Rural Mailboxes

[bcarter]

I can't resist adding to this thread...

When I was growing up we had a problem with kids actually driving into/over mailboxes to knock them over. After "they" got our mailbox Dad sunk an 8' lally column 4' deep into concrete and mounted the mailbox on top of that. Late one night we heard a loud crash and Dad went out to investigate. When the kids came back to retrieve the bumper that had gotten torn off the car, they found my dad there with his foot on it copying down the license plate number...they decided not to stop /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. The local police were delighted to get that piece of information... apparently they had been getting reports everynight for a couple of weeks and really wanted to catch these guys. They were safer with the cops than if my Dad got a hold of them!

Years later I used the trick of putting the mailbox post into a 5gal bucket of concrete (mostly because I didn't know where I wanted to put the mailbox at the time and wanted the option of being able to move it around easily). I had a drunk come down the hill a little too fast and hit the post. It tipped over and the car slid up on top of it. He was stuck there for a bit and it gave me enough time to go out and get the license number and call the cops...although...they could have just followed the trail of oil in the road /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif.

 

[W5FL]

Great story. Looks like many people have come up with a way to cope with this problem. All a little differently. Keep the stories coming, they are all very interesting.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I lived in rural Wisconsin for almost 30 years and had mailbox problems. First someone bashed in my box with a 2 x 4 (and left the 2 x 4 there). Then the garbage man backed over my new box. And finally my next new box was blown up with a cherry bomb. So, I had the local welder build me a box out of 1/4 inch plate steel. I set an 8 inch telephone pole 4 feet in the ground off of the road in the ditch and tamped it down good. Then I hung the box on the end of a 4 inch fence post pivoted horizontally off of the post and supported by a piece of log chain.

Over the next 3 decades, people hit it with cars, broke a brick over it, bashed it with 2 x 4's, and shot it with deer rifles. I had to beat it back in shape with a maul a few times, but the darn thing survived!!

 

[PBMAX]

Some times we get lucky...My mail box is on the same standard 4x4 two piece post it has been on for at least ten years.The first time some one hit my mail box I was off in the Navy and when the chance to call home came I told the wife to just dig the whole out a bit and stand it back up and wet it down and tamp it a bit ..Over the years the post has been nocked over several time one a month or so back.It seems that when I set it the balance of quick create to post and box is just right(talk about luck)..If they hit it it just leans over about halfway and stays there until I striaghten it out...I've only put three $5 boxs on it in 10 yrs and one was becaus the door was rusting off......They usualy hit the post and do only minar damage to the box.Nothing i cant straiten out.... It works for me, though i like the spinning box../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif When I move I might just try that from the start and save me self some headache...
I travel over 3/4 of BAMA on a rugular basis. I am always seeing beat up boxs it is a shame thats for sure. I never did see the risk being worth the fun myself at that age.The risk being explanning to my dad (the ex-marine DI /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif )if I ever got cought...Talk about pain........in the seat........./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif He was know bully but I new quik what he expected of me and if I ever was dumb enough to for get he was there to remind me..Besides my dad was always the one that always knew some how what was going on...Probably because he knows so many folks..He's the type that were ever you go he meets some one he knows... Makes it real hard to get away with much.../w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Lil' Paul

 

[coachgrd]

Just for kicks, I went back to some of the first pages of this forum and stumbled onto this thread about rural mailboxes.

I too have felt the sting of more than my share of homeruns in the game of mailbox baseball. (Comes with the job...my wife and I are both teachers.)

Anyway, after having lost 8 or 9, I got one of those two-piece Rubbermade mailboxes that of course got hammered shortly after I put it up. I dutifully put it back together again only to find the top stroked for a solid double into the gap one morning. Finally I decided to just slide the top back into place rather than going to the trouble of screwing it back together. The fit is tight enough that it stays on but it does come off with a good smack from a 34" Lousivill Slugger. I then pick it up and put it right back on.

I'm sure those kids laugh all the way down the road but I just keep putting that top right back on.

 

[MikeD74T]

I had a jumbo mailbox at my vacation home mostly as a visual for guests to find my place. The state plow operators liked to wing snow against it hard enough to knock it off the post. I talked to their supervisor who, while chuckling, indicated he couldn't really control his crews actions. He stopped laughing when I offered to video the plow operators & send it to the Governor with a question about driver fitness for duty. Mailbox/ plow problem went away. Ironically the supervisor was later suspended for DWI in his State truck.
As an aside, the mailbox was bolted shut as I don't get mail there & didn't want junk mail. Eventually someone bombed it thru the mail slot. Was over 100' into the field.
Farm Show magazine had an article about someone attaching a vial of skunk scent to the side of his mailbox to identify bashers. Just be sure to warn the mailman. MikeD74T

 

[Phils]

This is certainly a fun thread to read. Thanks, coachgrd, for bringing it back up! I wasn't reading TBN in 2000 (my bad).

I did attach photos of the mailbox I made out of high school lockers. We had a theft problem with regular boxes. Now the mail goes in the top, slides 45 degrees down to the bottom box where it is accessed by the padlocked door. Not perfect but better than nothing and we haven't had a theft problem since. The paint is getting faded since it's been there for 20 years or so.

Phil

 

[Bill Barrett]

 

[Tig]

Congrats guys. You added value to a seven year old thread. I learned something and got a chuckle too.

