Mailbox bashing solutions

[Maria]

Our mailbox got shattered again yesterday and we are trying to think of some way to prevent having to replace the mailbox every other year or so.

Do any of you know any creative solutions to mailbox bashing? I'm beginning to think making one out of 1/2 inch solid steel plate is what we need to do....

[Kmac15]

we got a heavy duty one from lowes and it has lasted 4 years so far. Every year or so DH does have to take a hammer and straighten up the front from the bashers but we don't have to replace it anymore.
We thought about sinking it in cement, or building a brick one but we have to have a break-a-way mailbox here.

good luck

[Sunbee]

What I've seen done is to sink a metal fence post on the side of the box where the bashers are likely to swing their bats. My Dad did that years ago and every now and again finds a baseball bat lying on the ground a few feet away from the box. Doesn't affect the delivery man (except for the one time the road was icy and he slid into the box and post) and most of their neighbors do the same thing.

[Little Quacker in OR]

Don't know if this would help you or not but many people here put the mailbox inside a 55 gal drum. Both ends are cut out. The drum is mounted on its side to a metal pole.The mailbox sits on a welded shelf inside the drum at the top. The barrel does double duty as a UPS package receiver on the other end.

Some of these are really decorated up cute! Some look like little horses with another very old mailbox as the "head" , pole as "neck" and metal pole "legs" are added, some are just painted pretty.

This must be sooo exasperating! I did not have my mail box damaged but my mail was stolen a couple of times a number of years ago. The boxes are out on the main road and I'm off on a private road so can't see them.

I totally lost my temper over this, called every radio station in the area, had a hissy fit and then called all the school kids that I knew and told everyone I would give a reward to anyone who knew who was doing this.

Then I threatened the "perps" and told them "on the air" that I'd have a video camera out at the 'boxes and I'd be hiding in the trees with a shotgun and a big mean dog, and they would be able to leave alright if they did this again, but they would be sans genital organs when the sheriff got to them. LOL I was really mad!

All a bunch of hooey of course but one of those worked as my mail was never taken again. I heard later from some of the neighbor kids that the two brothers that did this were asking around about what kind of dog I had.

I guess I should be better at controlling my temper but these stupid things really set me off!

Good luck with this. LQ

[Otter]

A good solution that my uncle used was to get a regular sized mailbox and one enough larger that the first one could fit in it. He removed the door from the smaller, centered it inside the larger and filled the space between with Qwik-crete. He mounted it on a heavy duty post to take the weight.

The postman just opened the bigger door to put the mail in the inside box. He was a postman himself so I'm sure this is a good solution.

[CamM]

I have seen some mailboxes encased in bricks. My guess is they have a little foundation and bricks are then built to mail box height and then the bricks are arched over the top. Maybe too fancy.

[alleyyooper]

When I moved into this house 25 years ago I could not keep a mail box over night with out it getting smashed real good. Of course the cops will tell you they don't have the man power to guard your mail box like they told me( not donut shop in the yard either.). I made one out of ply wood till I got the time to build a real good box againest the smashers. The wood one was easy to push together every time it got smashed to bits. But they decided that It was to easy for me to fix so they wrapped a chain around the post and jerked it out of the ground, I found it about 50 yards down the road.
Finally I got the new one (Box)built out of 3/16 inch plate steel. Since they pulled to old post out of the ground I bought a 8' section of 4 inch square channel steel and welded the box to it. I dug a 4' deep hole placed the post with the mail box in it then poured 2 bags of redi mix around the base I then filled the hole full of the red clay I had removed for the post. Once that had settled real good I poured two more bags of redi mix in that depresstion.
that mail box has not a scratch on it in 23 years of use. The county widened our road a few years ago and could not pull our mail box out of the ground. It took a back hoe to dig it out. When they replaced the mail box it was set back off the road a whole lane by the county. It was loose and wiggled so I poured in 4 bags of redi mix around the top. A fed Ex driver backed into it a couple of years ago and bent his bumper.

Our house is 400 feet off the road behind a screen of pine trees.
Build it out of plate steel and don't ever look back.

Al

[Tracy Rimmer]

You might want to check your area's bylaws with regard to what you can do -- some places have very clear rules about what you're allowed to do, and what you're not.

Personally, I'd accept that it's a losing game, and get a post box in the post office in town.

[Harry Chickpea]

Just for fun...

Take a ziplock sandwich bag. Fill it with red paint or dye. Paint the outside of the bag the same color as the mailbox and attach it on the right side of the mailbox so it is hard to see at night. Look for red cars the next day. A variation is fish guts.

Let the grass grow up a bit by the side of the road. Plant a nice rock in the grass about 30' downstream of the mailbox.

Put a few strands of strong nylon fishing line from the top of the mailbox leading down to the ground along the street. The bat will hit the fishing line and bounce upwards.

Originally Posted by Otter

A good solution that my uncle used was to get a regular sized mailbox and one enough larger that the first one could fit in it. He removed the door from the smaller, centered it inside the larger and filled the space between with Qwik-crete. He mounted it on a heavy duty post to take the weight.

The postman just opened the bigger door to put the mail in the inside box. He was a postman himself so I'm sure this is a good solution.

My brother did this after he had ot replace the 4th mailbox of the year. He's had it for about 10 years now and not a dent! As a bonus it lets him have free toothpicks from the shattered wood bats!

[byexample]

Got a good laugh out of some of the suggestions and stories here. This mailbox smashing thing is a ---- strange phenomenon if you ask me. I could see how some smasher could mess themselves up bad if they attacked some of the solutions presented here. Would serve their dumb butts right!

