How do you handle mailbox vandalism?

I have heard of non active grenades they have all the boom with none of the shrapnel. Basically they just make the noise an active one does. You can hide that in weeds or plants right by the box with a string around the base of the pole that is attached to the trigger. When box is hit ka boom. A ton of noise that terrifies the offender.

Get a 308

Dave

Get a po box....our house is far from the road and out of site of the road. We decided early on to get a po box just because we always saw mail boxes knocked over and smashed! That was our furst clue...!

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Be a fountain, not a drain!

^()^
http://tubbsfarmstead.com/

they caught the people that vandalized ours but we never really did get any money out of it..we just had to replace it ourselves..

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

Ditto. We have a mail box, but it's out on the highway about 1/4 mile from our house. We decided not to even bother with it b/c of the risk of vandalism (esp since my husband's business mail comes to the same place), so we just went ahead and got a large PO box. We have to drive right past the post office when we go grocery shopping anyway, so it's not an inconvenience for us at all.

Well....first you need a shell simulator...it's kinda like a hand grenade without the metal casing. Think of it a half-dozen old-timey silver salutes, packed into one package.

Dig mailbox posthole. Tie string to shell simulator handle. Pull pin on simulator and place carefully in hole. Place post on top of simulator and tack string to post below ground. Tamp dirt in well and wait for Saturday night !BOOM!.

(Note:The above is fictitious and has never been used by mortal man to protect his or her U.S. Post Office rural mail receptacle. Never. Ever.

Next post, we will talk about how to remove fecal matter from pickup truck upholstery...not that we have any experience with that, either...

growing up my dad had tht probem with ihs mailbox getting destroyed so he inclosed it with brick and mortar. solved the problem.

And mount your box and camera in oilwell pipe with a hidden padlocked door.

This is incorrect. Laws regarding break away mailboxes do apply in Ohio as they are federal regulations. If anyone gets injured from hitting a brick or concrete filled mailbox then the owner of he mailbox could be held responsible.

I used a video survellience recorder I bought from Heartland and a report to the postal inspectors to end the POB vandalism here. Best $149 I ever spent.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

I agree with the "get a PO box" method, but that's a personal decision. It may not be plausible for everyone, depending on location.
Our mailbox would be on the highway over a mile from the house. It's 5 miles to the PO. We chose the PO box because there was also a little store in that town. Since then, the store has closed up... nothing else in that town to go to (literally), so it now seems a waste to drive 10mi round trip to get the mail.. especially with high gas prices. Only go once/twice a week.

Thread drift: The 'kids stealing signs' posts reminded me of a funny story. When my son was about 14, he and a buddy were walking to a friends house, saw a road sign that they wanted. So, they stole it and went on their way. As they crossed a church parking lot (it was a Sat.), the preacher came out and asked them what they were doing. The boys lied and said they found it laying on the ground and were going to their friends to call the police to report it. The preacher said, "Bring it in here and we'll make the call from my office." They dutifully carried it in and he had my son call the police to make the report!
My son felt so ashamed about it afterwards that he came home and confessed the whole thing to me.
Awesome way to handle that. Preacher could have turned the boys over to the police, but I think it made a bigger impression on them doing it this way. Kudos to the preacher!

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Before you marry someone, ask yourself, "Will they be a good killing partner during the zombie apocalypse?"
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I would deal with it properly. It is a FEDERAL offence. Leavenworth, here they come.

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Roger

Like some of the others here, we have NEVER experienced mailbox vandalism. The reason is we have a PO Box in town. The reason we use a PO box is not due to potential vandalism, we use a PO Box because we don't want people to know when we are and are not at home. For instance, if we're gone for a week, we don't want to tip off a burgular who might be scoping out our place that we're not home. All he would have to do is see a bunch of mail piling up in our mailbox to know that we're gone.

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....

One place I live in Ohio mailbox material would turn up in a nearby trashcan or yard. I caught a newspaper boy taking a letter out of my box one day. He had put it down the front of his pants. I made him give it back and told him I was going to report him to a Postal Inspector as stealing mail was a federal offense and he would likely end up in a youth detension facility until he was 18. Had the kid bawling by the time I told him to move on. Problem stopped.

Bought my farm in 1991. Have never had a mailbox damaged dispite being on a well traveled country road. Where is a piece of wood to knock on?

Isn't it a federal crime to mess with mailboxes?
Report each incidence, including past ones to the post office and police.
Then put up the mailbox again along with a camera positioned to get the vehicle plate number and face of the perp.
Wait.
Report your results.
Let the police take care of it.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

At my last farm, I lost 8 mailboxes in one year. The problems lived right next door. I hate to say it, but they were city kids with nothing to do.

Finally, I just put the maibox back on the railroad tie post, with one little screw holding it on. I would go back in the morning and put it back on the post. Evidently, they didn't like that. I came out one day, and they had stopped, flattened the mailbox, and put an axe cut in the middle of the flattened metal.

I came up behind them one day at the RR crossing just north of my place. There was a train stopped, blocking the crossing. They were out in broad daylight beating on the train cars with taped 2x4s. What idiots.

When the eldest boy moved out, the problems stopped.

There was a period several years ago, just after a sub-division opened up the road, when everyone on our road seemed to be losing a mail box each week. I had a friend build me a box out of 1/4 inch steel plate with the plan to use it when the current Home Depot box got trashed. For whatever reason, the vandalism stopped. The steel mail box has been sitting at the end of my drive next to the garage for seven or eight years now. Here's hoping your vandalism abruptly stops too.

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"Luck is the residue of design" - Branch Rickey

Fortunately I send out enough Priority Mail that the postal carrier will come into my yard each mail day and either collect or leave mail at my shop building behind my trailer.

If I'm going to be out of town for any period of time I leave a note for them to hold mail until I get back.

Love the local PO. One of my sisters and BIL retired here to TN from FL. They live across a ridge from me. Go traveling several times a year. Even if mail is addressed to them at the property they are using, PO will deliver it here. Even UPS has figured it out. Typically they leave their packages at the local PO, who then delivers them to me.

My father stopped our rfd box from being batted when I was a teenager by planting a wooden fencepost a couplle feet before it to act as a barricade protector.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Another issue is the snowplows. If the mailbox post is solid and sunk into the ground with concrete and the plow hits it with the wing blade, it can spin the plow into the ditch and you could be liable. I work with a couple of guys who run plows in the winter and if they hit your mailbox the county will replace it but if it's fastened solidly into the ground and wipes out a plow it's expensive to pull the plow out, not to mention getting behind in the plowing.