 

[Podunkadunk]

Sadly, around here mailboxes are used for target practice, as are road signs and anything else the county puts roadside.

Bullet holes riddle just about everyone's mailbox in this part of the country

Podunk

 

['Bota Fan]

Glad someone revived this thread. It would be a real hoot to see some more pictures of the creative ways folks have used to combat mailbox vandalism. I'm sure, too, many TBN'ers would be willing to show off their artistic abilities and share pictures of some "purty" mailboxes.

BTW, a few years ago, my elderly M-I-L and some of her neighbors were victims of mailbox vandalism. When the police caught the little rascal who was responsible, his sentence was to spend his own money to buy new mailboxes and install them with the sweat of his own brow. Priceless!

 

[forgeblast]

In high school a bunch of guys were out one night trying to smash mail boxes. Apparently they were not too bright because they only had a hammer. Well once the first guy took a swing and missed. The driver had a huge crack and a hammer hole in windshield. We heard about it the next day, all laughed and decided that there were better things to do with out time.
Now living on our county road, i have had to pick my mail box up off the ground once or twice, but my box has been run into and looks too sad to knock over. Its kind of camo'ed. It seems that the nice, new, boxes are the first to go, but the ones hanging on by a thread are not worth their time.
Forgeblast

 

[LBrown59]

In high school a bunch of guys were out one night trying to smash mail boxes. Apparently they were not too bright because they only had a hammer. Well once the first guy took a swing and missed. The driver had a huge crack and a hammer hole in windshield. We heard about it the next day, all laughed and decided that there were better things to do with out time.
Now living on our county road, i have had to pick my mail box up off the ground once or twice, but
my box has been run into and looks too sad to knock over. Its kind of camo'ed. It seems that the nice, new, boxes are the first to go, but the ones hanging on by a thread are not worth their time.
Forgeblast

This is why what I did has worked so well.
I put up a new large mail box on the left side of the post.
To protect it from getting hit in the side I put the old large mail box back up on the right side of the new one after taking out the dents bolting the door shut and painting it all black and shinny
Being on the right side it helps blocks the view of the new one.
The old shiny junk Mail Box is a decoy to draw attention away from the new mail box.
I also painted every thing black and I mean every thing except the red flag.
Black don't show up very well on dark black nights.
Done this probably 7 or 8 years ago - hasn't been bothered since.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Interesting thread. Like most of you, we had problems with kids playing rural baseball at the farm. About 6 years ago I replaced the mailbox and we haven't had a problem since although occasionally we see a new nick on it. I took the mailbox within a mailbox route with the viod being filled with concrete. It weighed about 300# and was welded and bolted to a 6" square cedar post set 4' into the ground and set in concrete.

Alas, it seems that what the kids couldn't demolish in 6 years with a baseball bat the State can achieve using only a piece of paper. Last year the county deeded our part of the County road to the State and they have informed us that our mailbox is illegal on a state controlled highway. Strangely, it's not the mailbox that they object to but the post it is set on. All mailbox posts on State controlled highways have to be the breakaway type and since that won't support our 300# mailbox, it has to go. The funny part was that their letter stated that the fact that our post was non-conforming came to their attention because their 15' mowers had hit it 3 times and it was still standing. Seems to me that would be a good reason to leave it alone but perhaps TxDOT wants to get into the mailbox replacement business as well.

 

[Bird]

Yep, Frank, the state has had that rule a long time now. I learned about it over 10 years ago. My wife's brother's place and our place were on county roads, so we could use anything we wanted as long as it was acceptable to the mail carrier (and ours was easy to get along with ). But my brother bought his place on a Farm-to-Market Road (state road) and they not only required the breakaway post with a reflector, but they provided the post and did the installation. We had learned that you could add the mailbox later yourself, or if you had it available when the guy showed up to set the post, he'd go ahead and mount your box on it, so my brother had the box there ready for him.

 

[Double Orange]

The funny part was that their letter stated that the fact that our post was non-conforming came to their attention because their 15' mowers had hit it 3 times and it was still standing. .

Would that be the same mower guy that cut the first 45' of mine and two neighbors hay field down?

 

[EastTexFrank]

It could be. I forgot to mention that they flattened and bent some of the fence.

 

[weldingisfun]

Interesting thread. Like most of you, we had problems with kids playing rural baseball at the farm. About 6 years ago I replaced the mailbox and we haven't had a problem since although occasionally we see a new nick on it. I took the mailbox within a mailbox route with the viod being filled with concrete. It weighed about 300# and was welded and bolted to a 6" square cedar post set 4' into the ground and set in concrete.

Alas, it seems that what the kids couldn't demolish in 6 years with a baseball bat the State can achieve using only a piece of paper. Last year the county deeded our part of the County road to the State and they have informed us that our mailbox is illegal on a state controlled highway. Strangely, it's not the mailbox that they object to but the post it is set on. All mailbox posts on State controlled highways have to be the breakaway type and since that won't support our 300# mailbox, it has to go. The funny part was that their letter stated that the fact that our post was non-conforming came to their attention because their 15' mowers had hit it 3 times and it was still standing. Seems to me that would be a good reason to leave it alone but perhaps TxDOT wants to get into the mailbox replacement business as well.

Since TXDOT has been in the windshield replacement business (the way they resurface roads is to pour gravel and then let traffic force it into the road surface) for many years, it only seems natural for it to expand.