I have always guessed it was where the meter reader left the electricity bill. However, I’ve owned my home for quite a while and there has never been anything left in it.
Does anyone know definitively what it is? I’ve left it up for nearly two decades and no visitors have known what it was (I don’t ask all, just the ones that notice it). I finally took it down since this is all it is used for now:
Some kind of utility box cover maybe. Does it have openings on the bottom where phone or cable wire would have gone in? Also maybe a cover for an older remote meter reading device. They’re usually built into the meter now.
If it was mounted with the closed side up, then my vote is that it was a cover for an early remote meter reader, which had a piece that sat on the meter to read it, wired to a small transmitter piece mounted to the wall.
Looks like I’ve stumped the dope on this one. I’m still going with my original thought: The electrical meter reader came and read the meter and put a copy of the receipt in this. The correct size of paper will happily hang within this when arced a bit.
There is nothing inside this device to mount anything: There are no holes, no mounts, etc.
We used to have a motion detecting unit on our barn that was set up to activate a “chime” in our house when a car drove by the barn, alerting us to a visitor. The OP’s pictures look like the outside of the unit, sans the electronic guts.
It’s an old external cable/phone junction box. You’re missing the bottom plate that would have slid inside it with the connection(s) and a locking screw.
Isn’t that an old envelope holder? My grandma had one outside her door for the mailman to collect outgoing mail. It’s upside down to keep rain off of the mail, when you bend the envelope to fit in the curved portion the pressure from the bent envelope holds it in place even when upside down.
Yes, I think it is something like this. However, it’s by my back door right below the electrical meter. I believe the meter reader walked up, read the meter, and left the bill or receipt there in the “olden” days.
My Grandparent’s house in Coeur d’ Alene, ID had this box. Yes, it was used for a utility bill/receipt. I think the use of it was phased out somewhere in the early to mid 1980’s.
I did shoot a hole directly into the center of it with my BB rifle at some point.
ETA: I recall pulling the envelope/paper out of there a few times. I don’t recall if we ever left anything in there, like a payment, but it’s possible.
Bingo! I live not far from Coredalane. A relic from the pre-Avista days.
So that thing has been hanging, unused, on the side of my house for 30’ish years and I’m just getting around to pulling it off. I wonder how many hundreds of generations of wasps I raised.
