I have been surreptitiously taking pictures of my neighbor’s boxes (mail that is) without their knowledge. I should have completed my project by tomorrow and will posts pictures if I have everyone’s assurance that they will not turn me in nor laugh at how small everyone’s box is.
@Felton10
Yes! And we want to see pix of @Walterbird’s mailbox.
@f00l At great personal risk to me here are the boxes of 64 of our neighbors including ours.
@Felton10 They’re larger cluster boxes than the days of yore. The individual units used to be smaller and narrower.
@narfcake They are at the end of a cul-de-sac so some of the people whose boxes are here have to drive to pick up their mail. We can walk.
@Felton10 The mailboxes here are in clusters of 3-6 individual boxes. My cross street neighbor drives to the mailbox; it’s one driveway away.
My uncle used to work with metal and made my mom a huge box (big enough to fit a toddler in… somewhere I have a picture of my niece in it back in 1999). I’ve now inherited that box but have not put it up yet.
@mbersiam Speaking of toddlers in boxes, if I can find it I have a photo of about a 3 year old in a cat carrier (he was pretending to be a cat).
@mbersiam
@Kidsandliz It’s so funny seeing what kids will put themselves in LOL
@Kidsandliz @mbersiam I see you are a practioner of that ancient parenting art form, Bonzai Children, an adaptation of Bonzai Kittens.
/image bonzai kitten
/image a man of culture meme
@mbersiam @mike808 Of course! It is an especially easy parenting/grandparenting style when initiated by the child. Of course DHS takes a dim view if you don’t also let them out when they want out.
Someone did a clever photoshop with that photo - unless they are liquid or boneless cats, as some are - or at least mine can act as if they are at times, in which case getting them in the bottles would be easier than getting ships into a ship in a bottle.