I’m pulling out of my driveway this morning, chilly, sleepy, but ready for the day. As I’m backing out, I notice a shiny bit of red something in the driveway. Hmm. Well, probably just some debris from passing cars. But there’s more- white bits, black bits, all these little pointy plastic shards scattered over the driveway, the street, the lawn edge…what the…oh no. I stop the car, and get out to check. Yep. I’ve been hit. The Mailbox Basher has struck again.
God fucking damn it. Sometime in the night somebody came by and with a heavy instrument, bashed my mailbox, causing the small plastic house to shatter, spraying the immediate area with mailbox bits, and they even ripped off the little red flag thing. Since last summer, there’s been a rash of bashings in the area. There were complaints. Local police appeared and stroked their chins, and muttered darkly about “juvenile delinquents”.
And now my mailbox is no more. I’m pretty pissed, since it means I have go buy a new mailbox, and pick up my mail at the post office in town in the interim. Not a big inconvenience, but Christ! My mailbox! And on a school night, too!
Oh! We had a rash of these where I used to live- the homeowners started putting a long piece of metal pipe alongside the mailbox (set in a little concrete) on either side. I assume it’s legal- they all still got their mail, and the bashing stopped entirely.
That was YOUR mailbox?!? Oh man, I’m so sorry. Had I known, I wouldn’t have smashed it to bits. But when I was drunk at 3AM, you shoulda seen the way it was looking at me . . . I mean, it had it coming.*
I had this happen to me once, and it really pissed me off — I can feel for you, ratty. I hope you catch those fucking kids.
DISCLAIMER: In case you’re thinking of calling the local PD, I’M KIDDING!
Proof that vandals are stupid, seeing as how the pole protect only two sides, leaving three others (excluding the bottom most likely) vulnerable to attack.
Damn kids today. Letting a little thing like two metal poles stop 'em from smashing stuff. No gumption, I tell ya! No goddman gumption at all!
Buy two mailboxes, one small enough to fit inside the other. Remove the door of the small mailbox. Run some bolts through the bottom of the larger mailbox, so that you can attach it to the base later. Put the small mailbox inside the larger one, and fill the area between the two boxes with concrete, so that mail can still be put into the smaller mailbox. When that’s nice and hard, attach it to your post. I recommend a heavy steel pipe, also filled with concrete, sunk nice and deep.
The beauty of this is, the mailbox still looks quite ordinary from the outside. But, next time that mailbox gets hit with a bat, the smasher will receive quite a shock. Actually, more of a shockwave, traveling up the bat and through his arms…
Bingo, Maxxxxxxxxie. That’s almost precisely what my grandfather did after he lost his third mailbox in a summer, only he welded the mailbox to the steel post (which was actually a stanchion from a dairy barn) and buried the post in concrete. Never lost another one.
I like that idea. I might try it next time it happens to me (I’ve been hit 3 times in 2 years). However, the last time the punks opened the mailbox door and smashed it downwards, bending the door. I don’t think the concrete shell would have helped.
Word of warning, I heard a story (could be an urban legend or myth) where somebody did something like you mentioned. A punk broke his arm when trying to smash the mailbox (poetic justice if you ask me). However, the punk sued the homeowner and won. I don’t see how he could have won but this is what I heard.
Try this. It was suggested by a buddy of mine who lost waaaaay too many mailboxes to kids playing “mailbox baseball.”
Mount your mailbox on a large spring. I believe my buddy used a suspension spring from an old car.
When kids play mailbox baseball, they usually drive by in a car and swing the bat as they’re driving by. If they do this to your spring-mounted mailbox, the thing will likely recoil back into the car and make a nice dent. Eye for an eye and all that…
Unfortunately, it sounds like the OP is not referring to drive-by bashings, but walkthroughs, so big springs and guard poles aren’t going to help much.
Now, if you went the dual-mailbox route, and instead of concrete, filled the space between with, say, cans of spray paint…
My dad replaced his mailbox at one time with a length of highway divider, you know, the hollow square steel stuff. Heavy as hell. Since it wasn’t welded, though, it still got screwed with. Now he’s got a true mailbox made out of steel of a similar thickness (weighs 30+lbs) and it’s welded to a piece of truck driveshaft (think heavy steel pipe, 4" in diameter) that is sunk into the ground and set with concrete.
