In this area, the USPS has begun to replace the familiar blue mail boxes with some damn variant that has a narrow slit to allow only maybe one or two envelopes to be placed at a time. Further, they have turned the boxes so it is no longer possible to reach them from your car. Your choices are now to go inside to mail a letter or park and get out to walk to the blue mailboxes. WTF is going on? Is the postal service afraid we're going to stick a bomb in the box?

Anyone else have this going on in their area?

RMD

The local Post Office has removed them old drive-by blue boxes for a while now, but I haven't seen any replacements, yet.

We still have the old style

I actually found the answer. "High-Security" mail boxes to prevent "mail-fishing" and fraud.

Supposedly, they are going to electronic locks on the boxes as well.

Yippee! USPS: Expensive and now, inconvenient!

RMD

My wife and I were visiting my mother in New Jersey last week. We had to stop at the post office to drop off some mail for her.
She told us they removed the drive through mail boxes and now have a blue mail box right at the entrance to the post office. I thought that was odd till I started reading about how bad mail theft was getting.

It's pretty sad that even the mail is no longer safe. I also read that there was a zip code somewhere that was no longer getting mail delivered because the letter carriers were getting robbed.

I installed a locking mail box at my home a few years ago because my neighbor had checks stolen from her mail box.

Drive-thru mail boxes are subject to theft. This linked story is about the Post Office that I frequent. The perps had a key that had been stolen (borrowed?) from an USPS employee, and accessed the drive-thru boxes at the postal facility itself; surveillance camera caught them doing the deed.

https://www.wdrb.com/news/2-me...e1-bb268b3284d6.html

A postal worker was robbed at gunpoint here last year for the keys.
Evidently the keys are almost master keys and can be used over pretty large areas.

I've had two relatives have mail stolen and checks washed in the last year; one from a postal drop box and one from their personal mailbox.

With meth and heroin addicts roaming the streets looking to steal anything the new mail boxes are needed. Some day Washington will need to wake up and build the wall, sentence drug sellers to prions instead of the slap on the wrist and cut off all welfare if the applicant has a dirty UA.

Mexico is narco-terrorist state and if they can't eliminate to head of the cartels we should use drones as a problem solver.

In my town, as far as I know, there are no blue boxes on the streets, I don't recall seeing any, and I know there are none in front of our post office. And I think it has been 20-25 years since I dropped off mail into a blue box., because these kinds of thefts have been going on for years. I always drop off mail inside the post office itself.

The boxes are all subject to vandalism. Wads of chewed bubble gum cause the mail to stick together. Postal workers than have to spend hours separating the single pieces of mail. I mail ALL my mail inside the local Post office since I am there every day.

Around here, you can’t find these except at the post offices. Some have covered then up so you can’t even use them…

quote:

Originally posted by GrumpyBiker:
We still have the old style

Same here at the PO, plus there are a few here and there in shopping center lots.

They replaced the old ones here at the Post Office with the new ones but they are still in the same drive up location.

And yes, the mailbox key that the carrier has will open every box in that zip code. If one gets stolen maintenance has to come out and change all the locks and provide new keys. It's a big deal.

Still have an "old fashioned" blue drop box in the parking lot of the corner gas station near my house. In fact, I've been dropping return Netflix movies in there for about the past three weeks (instead of dropping them in a UPS store drop or physically driving them to the Post Office) and low and behold, they seem to get back to Netflix a helluva lot faster for some reason. Like the next day, when it would take 2 days MINIMUM to get back to Netflix even if I dropped them at the damned post office itself.

quote:

Originally posted by GrumpyBiker:
We still have the old style

We do, too, but the slots are so high up that it's hard to put things into it from an automobile. They must think everyone drives a Monster Truck.

flashguy

I bet they're only changing them because they're out of the old boxes.
Our custodian got video of someone prying open the boxes in front of our office. This was like the 6th time it's happened. No one did a thing.
We had a vehicle broken into during our winter storm, Postal Inspectors said call the police, police said call the postal inspectors, no one did a thing.
I had a lady punch in the chest today. It's Saturday, what do you expect.
This happened in October. Wasn't the first time, she pulled a knife on me in 2020.
Almost got into a street brawl about two months ago with some methheads after a dog bit me, came back for more, I threw a rock at it. Wasn't even their dog, the dog owner was nice... That was a Saturday too.
I love my job.