So only women with police officers can drive? 
Strange, while I definitely noticed them on the front doors of most of the houses I can remember, when I stayed with family outside Stromness for two weeks they definitely didn’t have a slot in their front door (I spent many hours sitting out front near the door and went through several dozen times–I’m sure I’d remember.)
Cartooniverse doesn’t live in the UK, this situation is about him.
Martin, I was referring to this comment:
Here’s what we did about this: We got up early, collected today’s paper, and replaced it with a week old paper–all nicely rolled up in its little rubber band. Of course, that paper disappeared. We did this for several days and the thief determined we were unreliable and picked a different house to steal from. I know this didn’t “solve” the problem, it only moved it to someone else. But we did get to read our morning paper.
Lawdy. Okay. Look, I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. Here. I read both of your posts.
Try this:
- I live in the USA. We have the steering wheel on the left. We drive on the right. That works rather nicely.
- Postal delivery vehicles and a few other vehicles with right-hand drive set ups are seen here. These allow a driver to deliver INTO a mailbox or paper box on side of the road WITHOUT HAVING TO SCOOT OVER OR GET OUT EACH TIME as per my OP. A lot of newspaper delivery folks have cars with right-hand drive for just such a reason. Or, they purchase vehicles outfitted with dual drive systems used for driver’s training on the road. These are standard American set-ups with linked pedals and steering column installed on the passenger side. Works in a pinch.
- It is not nonsensical, it was entirely relevant.
I frequently dress in heavy shrubbery cammo. Sometimes in the house, sometimes out by the roadway. All depends. 
I’d get one of those little personal attack alarms, then get up early, intercept the paper directly after delivery and affix the alarm to the paper and the pull pin to the mailbox, then leave it there. I think one shrieking newspaper might be enough to deter the thief.
Wasn’t the hedges - he mentioned he has a 300 ft driveway. I’m assuming buckshot is out of the question. 
Substitute the week old paper for the current one, and we have a winner!
I wish I had thought of that.
Cartooniverse,
While I enjoyed your OP, I’m hoping that this isn’t going to be a cliff-hanger. You’re going to come back and tell us who’s stealing your paper, right? I hate cliff-hangers. I love happy endings.
“I’m a thirty second bomb! I’m a thirty second bomb! twenty-nine twenty-eight …”
No need to be such a roughneck, Frank. 
This happened to me once when I lived in L.A. I could hear the sunday paper flop on the driveway about 4AM, but it wasn’t there at 6. So I put a camcorder on the spot thru the curtains at 4AM and caught the culprit, a tall, large-boned woman who came to my gate, looked both ways, opened the gate and took the paper.
We theorized the reason for the theft was the multitude of coupons in a sunday paper. I can’t think of a better reason.
I reported it to the police and the carrier and showed them a screen capture pic, thinking they might recognize a local citizen who lived walking distance away. I felt sheepish making a big stink about a $1.50 theft, but it was the principle of the thing.
A few weeks later, I was trimming my tangerine trees when a tall, female-looking form sauntered by. She looked familiar, and asked if she could have some tangerines. As soon as she opened her mouth, I realized it wasn’t a she.
I told [del]her[/del] him [del]s[/del]he would have to stop stealing my fucking papers before [del]s[/del]he could have any of my fucking tangerines. The paper thefts stopped.
And the tangerine thefts began. :rolleyes:
That’s 'cos you were outside Stromness, which isn’t really mainstream (or even mainland) UK.
Some older houses, particularly those without people around don’t have mail slots. But there’s generally somewhere for the mail to go (or there’s generally someone in the house when the mail arrives).
In places where there’s really no chance of theft I imagine they’re much more lax, did they even lock the door in Stromness?
In all fairness, it sounds to me like you made an offer and it was accepted. 
We all love happy endings. Some of us even walk away with a decent massage as well.
Your cliff will have to hang a while longer- the last few days we’ve had our paper in the box. I like Frank’s idea. It lacks the scatalogical distaste of a freshly shat shit in the paper and instead embraces high technology in the pursuit of a petty thief.
musicat, you actually got it on VIDEOTAPE??? Amazing. I’d have to hide the camcorder in the shrubbery.
Reminds me of that old Led Zep song.
Perhaps, but in terms of pure entertainment value, it’s a total buzzkill.
I suspect all the male UK dopers have been paper boys at one point or another*. Perhaps we should start a thread about it
Paper slots do not compare to dogs, of course. Also, unless my memory deceives me, when I was delivering papers stray dogs were much more common. They could be a right bugger…
*Suspect there’ll be more than one or two who were delivering on choppers as well
Yep. I just poked the lens thru the drapes at the corner of the window, set it to wide-angle and put in a 2-hr blank tape. Years of skilled training finally paid off.
One of my students tells of a man who got tired of having his mailbox stove in by kids driving by with a baseball bat–so he filled it full of concrete.
I imagine that kid’s wrist is still ringing–can you imagine the jolt you’d get from that?
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