Do vandals in your neck of the woods vandalize mailboxes?

[raccoon]

They sure do in mine....and have for years.

I wonder if this is just a local thing, or people everywhere do this.

[AngryAmish]

1. No mailboxes by the street here.

We get taggers.

[Oceansaway]

2. just the neighbor who can't seem

back out of his driveway without hitting mine...

[S n o w b a l l]

3. Yes, but not for awhile...

I had two damaged..one knocked totally off the stand after we just put it back up from another attack. I live in the burbs and I guess the kids around here are bored.

[TommyO]

6. We lived in the burbs and had several mailboxes taken out

until my father used a steel column buried in several feet of concrete to support the box itself, which was heavy and welded to the support column. A few people tried to take it out, and not even the drunk in the Corvette managed, though he did leave plenty of fiberglass shards as a calling card.

[HopeHoops]

4. 2x4 out the window - redneck special.

That mostly happens on the back roads.

In NH, snow plows were the main culprit. The blades are tall enough to wipe out a mailbox. There was one mailbox that always cracked me up. They mounted it on the end of a wooden triangle frame mounted to a tree with hinges. There was a LONG spring hooked to the middle and attached to another tree. If the plow hit the mailbox, it would just swing out of the way and snap back into position after the plow passed. VERY clever!

[knowbody0]

5. yep

been through 5 mailboxes. finally my sons built an undestructable steel box for me, mounted on a steel pole buried in two feet of cement. it's still standing strong 2 years now.

it's quite a hassle replacing them.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. I'd kill to just have a problem with lower-case 'v' vandals.

Things are rather rougher in my neighborhood.

[BarbaRosa]

8. Yes they do.

I guess it's like shooting highway signs, you need a special skill set.:grr:

[geardaddy]

9. Does a vandal shit in the woods?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. There are teens who go around bashing mailboxes with baseball bats.

And for that I blame Ron Howard and his Stand By Me movie.

And there's also a local grafitti artist who does stencil work. Some of which is pretty interesting.

[Blue-Jay]

11. Worst we ever did was fill 'em up with crushed beer cans.

[WinkyDink]

12. I've twice had the slate top of mine pulled off and smashed. I haven't put a third one on.

[struggle4progress]

13. My street address post out front got vandalized one New Year's Eve

Looked like somebody took a baseball bat to it

I figured it was: bat + booze + bubba < 0

Mailbox, never. Maybe you and friends should spread the word it's a federal crime, by LTTE or calling various radio talk shows or chatting it up in the check-out lines or whatever

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 83 > § 1705
§ 1705. Destruction of letter boxes or mail
Whoever willfully or maliciously injures, tears down or destroys any letter box or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any mail route, or breaks open the same or willfully or maliciously injures, defaces or destroys any mail deposited therein, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001705----000-.html

[alphafemale]

14. Fill a mail box with concrete and attach it to a steel pole filled with concrete

You may even want to post a video cam on friday and sat nights to catch Darwin in action.

As to getting your mail you could forward it to a PO Box for awhile.

[PufPuf23]

15. Here it is open season on shooting road signs

I literally live in the woods and there is no mail delivery; one must drive to small PO with boxes in a one small store town.

Road signs literally all have bullet wounds and when replaced have mere days in pristine condition.

There are stop signs onto the highway that follows a river and the signs at several of the scattered intersections are broken off frequently.

I need to drive 80 plus miles to see a stoplight.

[old mark]

16. In areas where there are stand-alone boxes, they sure do...

We have a small box fixed to the front of the house, a huge, loud, fierce sounding dog and a shotgun.


mark

[femmocrat]

17. Yes. We got so sick of replacing them, we rented a P.O. box.

Now we pick up our mail at the P.O.

[azmouse]

18. Never had a problem here.

[MiddleFingerMom]

19. Kids don't M-80 mailboxes anymore?

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Youth IS wasted on the young!!!
.

[pokerfan]

20. About ten years ago

It was about midnight and I was getting ready to go to bed when I heard a tremendous explosion. Sounded like a half stick of dynamite just went up in my front yard. I cautiously stuck my head out the door and then took a look around. Nothing. The next morning, on my way to work, I noticed that neighbor's (three houses down) mailbox had been blown up. Not just blown up but actually turned inside out! Further investigation revealed evidence of a sparkler bomb. Someone had taken a bunch of sparklers and wrapped them with duct tape, no doubt leaving one extended to serve as a fuse.

ETA: One more thing. Another neighbor had a problem with kids taking a baseball bat to his mailbox, no doubt from a car. He got a PO Box and filled his old mailbox with cement and put it back on the pole. It didn't take a week before it was dented but the best part: there was broken safety glass on the road leading him to believe that the bat had rebounded with such force that it took out one of the windows on the car!

[csziggy]

21. Yes - they bashed mine so it doesn't close properly

And the junk mail (which is all I get in the street box) gets wet. Our box is not visible from anywhere on our farm, so it is hard to keep it secure. That is why we have a P. O. Box for important mail. But every so often some government agency insists on using the street address, so we have to have a box here. The Post Office will not let us have a permanent forwarding address from the street addy to the POB to save us that hassle.

[Sebastian Doyle]

22. "Mailbox baseball" used to be a popular sport around here

Most people have taken preventative measures now, either encasing the mailbox in some solid structure, or mounting it in some way where it would be off limits to any drive by hits.

Best trick I ever saw was the guy who mounted a small mailbox inside a huge one, and filled the space with cement. I told him he should install a webcam somewhere in the vicinity, just to catch the reaction of the dumbass vandal who takes a homerun swing at that thing, thinking he's getting nothing but a thin layer of steel and a lot of air inside. Especially if he's swinging an aluminum bat - the rebound from that would really hurt.