I was prepared to be outraged. Those lazy so and so postmen. Then I looked at the photos. Did a double take and looked again.
I can easily imagine the Postman’s frustration. Especially with that railing that forces him to* climb the steps twice for two doors that are side by side.* Plus the mail slot is at the bottom of the door? That’s just ridiculous. How many houses on that street are like that? That’s a lot of unnecessary step climbing and bending. Try doing that a few hundred times.
How did they ever get mail services to accept such an arraignment thirty to forty years ago? That should have never been acceptable. I have never seen mail slots that low before on any houses in my city. That’s just crazy dumb. IMHO
Safety hazard might be a bit of a stretch. But I guess that was the rule that most closely covers the situation.
They were given over 2 weeks notice. If they thought that they had a legit complaint, they could have contacted postal authorities instead of bitching about it after the fact.
My father was a mail man. I wouldn’t have wanted him to bend over that far to deliver their mail.
I was about to snark about how it must be so very difficult for these residents to buy a cheap wall-mounted mailbox, then I saw that at least one did do that. Now the postman was just upset about walking up the steps to get to it and still wouldn’t deliver. Well then. I’m thinking they should hire a younger man for his route and place him somewhere else. I can understand not wanting to stoop all day to deliver mail on small landings, but walking up some steps is another thing. Not everyone has a spot to mount a mailbox right there on the sidewalk (and I wouldn’t want my mailbox out there either).
I delivered mail one summer in Queens and I had to go up a lot more steps than that. In fact I find it hard to believe that such isn’t common. The slots on the bottom of the door on the other hand are just dumb. I can see them forcing the customers to change that. I never had to deal with that kind of thing. You’d have to get down on your knees to stick anything substantial in the slot, not funny if it has rained or snowed.
I think the slots were not that bad, if you’re standing a few steps down it’s not very low anyway. A mailbox on the door would be fine, I think the postman is just lazy and milking this thing for all it’s worth.
The slots we had on our door (at a decent height) had to be pulled open. Try that with a handful of different sized mail from a few feet away. Not going to be easy, as anyone who has ever delivered mail to this kind of house can tell you.
Guidelines constantly evolve and change as we become aware of what causes problems for workers. “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” is never a reason not to change the way something is done in and of itself. Conversely, it’s also not a reason to change things either.
And certainly not having to bend over repeatedly for all of the special snowflakes on the route.
These people shouldn’t complain too much, they might end up not getting delivery to their door any more. I haven’t had mail delivered directly to my dwelling since, um, 1994 or so. It always goes to a freakin’ set of post boxes (1 per unit, locked).
The Post Office jumped the shark here by NOT mentioning in that letter that the new boxes would have to be at street level, then after one resident installed a new box by the door, the carrier still refused to deliver. I’d be screaming about that.
Furthermore, that letter from the postal manager was none too literate.
Then I looked at the photos. 
Did a double take and looked again.