# American mailboxes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 3, 2010, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816 "2010-04-03T09:30:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/41 "2010-04-03T16:10:07Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > i don’t think it is owned by the federal government (the Postal Service is technically not part of the government now though it is controlled and given many protections as if it were) now or previously. the box does have to be approved by the Postal Service and there are laws pertaining to it prohibiting unauthorized use or theft from. For all intents and purposes it **is** the [property of the federal gov’t](http://trac.syr.edu/laws/18/18USC01708.html). You are correct in that you paid for it, you own it, and technically you are leasing it to the Postal Service for their exclusive use. The relevant code does not explicitly state “mailboxes are the property of the US Government,” but the implication of the language in the code is that for all practical purposes, your mailbox is the exclusive domain of the federal government and its agents, meaning the USPS, which **is** a [**semi-independent federal agency.**](http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/39/101.html) ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/42 "2010-04-03T16:10:55Z")
“residential mailbox standards” from the USPS: [http://www.usps.com/receive/mailboxstandards.htm](http://www.usps.com/receive/mailboxstandards.htm) I note that they say: > [@](#): > > Our regulations cover what can and can’t be placed in a curbside mailbox or mailbox outside of your house, which generally includes only mail that has been sent through the USPS. **However, our regulations don’t govern what can be placed in a mail slot on your door.** Bolding mine. However, I have a mail slot in my front door, and it appears pretty much universal that deliverers of hand circulated advertising still litter the front step with the stuff, rather than stuff it through the mail slot. Either they believe that they aren’t allowed to use the mail slot, just like they aren’t allowed to stick it in a mailbox by the door, or they don’t bother to distinguish between homes with mailboxes by the door and ones with mail slots. In rural and suburban areas, the mailbox on a post allows for a bit of decoration / artistic expression by the homeowner. Which then gets marred if they have to put up a plastic tube next to it for a newspaper delivery. With newspapers online, and the USPS converting over to the standardized community mailboxes, both will eventually disappear, and the mailbox-on-a-post will become a bit of nostalgia. OTOH, you won’t have bored teenagers committing minor vandalism by playing “mailbox baseball” anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/43 "2010-04-03T16:38:24Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > for individual roadside boxes they are supposed to be 6" from edge of road, this might be on government property (the road easement). if they are in an area with sidewalks this would also be the case, in many areas your property ends at the inside edge of the sidewalk, the outside grass area between the sidewalk and curb is owned by the government. In snowy climates this area is where the snow plowed off the road piles up. So sometimes the post is entirely buried in this dense, heavy snow and occasionally the snowplow will knock over the mailbox. We had to dig out the area in front of the box so that the postal worker could reach the mailbox. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/44 "2010-04-03T16:56:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > In snowy climates this area is where the snow plowed off the road piles up. So sometimes the post is entirely buried in this dense, heavy snow and occasionally the snowplow will knock over the mailbox. We had to dig out the area in front of the box so that the postal worker could reach the mailbox. people do place the post 3 or 4 feet from the road and cantilever a support from above or below to place the box 6" from the road edge at the 3.5’ height. you have to provide access no matter what the snow plow does. a considerate plow driver will clear it enough not to damage it but you will have to clear more snow yourself. ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/45 "2010-04-03T17:13:42Z")
As others have said, only the USPS is permitted to put anything in a mailbox. That caught me by surprise when I arrived here from New Zealand. Back in NZ, if you wanted to leave something for a friend and they weren’t home then you could leave it in their mailbox but, not here in a US. I think it would be a federal crime to do so. Here in small town New Hampshire, the local volunteer fire dept once got into trouble for leaving notices of a fund raising event in mailboxes. The restriction seems a little silly to me and is a clear restriction on free enterprise and competition in business. I don’t see why USPS should be a protected monopoly. It might be counter-intuitive but when anyone is allowed to put something in your mailbox, it actually reduces junk mail because most junk mail is delivered by someone other than New Zealand Post. That means you can put a “no junk mail” sign on your mailbox and it’s generally respected because people are not impressed by any company who ignores it. I remember a politician ignored the signs with some campaign material and got a bit of a roasting in the local newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/46 "2010-04-03T17:25:34Z")
in the USA people can put anything into your mail slot. it don’t think the restriction of nonUSPS delevery applies to the outside of the mailbox which might include some magazine hooks. ---
**Author:** ![Visual\_Purple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5daacb/32.png) [@Visual\_Purple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Visual_Purple)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/47 "2010-04-03T17:45:25Z")
**Snnipe 70E** has the rules right. It’s not just an urban or suburban thing, but also a matter of when the area was developed. My neighborhood has all three kinds of delivery: to the door in the oldest portion, built in the early 70s, curbside in the slightly newer areas, and in box clusters for an area built in the 90’s. I’m glad to have a box at my door–the snowplows are indeed always knocking over the pole-mounted boxes. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/48 "2010-04-03T17:47:44Z")
> [@campp](#): > > Eh, I don’t trust it. Anytime I’m sending something out, it is usually money. I just can’t leave the house with that check waiting for the mailman all day out in that box. :eek: Maybe I’m paranoid, but then I’ve never lost any mail. I agree with this - I won’t leave checks or other sensitive items lying around all day outside, I’ll take these items to an actual post box. Netflix returns and other low risk items will be left out though. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/49 "2010-04-03T18:06:22Z")