I think you’d have to hit it with a bulldozer to knock that sucker over!
We had a neighbor who got tired of these stunts, so he had a steel box made of 1/4" plate with some stiffeners and gussets to keep it square. There was a cavity big enough for a mailbox to be bolted inside. I believe it was wealded to a concrete-filled post. It was a work of art.
We’ve got a plastic all-in-one mailbox/newspaper box/post assembly. I don’t know how well it would withstand a baseball bat attack, but it stood up to my mom backing her RV into it.
A bunch of idiots I was friends with in High School used to think this was amusing. They were fanatics and would regale their weekend exploits every Monday. Their weapon of choice was a fireplace log launched from the back of a speeding pickup. Idiots I tell ya.
When I lived in CA, I was on a rural route and my mailbox had been trashed several times. I rebuilt it with a heavy steel box, bolted to a piece of railroad tie with ½” X 6” lags, and sunk 3’ deep. It was indestructible to all but the most ambitious of vandals. A lot of people parked in the turn-out where the MB was located and partied in the nearby canyon stream. There was no small amount of trash and damage to the forest and the residents were always afraid of some idiot starting a forest fire – which happened more than once. I was a volunteer fireman and fought some horrendous fires, and saw several of my neighbors lose their homes. A lot of the mailboxes had been damaged and many residents opted to drive the extra miles to the post office rather than replace or repair their MB. Anyway, I came home on a Saturday to find a vehicle wedged upagainst my mailbox. It was obvious that the fool had tried to push down my MB. The bottom plate had scraped his hood and his bumper had dented the post. And he was just stupid enough to leave his car there. Not to say that the same individual was responsible, but the mail carrier had already been there, and my mail, or what was left of it, was on the ground. Well folks, the (mostly) mild mannered Toad that you have come to know and love was pissed. My “Idiot Tolerence Meter” pegged.
In a frenzied rage, I jumped up and down on the hood of that POS until it was smashed down around the air cleaner, (at the time I weighed about 230lbs and I was wearing some heavy-weight work boots), and then I worked the roof down to the seats. Then I got in my truck and went down into the canyon and found a group of 18-20yr olds drinking and smoking pot. (yes, I know what it smells like) I asked them if anyone owned the vehicle that was rammed into the mailbox up at the turn-out. Of course nobody admitted that it was theirs. When I told them that some guy was up there, jumping up and down on it and just trashing the hell out of it, one guy jumped up and started running towards the turn-out.
Holy shit! Jeff, those mailboxes are crazy! But I might buy one. Thanks for the links.
I live in a fairly rural area, and we actually get a lot of vandalism here. I don’t know if it’s local kids or kids who head out to the sticks where there’s less chance of being caught/seen, or what. Last summer there was an epidemic of paintball damage. Fortunately they missed my house, but people had windows broken, cars dented and covered in paint, etc. The worst are the BB guns- again, I’ve been fortunate, but two people on my road had windows shot and cars damaged. Driving down backroads, you can see metal mailboxes dented and bent from hoodlums.
It really pisses me off. On the one hand, it’s just a mailbox. But it’s my mailbox, I paid for it and put it up, and some shithead goes and destroys it just for kicks? What the fuck? I don’t understand the mentality here. Everyone says it’s probably bored teenagers, and I’m sure it is, but still, why is it so damn much fun to cause problems for strangers by wrecking their stuff? Is this being done maliciously, with an eye to upsetting people, or are these kids just doing it “for fun” without much thought to the trouble they’re causing?
Not that it matters, since I’m still out one mailbox. Fuckers. I’m getting me one of those steel jobbies. Let’s see 'em try and bash that.
I didn’t see it in the links posted, but I recall David Horrowitz doing a commercial challenge on a mailbox that was supposed to be indestructible. After they dove a D-9 bulldozer over it, he agreed that it was in fact indestructible.