Do you need a key to open your mailbox?
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JLeslie (
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May 24th, 2019
from iPhone
The first time I didn’t need a key was my first house with my husband, I was 25. I remember thinking how odd it was that anyone could just come up and steal my mail. It was the first time I had ever lived in a single family home.
Where I live now the single family homes have to go to a central mailbox area. Actually, that seems to be sort of common on newer housing in my state.
As a girl growing up we had a mailbox slot in the door, and the mailman just put everything right through into the house. We lived in a townhouse. My parents still live there, and their mail is still delivered that way.
Do you remember anything that was new or struck you as odd regarding mail delivery?
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No, we live in a single family home.
Where I live, the mailboxes are in a central area and there’s no key required.
Where I lived before, there was no key required. I don’t think I’ve ever needed a key for any of the mailboxes where I’ve lived. Friends in apartment buildings have mailboxes that need keys.
Our mail boxes are on the side of the road.in front of our house. There is no lock.
Our newspaper goes in a tube that is attached to the same post.
In the winter we occasionally have to find the mailbox 9and sometimes even the post!) after the snow plow accidentally hits it.
Our mail box is on the side of the street. It has a lock. Need a key to open it.
No, we have staff for that.
No lock, just on the curb.
I would love to take my mailbox out and never see one again.
Who even uses them for anything but junk anymore? Save a tree, go electronic. The US postal service seems obsolete to me.
My mail is delivered through a slot in the front door.
Therefore, my house is my mailbox, and a key is needed to open it.
@KNOWITALL Maybe you can stop your mail. You can stop it if you leave town. Maybe you can stop it altogether.
Makes me sad though.
Plus, stereotypically the Republican in the house says something negative about the mail service. I wonder if younger people from both political parties feel like you? I feel like people over 50 are more likely to be politically split on it. Some republicans seem to be on a campaign to get rid of our postal service.
My boss banks with Bank of America and when I pay people if I send a check through the mail it’s free. If I deposit the money directly into their account and it’s not BOA there is a fee of $1. So the bank either pays for printing the check and the postage and charges us nothing, or does an electronic transfer of the funds and charges us. So, we still mail checks to a lot of subcontractors because of the ridiculousness of the bank. It’s up to the subcontractor. They pay the fee. The fee used to be $3. If they need the money within 24 hours it’s $10.
@JLeslie I don’t know anyone who gets ‘real’ mail anymore, our bank statements, and anything else is done online or auto pay. All I get are flyers and coupons that I throw away, just seems like a waste. Of course Reps say that, it’s losing money, which is not a good business plan.
500k people losing their jobs would stink though, but honestly, it doesn’t seem as if enough people use it to justify the hourly rate, bennies and pension anymore.
….Today, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) released its financial report for the 2017 fiscal year in which its leadership detailed a greatly concerning loss of $2.7 billion. ... One major problem is that the USPS is using profits from its monopoly letter mail services to subsidize failing and low margin nonregulated services.Nov 14, 2017
@KNOWITALL I read somewhere that part of the problem is the pensions, and that Congress forced USPS to have the pensions or something like that.
USPS is not a dept of the government but it is given life by our constitution and congress has some control. Here’s a short article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/04/04/us-post-office-will-be-busy-on-tax-day-but-wont-use-taxpayer-dollars/amp/
Letter service might be less needed, but people still send lots of packages through the mail. I go to the post office about once a month mailing something. My dad uses it almost daily to mail books he has sold. The local post office “feels” different to me than a kinkos or UPS store. I like the feeling, especially in small town locations.
I saw on a Facebook thread USPS uses drones in some rural areas to drop some packages off.
@JLeslie It’ll happen eventually, I’m in no rush. It’s kind of like telephone lines, we still have to look at them even though almost everyone uses cells now. Or phone booths, etc…
In our small Town of 5000 we do not have door to door service , just a Hub indoors in the main post office where we go to the locked cubicle holes with our key for our mail.
Its a nice cozy area for the community to gather and socialize while retrieving there mail.
@Inspired_2write Interesting!! Did you opt out of postal service as a city or how did that come about? Sounds much more feasible and less costly than paying someone pretty good money to deliver four packages a day and junk mail.
We have those at our local, too, but not enough for the entire population of our city. I like the concept though!!
@KNOWITALL
The Town is not big enough for door to door service ( expensive).
When the Town was set up 1900’s approx it was created this way and it stayed. Whatever works I guess.
Currently, we have a Post Office box, so that requires a key. We got tired of the issue that @LuckyGuy had with the plow. In the condo prior to this house, the mailboxes were in one area and required a key.
Yes; everyone does. But we got rid of that entire setup and switched to a magnet. It’s in front of our house.
I wish we had a front door mail slot. Would that be great or what? You have to buy in the Historic section of town to have one.
My girlfriend used to live a house that had a mail slot. When my son was 3 he stuck his arm in it to wave “Hi!” inside the house. ..... ..... .... He couldn’t get it back out! We eventually had to call 911. It’s a really wild tale, too! Like when she went in to call 911 the potatoes she had been frying when we arrived started burning. Her smoke alarm is screaming and my son is stuck in her wall!! There were 3 other kids. They all grabbed dish towels and ran around the house flapping them at the smoke screaming “FIRE FIRE FIRE!!”
My girlfriend was trying to balance on a chair and punch down the smoke detector with a broom as she’s telling Dispatch, “NO! There is no fire! There is a kid stuck in my wall!” (“FIRE FIRE FIRE!!” in the back ground.)
Then the kids kept trying to make him be The Thing from the Adams family. They kept shoving mail in his hand, which caused him to wail “NOOOO!! I DON’T WANNA BE THE THING!!” That’s how we found out what they were doing on the other side of that wall!
911 dispatched an ambulance and two fire trucks, along with the paramedics truck. All because my child was stuck in the mail box.
Another 911 call for my other child who got her tongue stuck in the fridge.
Jesus Christ my life!
I’m in an apartment, and we have a cluster mailbox unit. Yes you need a key to open my mailbox, and all the other tenant boxes. The mail carrier has a key to open the whole unit to deliver the mail.
My parents have a regular non-locking mailbox at the street. I do wish everyone had locking mailbox for better security.
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