The USPS is closing hundreds of small town post offices around the country. Our post office is scheduled to close in January. Rather than pick up our mail in a secure, heated building, our mail will be delivered to a “cluster box”, which will be outdoors. (We’ll also have to drive to the nearest town to mail packages, etc., but that’s not a big issue.)
I’d like to know how the cluster boxes are working, especially in areas where winter is a bitch. Can you always get to the box? Does it get buried in a snowbank? Any problems opening the box? Does it freeze up? Does your key break? Is your mail secure? Any problems receiving large packages? Any issues with vandalism or theft? Do you use your box for outgoing mail?
Also, if you’re involved in the fight to keep your post office open, I’m interested to know what kind of cooperation/results you’re getting from the USPS.
The outdoor cluster box I’m familar with from living in a condo was set up so each resident has a locked box with two keys. There was a secure box for outgoing mail and a couple larger boxes for packages. If you had a package the mail carrier would put the key for the package box in your secure mail box. I never had a problem with frozen locks and if I did I’m sure I would have just squirted some lock de-icer in there just like with a car door lock. The area around the box was cleared by the condo’s snow-clearing service.
I have a mailbox beside my driveway in neighborhood of 1980s (under $100K) ranch homes, as do the other homes here. But I deliver papers to two fairly upscale neighborhoods, and the mail there is delivered to cluster boxes.
I don’t know who keeps them clear of snow, but someone does keep the sidewalks clean there in there winter.
I’d hate to pay $250K for a house and not have my mailbox out front!
My mail is delivered to my door (in the city) but most of the people I know in more suburban or rural areas have their mail delivered to cluster boxes. Canada’s been doing it for years, and I think people don’t even think about it much anymore; it’s just the way it’s done. I think Canada Post is responsible for snow removal, but I’ve seen people drive up to the boxes and just clear a path with the shovel they keep in their car (you do keep a shovel in your car in the winter, don’t you?) if they get there first. The most vandalism I’ve ever seen has been spraypaint, though I’m sure there have been the odd break-ins over the years. It seems to me that the post office is rather good about repairing and maintaining these boxes, overall.
What’s convenient for these boxes is that they are both a mail drop off and pick up site, and fairly large packages can be delivered as well. If you receive a package, the post carrier puts it into the larger box and puts that key in your personal box. Once you retrieve the package, you drop the key into the outgoing mail slot.
As I said, ours is delivered to our door, and it gets wet, or squashed into the slot (my landlord installed rather stupid insulated slots that are hard to push mail through). I actually prefer the community boxes.
When I was growing up we lived in nice, newish Midwestern suburbs and always had a cluster box. I never had problem physically getting to the box, but sometimes after an ice storm it would be frozen shut. The package boxes seemed to always be rusty and hard to open.
Now I live in a 70s suburb and we have our own box.
The superboxes work fine in Canada. The delivery person shovels a path to them and I’ve never seen or heard of any vandalism or theft. The boxes are far more secure than your house mailbox. Small packages go in the overflow box with a key put in your box to access it and large packages are taken to the nearest post office outlet and you receive a notice for you to go pick it up. There is an outgoing mail slot.
Cluster boxes are used a lot. You’ll probably be getting the same version of what I’ve had… forever.
Sure, but immediately after a large snowfall it won’t be cleared. As mnemosyne mentions, someone does indeed do it, but I’m not sure who either. Heck, it could be the guy living closest to the box for all I know.
No. Someone does in fact come and plough it out.
Nope.
Can be tricky after freezing rain sometimes, but I’ve always managed to get it open.
No.
Never had an issue that I know of. Although someone did steal the mail box key from my car once, and I immediately got my mail delivery stopped, my lock changed, and the delivery resumed.
There are two built-in package compartments, one large and one small. They place a key in your mail box, and you open the compartment and return the key to a built-in slot. For very large packages they leave a card and you go to the nearest PO to pick up your stuff.
Not really. See key issue above, and some graffiti that was cleaned off later.
The slot that you return the compartment key into is also a mail slot. You can deposit outgoing (stamped) letters there, or if you inadvertently got the mail of a neighbour you can also just shuffle it into this slot. Strangely, the option of delivering mail from your home letter box has never been the standard operating practice of Canada Post, so this is a perk for having your mailbox a mile down the road, I guess.
I’ve been listening to the hearing on the new post office bill at C-SPAN. One senator said that closing 10,000 post offices amounts to 7/10ths of 1% of the USPS budget. That makes closings kinda hard to swallow. For many small towns, the post office is really important.
