Mail Box Baseball Strikes Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dwinterfield · Post by **dwinterfield** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:42 am

When I took the dog out this morning, I discovered the mail box a good 10 feet from the post. Walking around the neighborhood at least four of my neighbors suffered a similar fate.

The sport is played after dark, usually after midnight, and involves a car, a baseball bat, at least 2 participants (probably male teenagers) and, I suspect beer.

What I find curious is that I don't really mind. This is maybe the 3rd time in 18 years. It's dumb, vandalism, property damge, a crime etc. I guess it's also a rite of passage (to what I'm not sure).

Do they play this game in your community? What your local favorite dumb teen crime?

missy · Post by **missy** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:49 am

growing up, we had a rural mailbox. It was on a piece of the "wrought iron" railing that was on our porch, but painted brown instead of black.

I came home from college one day, got the mail, and came in the house. My dad came in soon after, and said "The mail box looks strange". We went out and looked at it, and realized that the wrought iron was black instead of brown. Our neighbor saw us looking and came over and told us what happened.

A friend of his son - who was not 16 so shouldn't have been driving - was backing out of their driveway, which was directly across from ours. He hit the mailbox. He and his dad were afraid of what would happen, since he didn't have a license, that they proceeded to go buy a new piece of wrought iron and put the entire mailbox back together - all before we got home.

We never had a baseball bat incident, but there was the time someone blew all of them up with M80s..........

susnfx · Post by **susnfx** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 10:16 am

No mail box bashing here...probably only because nobody's thought of it yet. Doesn't it make an awful lot of noise?

Susan

trill · Post by **trill** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 2:55 pm

never saw any mailbox bashing, but....

I lived in the South for several years. One thing that struck me as I drove around the rural road: almost every roadsign (speed limit, caution, &cet) was cratered/dimpled from numerous impacts.

I even witnessed it once: a car driving along, a kid's arm swings out the window, and hurls a rock at the sign.

Its ubiquitous down there...

trill

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:21 pm

How's the ol' symbiont?

There are no juvenile pranks that I know of going on here - ever! I know nothing. I wasn't even near the place. Never heard of it.

djm

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:32 pm

We used to do garden hops, running down a street through gardens and jumping the hedges/walls/fences that seperate the houses.

Things like that and setting off fireworks, general petty vandelism and hanging around looking like moody teenagers. It's what they do I suppose. Now it kind of annoys me but then I remind myself that it's only 10 or 12 years since I was them and so I call myself a hypocrite and leave them to it.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:50 pm

When I was a kid, I lived in the country about a mile out of town on a narrow two-lane road. We had four mailboxes along the road for the houses in our woods. Is was not uncommon for these boxes to be damaged by objects thrown from passing cars. Unfortunately, one mile is about how long it took for someone to drink the first bottle of beer that they purchased in town. A beer bottle travelling at 60 mph can do a lot of damage to a mail box. Our poor neighbor who lived next to the highway had to pickup bottles from his yard every day. The residents now have individual mailboxes in front of their house in the woods, and the mail delivery person leaves the highway and takes the circle drive through the woods. I don't think that there has been any damage since they did that.
At my current home in the city, we still have daily (6 days a week)delivery of the mail to our doorstep. The mail passes through a slot next to our front door and ends up in a box in the front coat closet. I am still getting use to the idea of opening the trap door in the closet to retrieve the mail.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:00 pm

we still have daily (6 days a week)delivery of the mail

Everyone in the US should be getting 6 day a week delivery of mail, unless there's something drastic that has happened while I was off work this week!

Bashing mail boxes is pretty common 'round here. A few weeks ago a lady called the office convinced that I'd hit her box during delivery. I explained to her that the ding in the upper side of her box could not come from my vehicle, and most likely came from a ball bat. Some of the folks on my rural mail route have had steel boxes welded just to put an end to replacing a box. I personally always wanted to put a large steel pipe inside our box. That should sting a bit when whacked with a bat. My husband says no to that idea.

awildman · Post by **awildman** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 3:35 am

A friend of ours had that problem. Someone would drive a beater truck around and hit their mailbox with the passenger door. At least a few times a year. The husband, who was in construction, decided to beef up the mailbox and the support structure. With steel and bricks. One morning shortly thereafter they left the house to find a pickup truck door laying next to the mailbox.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:31 am

I haven't had that problem recently. Of course, our mailbox is wall mounted and on our front porch, so I don't anticipate being a victim any time soon

When I lived out in the country though, I lost several mailboxes to this "sport"

dwinterfield · Post by **dwinterfield** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 7:39 am

Having now driven through the neighborhood, the score is up to 17 mail boxes knocked off or visibly dinged.

I'm going to a larger "T-2" size box - still basic black - $18. I expect the woman who delivers the mail as it will be easier to cram in all the junk.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 8:45 am

cowtime wrote:Everyone in the US should be getting 6 day a week delivery of mail, unless there's something drastic that has happened while I was off work this week!

The point that I was trying to make is that in cities where I have lived the mail is delivered to mail boxes in front of the houses on the street. The delivery person does not carry the mail to your front door. When I lived in Tucson, the USPS was delivering mail to government owned boxes at one location on a city block. In the older neighborhood where I now live the mailperson is still delivering the mail to our front door, which is more conveninet for the homeowner but more labor intensive for the USPS. I expect to see more cost-cutting measures implemented in the future.

I mentioned the delivery of 6 days a week because I suspect that the USPS may suspend Saturday delivery as a cost-saving measure. It is also a point of reference for readers in other countries that may have different delivery schedules.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 9:56 am

We have never had Saturday delivery, but we do have delivery to the door in established neighbourhoods. The mailman used to deliver only mail and small parcels. Junk mail delivery was usually done by kids through a local advertiser. Now the mailman delivers the junkmail; in fact, 90% of what the mailman delivers is junkmail, as so few people waste time on snail mail, anymore.

I figure this is how people react to so many decades of post office theft and vandalism. People finally have a chance to put an end to their villainy, and we are.

djm

CountryKitty · Post by **CountryKitty** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 11:24 am

A friend of my hubby's once leaned out a car window to bash a mailbox--it was on a huge metal spring that had once been part of a tractor suspension or something. When the mailbox got hit, the spring whipped back and forth---beating the mailbox against the side of the car and doing far more expensive damage to the vandals than they did to the box!

On a scarier note, wehn hubby and I lived back in the woods, with a stretch of trees between us and the box, we once found it shot full of 9mm holes.

Most of the road signs around here have been shot full of holes too.