Our road ends at a cul-de-sac we share with a problem neighbor; our driveway starts behind an electric gate and the house is over a hill a quarter mile beyond that. Years ago I picked up a Knaack type box on Craig's List for about $75, dug a couple fairly large holes, laid in concrete with a couple of foundation anchor bolts, ran them up through the bottom of the box, installed the nuts, then banged over the threads to keep them from, ahem, walking off. A coat of paint that matched the fence gave it a nice country look. I didn't like the two built in padlocks the box came with, so I put a simple hasp with a spin dial combo padlock on it. That worked OK for a while until someone stole the padlock. I found a Master brand hasp with an integrated padlock; now about 1 in 5 times the nitwit delivery person locks the lock before the bolt engages the hasp. All this in spite of instructions clearly explaining how the lock works being posted on the outside of the box. Luckily I haven't lost any packages yet, nor had any damaged by the weather.
The neighbor, on the other hand, has a cheap plastic box by his gate, and the lid regularly blows off or the box blows over to my gate. Now they've taken to leaving a large rock on the lid, which looks like crap, but then so does the cargo container parked just inside their gate. Ex-college professor back-to-the-land hippie trailer trash idiots. Yeah, we get along great (not).
Anyway, delivery drivers will still put stuff behind the gate for some reason, and once, when I was out of town for a month, an eight foot vertical blind was left on the ground beside the gate for several weeks. Fortunately the shipper wrapped the contents inside the box with plastic because it went through several storms before I returned. As others have found, the on line tracking systems for FedEx and UPS let me know when to expect a delivery, and unless it's something expensive like a camera, I just know to check the box at the end of the day. I have a temporary gate code I give out for contractor and freight delivery access and set that up in the keypad for the day. Freight companies will call the day before to make arrangements, and my usual UPS guy will sometimes call when he delivers a large package that won't fit in the 2'x2'x4' box. Unfortunately around here, neither FedEx nor UPS keep the same driver on the same route forever, and they seem to have rotating days off and temp delivery personnel as well.
Nobody's mentioned mailboxes in this thread, but I found one with a locking door. The slot was wide enough to let a thin hand get to the mail, but a few minutes in the shop with some sheet metal and the welder fixed that. Now if I could just get the post person to push the mail all the way past the slot so it would drop into the box, life would be good. Most of the folks that have these jobs are honest, hard working people that really try to make sure their deliveries are left in secure locations. Unfortunately a few bad apples always seem to gum up the works and leave stuff out where any passer by can walk off with it. I guess that's what insurance is for, and one of the tradeoffs for living in God's country.
Even after all that, if someone really wants the package, they'll just throw a chain around either box and steal the whole shootin' match. And if they want to get to the house, they'll do the same with the gate. We've had some trouble with the druggies in the area, but I figure if someone else's place is easier to get to, they'll go there instead.
BTW, I think bragging about firearms and guard dogs on line is foolish because if something untoward should happen, those posts will be your defense attorney's worst nightmare when they're linked back to you.