> [@tetranz](#): > > As others have said, only the USPS is permitted to put anything in a mailbox. That caught me by surprise when I arrived here from New Zealand. Back in NZ, if you wanted to leave something for a friend and they weren’t home then you could leave it in their mailbox but, not here in a US. I think it would be a federal crime to do so. … In my experience, people do leave private notes, etc, in each other’s mailboxes. I’ve done it. Technically, that is illegal, but the USPS isn’t going to know about it, or, probably, bother with pursuing such a case. They have the rule mostly to prevent hand delivered commercial circulars from being stuffed in the mailboxes. They’d rather those people sent them as junk mail, and generate revenue for the post office. ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/50 "2010-04-03T20:40:49Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > In my experience, people do leave private notes, etc, in each other’s mailboxes. I’ve done it. Technically, that is illegal, but the USPS isn’t going to know about it, or, probably, bother with pursuing such a case. Someone left something in a friend’s mailbox and unfortunately the mail delivery person found it before she did. I think it was confiscated and then they sent her a letter with some sort of warning and demanding payment of postage if she wanted it back. ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Medlo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@Hi\_Medlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Medlo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/51 "2010-04-03T22:05:42Z")
When I was a carrier (retired four years ago) the rule was that we didn’t have to pick up outgoing mail unless we had a delivery for that address. However, I wouldn’t dream of seeing outgoing mail sticking up in a box and not picking it up. In the small town where I delivered there were many different containers used as mailboxes…baskets and tubs and barrels and even cardboard boxes. Part of knowing a route was knowing what and where the mailbox was. I think many of the bad service stories you hear come from the Postal Service’s practice of using casual labor as carriers. They don’t know the neighborhoods and don’t have any connection with the people they’re supposed to be serving. I delivered the same route for 18 years and my customers became my friends and family. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/52 "2010-04-04T01:16:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I would complain to your local Postmaster if your mail is not getting picked up. I’ve never heard of any policy that would allow it to be anything other than mandatory. > > I worked as a carrier for the old Post Office. In the city I can tell you that there are many idiosyncratic delivery methods. Sometimes I just left mail inside the screen door. A number of older houses had milk boxes cut into a side wall that the mail could be left in. Almost anything that was a container was used for mail at times. Apartment houses had pull down sets of hinged openings so that I could drop in all the mail into the tops one after the other. We had a special key for this. Some of these were probably technically illegal, but it wasn’t worth anybody’s time and effort to police it. > > Being a city boy I had never been to a house that didn’t have walk-up service. Even the inner suburbs lacked curbside boxes. But I was a replacement floater and inevitably one day I got sent out to true suburbia. I was faced with streets full of curbside boxes. With flags. We got essentially zero training and no one had ever told me what to do with the flag. > > Being very bright, I analyzed the situation. None of the flags were up. I was there to deliver the mail. Obviously, therefore, I was to raise the flags to indicate that the mail had arrived. So that’s what I did all day. > > (I made discreet inquiries at the end of the shift, so that only happened once. I’m sure I was the talk of that neighborhood, though.) > > Even in suburban neighborhoods, people tend to watch for strangers around their mailboxes. I heard about more theft in the city. You certainly can buy locking curbside mailboxes if you want. > > Suburbia is not dense. Routes are miles long. It would need zillions of carriers to do them on foot. True rural, farm, and backwoods routes are even longer. Houses can be a mile or more off the road. The U.S. is so utterly vast that it always amazes me that it functions. > > ETA: Mail trucks indeed do have right hand drive so that they can drive with traffic. It takes a day or so to get used to this but then it seems normal. Back in my day (and apparently in a few scattered places still) carriers used their own cars. This was before bucket seats. You could simply slide over, work the steering with your left hand, and the gas pedal with your left foot, and drive carefully from box to box reaching them through your open right passenger window. > > This is exactly as insane as it sounds. My rural route carrier is actually a personal friend … but rural carriers are actually mini post offices, they sell stamps, envelopes, pick up packages and mail to go out … and we give ours eggs from our chickens, and cookies and she has permission to come over and use our hot tub when she wants to =) Our mail carrier, UPS guy and Fed Ex lady all know that they can put any packages on the front seat of the pickup truck as it takes me too long to get to the door and I will roll out and get it as soon as I get around to it =) Though I did get a bit of teasing the last time I had a wheelchair delivered, she accused me of having bricks delivered 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/53 "2010-04-04T01:17:55Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > That’s how they do it. The driver’s seat is on the right side of the car. When I was a little kid I was in awe of our mailman. He had a normal left side wheel, but drove it from the right seat. The cops never bothered him about it. The biggest danger to rural post boxes is snowplows, not thieves. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/54 "2010-04-04T02:21:13Z")