[Jolly]

Plate steel works best, but it's not really kosher. The rules are written (rarely enforced) so that the mailbox and post do not cause undue harm in an accident (break-away mailbox).

Then again, one could do what a friend of mine did: Kids were infamous around here for running over mailboxes with their 4WD bumpers. He took an artillery shell simulator (that's a hand grenade without the metal case, lot's of bang, no shrapnel), pulled the pin, wired it to the post and left it at the bottom of the hole.

Talk about having a blast on Satirday night!....

[Oggie]

At our old, more-isolated place, we lost two metal mailboxes during spring training for the moron league.

We bought a cheap plastic one. In the summer, it was pliable in the heat, and not much fun to smack. It got whacked a time or two, but never broken.

In the winter, when it was more brittle, I guess the batters did their drinking indoors.

[Ramblin Wreck]

A few years ago, everyone in the neighborhood was going through 6-8 mailboxes a year due to vandals having way too much free time. To fix my problem, I had a friend build me a great looking mail box out of steel plate. He designed/built the "footings" for the unit such that a couple of bags of concrete would hold it in place under normal circumstances but also flexible enough to fall over if struck by a car. That mailbox has been sitting at the garage end of my driveway for years now, awaiting the next vandal attack to my conventional, post mounted box. So, I've never had to deploy my "ultimate" solution. It's still a nice mail box to look at though.

[whatrset]

Had a friend losing mail boxes while he was at work (night shift). He lost 3 in one week, ad was rather irritated. So, he took a ford truck rearend and dug a hole and cemented the "post" into the ground down to the dept of the pumpkin. Then he Welded a plate on the top portion where he could place his "mailbox" on top. He bought a small standard mailbox and encased it in a box made of 1/2" wall pipeline pipe and and 1/2" sides. He didnt have any problems with this setup until last year when an 18 wheeler loaded with logs decided to use it as a break. THe truck lost, but the axle had to be replaced.

[ChristyACB]

I had this built:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xizHyZgQUE...+2009+007a.jpg

It is concrete, reinforced and then bricked. It ain't going nowhere. Of course, it cost about a grand but hey, I got my mailbox!

[65284]

It's actually illegal to booby trap a mail box with the intent to cause possible harm to someone, and a person injured in an accident by an unusually heavy steel post and lots of concrete may quite possibly successfully sue the person that installed it.

However, one elderly widow on my route grew tired of having to hire someone to replace her mailbox, so she packed it with bricks. About a week later she heard a commotion at night, went down very early the next morning picked up the remains of a bat, and removed the bricks. The same day a young man showed up late for school, without his glasses, with a broken nose, and missing some teeth.

He and his parents were stupid enough to complain to local law enforcement about someone "fixing their mailbox to try and hurt a kid”. The kid was issued a summons for destruction of property. The sheriff did go out and talk to the lady, who insisted she knew nothing about it except that her box had suffered some damage; of course the bricks were long gone. The law didn't pursue the issue very hard.

[jennigrey]

The mailbox-in-a-mailbox solution ("mailbox & cement twinkie") is a really good one, if your county allows it. Otherwise, t-posts are pretty good mailbox defenders. Get em tall enough that after you've driven them in far enough that the anchor is underground, you still have post sticking up above the mailbox. Put two posts on either side of the mailbox and then run some wire over the top, making a spider web of wire over the mailbox. Doesn't look all that great, but it's quick and easy to put up; pretty effective, too.

[Kung]

You can do what I did - and I *ASSURE* you this will work.

Parts list:

- (1) 8-foot iron pipe with one threaded end
- (1) large mailbox
- (1) smaller mailbox
- (2) bags of Sakrete
- (1) circular threaded flange (check to ensure the threads match the iron pipe)
- (4) 4" bolts with nuts

What to do:

- Mount the threaded circular flange on the bottom of the large mailbox, and drill 4 holes in each of the 4 screwholes on the flange. This will allow the mailbox (when completed) to be mounted to the 8 foot iron pipe.

- After this, place the smaller mailbox inside the larger one.

- Then fill the space between the larger and smaller mailbox with Sakrete. Not only will this provide structural strength, but the long bolts will be immersed in the Sakrete, providing additional strength holding the flange on.

- Let dry for at least a day.

- While the mailbox is 'drying out', dig at LEAST a 3 foot hole in the ground; fill with a mixture of Sakrete, dirt and water, insert the pole in the ground, and level it out. Tamp down the ground around the mailbox, and let dry.

Once the mailbox and ground are completely dry, then you will need to have a friend help you literally 'screw' the mailbox on the pipe. Trust me...it's heavy.

How do I know this works? Because it's been tested. I did exactly this in Williamsburg, VA, when we lost 2 mailboxes in a row. My mailbox is now something of a local legend, and I'll explain why below.

After I replaced the mailbox, I'd wake up every morning for a few days to find a few broken baseball bats on the ground.

Finally one morning I was asleep and woke up to a big *boom* outside my house. Ran outside and found an older truck wrapped around my mailbox. It would appear we'd found out culprit.

The mailbox suffered a VERY small dent and the iron pole had to be repainted, as well as the mailbox touched up. But it's still there, and as my then-landlord tells us, "Trust me, Matt...as well as we built that thing, nothing short of a backhoe will remove it."

[whatrset]

Along the same lines: I had a professor in college that had ppl keep running over his garbage cans... THey would cut across a corner and hit them while they were on his property. So, he filled one up with water and left it there. Worked like a dream... A High school kid hit it with his 4x4, had to get ther truck towed, and there was no sign of the water left by morning. Oh and he was ticketed for cutting the corner and fined for tresspassing.