Too many inconsiderate $*#(@) in this world!!!

[Tobashadow]

My mailbox after 7 years had seen better days, mailmen where rough on it, weather beat it to death, hit by cars twice.

So i decided to replace it this week and wanted something custom and i bought a new one and spent around eight hours sanding it and hand painting and was very very proud of it. So Tuesday after work i mounted it and had a smile on my face seeing it when i left for work Wensday.

Came home last night and noticed the door on it was down so i walked down to it to close the door and noticed someone had beat the %*$(# piss out of it on purpose.

Didn't even last 24 hours.

[Dolomite_supafly]

It isn't tht they are inconsiderate it is the fact that that they are jealous. It is the entitlement crowd who believes you can't have anything nice if they can't. It makes them feel better about themselves when they take away something nice from soneone else. I had someone do the same thing to my car once. I hadn't had it for a week when someone scratched it down to fiberglass.

Dolomite

[Guest WyattEarp]

lol, sorry to hear about your mailbox man, but your post gave me a chuckle. what kind of sick bastard beats up a brand new mailbox?

[enfield]

I've seen a nice mailbox on my local travels - it's apparently welded up out of plate, suspended by two lengths of logging chain from an L-shaped metal post. Looks durable.

I'll bet you'll have trouble again. Game camera?

[peejman]

Our subdivision has the big, brick mailboxes with lights on top. When we moved in, 3 years ago, the light didn't work. A few months ago I finally got around to replacing it. We ordered a nice set of lights for the garage, porch, and mailbox. About a week after I installed the lights, some moron high school kids came through bashing them. Many of my neighbors got bashed too. They probably did $1500 in damage around the subdivision. One neighbor called the police, but there's basically nothing they could do unless someone gets a guilty conscious and confesses.

[E4 No More]

My FIL had problems with people hitting his mailbox with their cars and such things happening as above. The inlaws live on a rather steep hill, and the mailbox has to reach over a drainage ditch next to the street that has no curbs. He welded a box out of heavy steel and welded a frame out of 4" heavy steel pipe so that it would pivot when struck. You'd have to use explosives to damage that thing now, but it'll sure stand up to a car as someone found out a couple of months later when they felt that they needed to test its construction.

Around where I live now people invest a lot of time and money making mailbox stands out of brick and mortar just to have some A-hole knock them down with their cars.

[Guest Anadais]

What about a brick mailbox? Those are a little tougher to destroy.

[TGO David]

A high school shop teacher where I grew up got tired of his mailbox being used for high-speed automotive batting practice, so he filled a mailbox with concrete and set it in place of his regular mailbox one weekend. According to the news story, he would occasionally swap it out like that. You never knew when it was going to be the ringer or the regular mailbox.

Anyway, it finally paid off for him. Stupid kids came flying down the road with one of the teenagers in the bed of a pickup truck with an aluminum ball bat. Broke the kid's arms (both of them). Compound fracture in one arm, shattered the elbow in the other. Messed him up real good. Shop teacher got sued and then fined by the USPS and ended up with a felony charge. Total BS if you ask me, but my opinion (or that of many residents of the town) didn't make any difference on the outcome.

I can pretty much guarantee the dumb ass teenager never swung a ball bat at someone else's mailbox though.

[QuietDan]

I like the game camera idea. Does the entire neighborhood a favor and gives the police something to go on. Publish the name, address and telephone number of the perp.

I like the mailbox full of concrete idea. Fun to think about, not so much fun to do.

[laktrash]

A high school shop teacher where I grew up got tired of his mailbox being used for high-speed automotive batting practice, so he filled a mailbox with concrete and set it in place of his regular mailbox one weekend. According to the news story, he would occasionally swap it out like that. You never knew when it was going to be the ringer or the regular mailbox.

Anyway, it finally paid off for him. Stupid kids came flying down the road with one of the teenagers in the bed of a pickup truck with an aluminum ball bat. Broke the kid's arms (both of them). Compound fracture in one arm, shattered the elbow in the other. Messed him up real good. Shop teacher got sued and then fined by the USPS and ended up with a felony charge. Total BS if you ask me, but my opinion (or that of many residents of the town) didn't make any difference on the outcome.

I can pretty much guarantee the dumb ass teenager never swung a ball bat at someone else's mailbox though.

Similar story from around here. A guy ran off the road and hit brand new brick mailbox that was built for above reasons. The mailbox owner had to pay for damage to vehicle, because it was "out of code" or whatever reason. The driver of vehicle's buddy's wife just happen to worked for the local small Post office. I don't know if this a 100% sure but did get the story from the next door neighbor of mailbox owner and I know evrybody envolved. "I believe it !"

[Guest Kamikaze]

We had a guy at work with the same problem. We made him one out of 1" thick mild steel and a piece of 4"x4"x.5" square tube. Sunk it 4 ft in the ground with about 6 bags of quickcrete. Only took a week or so before he found a smashed aluminum bat and broken glass beside it. Dang thing looked just like a tin cheepo mailbox. I wish I could have seen it when it happened.

[East_TN_Patriot]

I understand the frustration. I have a couple of neighbors who are constantly replacing their mailboxes. Both are very along in years and on limited incomes. I've spent more than a couple of hours helping them straighten out mailbox posts and get the new one's bolted on. One time, the new box didn't even last 24 hours. It's so bad, I've even seen some people not even bolt their mailboxes to the post, but just set it on the post or they use magnets to hold it in place.

