Is there standard etiquette relating to the use of this flag?
I am under the impression that if I put mail in to be picked up, I raise the flag. I also feel that if I have nothing outgoing, but receive mail, the carrier should raise the flag. I figure why make the trip to the mailbox if the flag isn’t up there’s nothing in there.
I have been corrected twice, once from my wife, and once from a co-worker, regarding this belief.
What’s the Straight Dope on this?
I always thought it was you put the flag up if you have outgoing mail, but the carrier doesn’t use it to signal you. Too bad, cause that would be nice.
The way I’ve always known it to work (suburban and rural WI) is that you put the flag up when there’s outgoing mail. The carrier puts it down when the mail is picked up. No other uses.
If I put mail in the box, I raise the flag to signal the carrier to pick up the mail. Pam, my carrier, doesn’t stop at my mailbox otherwise, unless she has mail for me. I have never heard of a carrier signalling that you have mail by raising the flag. I have seen a indicator device that pops up when the carrier opens your box to tell you that the mail has run for the day, but it is a specialty item.
Good point IF there are as many days when you don’t get mail as there are when you do. In our case, it’s extremely rare not to get something, even if it’s all junk mail. We have outgoing on average of three times a month, so the flag up is for that.
In our area the “rural” aspect is irrelevant, since the yards are too big for the postman to walk to the door. In essence, everybody has a streetside box and the postman only gets out of his vehicle to bring packages or special deliveries to the door.
However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any “rules” about this topic.
Like others have said, put the flag up when there is outgoing mail, the carrier puts it down when they pick it up. Of course that will alert you that the carrier has been by. Where there isn’t any outgoing mail, the method I use to know if the carrier has been by is to leave the door open. They’ll close it when they put the mail in. Or course that only works if you can see the door from your house which I’m sure won’t work for everyone.
I concur with the others. Like Cub Mistress described, we actually had a little supplementary flag on our mailbox that was sprung and latched under the door. Once the mailman opened the door, it sprung up and signalled there was mail. This was really used to see if the mail had arrived yet that day, since the mailman was very unpredictable.