For some reason our postman doesn’t always take the time to close the door on our mailbox securely. It is often flapped open and the mail showing for all people who drive by. A few years ago we had trouble with a bill from a department store not showing up for a couple of months in a row, and we get a lot of mail that doesn’t belong to us, but that’s the only problems we’ve had. Oh, one time we had a lazy postman who didn’t want to climb the steps to our door when he had a package for us. So he would leave a note in the mailbox saying that he had tried to deliver the package but we weren’t home. (Our car was parked in back.) He certainly had NOT tried to deliver the package. I complained to the postmaster and that didn’t happen again. Some of the mailboxes that are homemade have a sense of humor. There are those made to look like animals or houses. My favorite was on Rt. 1 in Maine, if I remember correctly. There was one box for mail and another higher one for air mail. (You can expect _anything_ in Maine. Marvelously witty state.) ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/55 "2010-04-04T03:40:41Z")
> [@Kiyoshi](#): > > Thanks for the answers everyone. So if I understand correctly, the curbside boxes are usually found in more sparsely populated areas, where the mailman needs to drive? > > I didn’t know that you could put mail in your box to be collected for delivery - I like that idea! > > One more thing, I’m confused by this quote from the USPS website linked to above: - > > Do the mailmen usually drive on the wrong side of the road?! Why not just have the driver’s seat on the opposite side? No I live in the City of San Jose Calif. 4th largest city in the state. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/56 "2010-04-04T04:01:55Z")
[QUOTE=Kiyoshi] One more thing, I’m confused by this quote from the USPS website linked to above: - > [@USPS](#): > > Boxes must also be on the right-hand side of the road and in the carrier’s direction of travel in all cases in which driving on the left-hand side to reach the boxes would pose a traffic hazard or violate traffic laws and regulations. [/QUOTE] This is for those far-flung areas where the carrier only passes through once and only in one direction. There may be a house every quarter mile along the road, and the mailboxes will all be on the same side of the road so the carrier doesn’t have to do a slalom course and keep switching sides of the road. Possibly inconvenient for residents that have to cross the road to get to their mailbox, but safer for the carrier. ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/57 "2010-04-05T16:43:50Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > In snowy climates this area is where the snow plowed off the road piles up. So sometimes the post is entirely buried in this dense, heavy snow and occasionally the snowplow will knock over the mailbox. We had to dig out the area in front of the box so that the postal worker could reach the mailbox. Occasionally? We had to repair our post 3 or 4 times just this winter. I just installed a new post (the old one was beyond repair), and a new box. I went with white for greater visibility, and added reflective labels for my name & street number… hopefully this will help. I may still move the post back a little as well. Our plow guy is great about clearing the path in front of the box, but the town plows doing the street don’t seem to care what they hit. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/58 "2010-04-05T16:56:35Z")
> [@butler1850](#): > > … I went with white for greater visibility, and added reflective labels for my name & street number… hopefully this will help. How is white more visible in the snow? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/59 "2010-04-05T17:26:05Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > How is white more visible in the snow? Exactly. I have a dark green, steel mailbox with reflective lettering, along with a white, steel newspaper box directly below the mailbox. The newspaper box has large red reflectors on both sides, and my driveway entrance has red reflectors on poles along the street. The dark green mailbox has the added advantage of ensuring that the sun will melt the snow on it, and in the daytime, the dark green (and red reflectors) really stand out from all the white snow. At night, with high beams on, all the reflectors really make my mailbox stand out. Incidentally, one reason so many mailboxes in my town get taken out by the plow is because the local U.S. post office gives out a handout instructing people to install the mailbox such that the front of the mailbox is even with the front of the curb. The handout stated that failure to adhere to this rule (or any of their other rules, such as height) would make it such that the mailman could refuse to deliver. On the other hand, the Town states on their website that they are not responsible for damage to mailboxes. I decided that putting the front of the mailbox even with the front of the curb was a sure way to get my brand new mailbox taken out by the plow, so I installed my mailbox even with the back of the curb where the grass starts. So far, so good. The mailman has delivered our mail, and we haven’t lost a mailbox yet (knock on wood). We’re actually one of the few on our street who hasn’t had their mailbox taken out by the snow plow. My mailbox also has a metal post and is set in concrete, so it has also withstood the snowblast from plowing operations. It’s very sturdy. Unfortunately, it’s so sturdy that the mailbox will likely not just pop off if it’s ever hit. The whole thing, post and all, would likely be destroyed if the plow ever managed to hit it. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816/60 "2010-04-05T17:32:16Z")
I want to say that my grandmother’s old house didn’t have a curbside box, nor a slot in the door, nor a box attached to the house. I seem to recall her receiving mail through this box in the wall that was on ground level next to the driveway on the outside, and opened to the landing of the stairs to the basement inside. I think it was originally used for milk deliveries, or something. I’m not sure how Grandma got away with that, because I was always under the impression that you had to have an officially-sanctioned mailbox, but I could be mistaken. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-mailboxes/534816.md?page=4)