I never understood the purpose of vandalism. Even as a kid, the worst thing I ever did was throw snowballs at cars or put a smoke bomb in someone's mailbox. I think the earlier post hit it on the head. So many people have an entitlement mentality that they think it's perfectly acceptable to intentionally destroy or take someone else's property because you don't have the same thing. Just look at the riots in London right now and the mentality of those taking part. BBC interviewed a couple of girls who made it very clear that they were showing the police and "rich people" that they can do "whatever we want."

I also think the overly putative nature of our society also makes otherwise honest people choose not to hang around when they do make an honest mistake and run over someone's mailbox. In the past, society was less reliant on formal mechanisms for solving disputes and if someone accidentally damaged property, they could knock on the door and work it out with the property owner. Now, most people want the police involved, which means a report, likely a traffic citation, and then jacked up insurance rates. This also keeps property owners from taking steps to protect their property as TGO David's story shows since you'll get sued.

Unfortunately, as a society, we reap what we sow and this is the outcome of too many people demanding official intervention in every aspect of our lives while the rest of us sat relatively silently while it happened.

[tnhawk]

I had a neighbor who frequently backed into my mailbox, until I filled the post with quickcrete. The dent in his car reminded him to stop backing into it.

[hipower]

We had a guy at work with the same problem. We made him one out of 1" thick mild steel and a piece of 4"x4"x.5" square tube. Sunk it 4 ft in the ground with about 6 bags of quickcrete. Only took a week or so before he found a smashed aluminum bat and broken glass beside it. Dang thing looked just like a tin cheepo mailbox. I wish I could have seen it when it happened.

Did something similar some time back before we moved. As usual, kids destroying the boexes and knocking down posts. After the second one, I took a 4" aluminum fence post, sunk it 2 feet in the ground with 2 60 Lb sackcret bags around it. Then attached the mailbox frame to a piece of rebar and put it in the fence post, filling around it with more sackret...

Had about the same results you did. The box and post was still up when we moved.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

There are also a few mailboxes a little too close to the road on narrow roads. Unless a driver makes the habit of driving in the middle of the road, even an ordinary mailbox will sometimes win a fight against a truck or RV mirror.

[laktrash]

There are also a few mailboxes a little too close to the road on narrow roads. Unless a driver makes the habit of driving in the middle of the road, even an ordinary mailbox will sometimes win a fight against a truck or RV mirror.

My wife scares me to death riding with her.She skims a few mailboxes on the way home. I'll flinch and throw my arm up waiting for the glass to shatter. She'll ask "Whats wrong with you ? " I just mention the mailboxes.

[robin48]

The other day while we were gone some butthead kicked in my garage door. That night someone egged my daughter's car.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

[LagerHead]

I wonder if there would be a way you could rig a mailbox so that a certain amount of pressure - say that of a baseball bat hitting it - would blow open the door and spray orange paint down the side of the offending automobile. I'll bet it would be real tough to explain to daddy why his new F150 is now black with orange stripes.

[E4 No More]

Anybody remember the James Bond movie where the gunman finds Bond's car, goes up to the passenger window, looks at a sticker in the window warning that the car had an anti-theft device, sneers, then takes his rifle butt to smash the window and in doing so the car blows up?

Now that's what I'm talk'n about!

[Dolomite_supafly]

I wonder if there would be a way you could rig a mailbox so that a certain amount of pressure - say that of a baseball bat hitting it - would blow open the door and spray orange paint down the side of the offending automobile. I'll bet it would be real tough to explain to daddy why his new F150 is now black with orange stripes.

Probably would be that hard to setup something like that. Perhaps a dual plate that, when struck, closes a circuit. That circuit then energizes a circuit going to a a sprinkler valve attached to a PVC tube being used as an air cylinder. The spinkler valve opens releasing air from the air cylinder in short order. Then on the other end of the valve have say, a bag of paint inside of a tube. As the air is released it forces the bag out or at least ruptures the bag, spraying the paint.

The best part about it is you can have the switch at the mailbox and run the wiring to the actual launcher farther away but facing back at the mailbox. That way you get maximum paint spread. It would also be eaiser to "aim" to get good coverage of the suspect vehicle.

There have been potato cannons made using a similar setup. The sprinkler valves run less than $20 and will run on a 9v battery. Then after that you just need an air cylinder to store the air and a "barrel" on the other side to lauch the payload. Probably cost less than $40 to build the entire thing from scratch.

If I were to do it I would use water based paint that way you won't be held responsible for any permanent damage. And it would be likely most kids won't know the difference or even try to figure it out.

Dolomite

[peejman]

I wonder if there would be a way you could rig a mailbox so that a certain amount of pressure - say that of a baseball bat hitting it - would blow open the door and spray orange paint down the side of the offending automobile. I'll bet it would be real tough to explain to daddy why his new F150 is now black with orange stripes.

There certainly is a way. However booby traps are illegal.

[bigwakes]

There certainly is a way. However booby traps are illegal.

Seems like booby traps that hurt someone are illegal. I guess they could call it vandalism tspray someones car with paint, but it's likely a crime that will not get reported.

My father-in-law had his mail box smashed twice before he mounted a "T" post next to it. He put a yellow newspaper delivery box from his towns news paper even though he doesn't subscribe. It has not been hit since installing the post. He put the newspaper box on so it doesn't look like he is just protecting his mailbox from punk kids.

[Guest Zombie-Hunter]

...........

Edited August 12, 2011 by Zombie-Hunter

[vontar]

Much like TGO David said I have heard of people doing that to their mailboxes. Prefect example we don't have a justice system, it is a legal system.

However, the Kids in the Story should have been charged with a Federal Felony as well.

[-boatman-]

What about a brick mailbox? Those are a little tougher to destroy.

No, they don't hold up either. Well, maybe they will to a bat but not to a car. I have one busted right now. It's still standing but it's ruined.