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Thread: Neighborhood Vandals/Thieves

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Huntsville, AL (The Sun and Fun Capital of The South)
    Posts
    3,203

    Neighborhood Vandals/Thieves

    I had an incident Friday evening with neighborhood vandals/thieves. Saturday morning I left to go to the store and noticed my mailbox was GONE.

    The post had been broken at the lap joint connecting the vertical and horizontal portions of the post (which had been weakened by a previous event - although it was still pretty sturdy). My daughter who also lives in this neighborhood said that she saw some boys running up a connecting street to mine while she was taking her evening walk and didn't realize anything was amiss. She was too far away to identify them.

    My main concern is that I did not check my mail Friday and that some mail is lost. Hopefully none of the lost mail included donation checks or bulk-buy purchase checks.

    I have posted signs around the neighborhood offering a $50.00 reward for information leading to the discovery of the villians. Maybe that will be fruitful. If not I intend to incrementally raise the reward until results are achieved.

    I had to rush to Lowes Saturday and purchase a new mailbox which cost me $55.00. I reported the incident to both the Sheriff's dept and to the Postal Authorities.
    Last edited by Ken Salisbury; 10-17-2004 at 3:13 PM.
    "If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high - but so are the rewards" - - Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant
    Ken Salisbury Passed away on May 1st, 2008 and will forever be in our hearts.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Southeast Texas
    Posts
    200
    If you catch them please press charges. Doing so will stop future events. I personally wouldn't care much if their parents were friends of mine. They should not be spiteful towards you if it was there kids who were the cause of it after all. I wish you luck and hope you only had useless junk mail that day.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    N Illinois
    Posts
    4,602

    Ken

    Ken. I hope you fare better than we did here when some kids tore down mailboxes and caused other damage (including damaging the garden bench I had built). We live in the country and the police rssponse was fairly apathetic (inference: we have bigger things to do) and the parents of the suspected "destroyers of the Property" thought it was "cute" and normal part of growing up. Excuse the venting but it was not a good experience. You also might have lost mail which is a more serious offense. I wish you well. Take 2 Advil..
    Jerry

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    South Jersey
    Posts
    1,571
    I've had mine smashed before but never completely broken off. If you have any woods close by check there, I don't think they would carry it away but I guess you never know. Hope you find the guilty party.

    Pete

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Lewiston, Idaho
    Posts
    28,504
    We had some kids hitting them, believe it or not, with vehicles...mine got hit and it sits withing 3-4 feet of a telephone pole. They had to clear the telephone pole to get to it. Then my brother-in-law visiting from Illinois hit it as he was backing out of my driveway to return home......both within 6 months of each other......BUT I pity the poor sap that hits it the next time. We had a new welding shop open in town. When I had some welding done for work, I met the owner/operator/welder and he'd worked on some oil rigs near Gillette, Wyo. with my brother and stepfather......I went to him.....he made me a new post.......Schedule 40 steel.....6" post.....1/2" steel plate on bottom and 3/8" steel plate on top for mounting the mail box. I made a form and poured 7 bags of concrete into the hole....I made a template of the bottom mounting plate and put 4 "J" bolts in the concrete with the template holding the J-bolts until the concrete set up. Then I mounted the pole and mailbox.....Now they may damage my box.....but if they hit the pole expecting to break it off flush with the ground like the last one..........I'll bet they'll sustain more damage than I will!
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Lancaster, PA
    Posts
    1,363
    Ken S.,
    Sorry to hear about the vandalism. That kind of thing really gets me steamed because it's such a waste and so disrespectful. Hopefully they got it out of their system. (I'm sure they will if you catch them!!)

    Ken F.,
    You sound like my uncle - he's a steel subcontractor. His mailbox is supported by a 6" I beam sunk about 4' into concrete. (decorative iron work in the recesses naturally) It's infamous after a kid hit it with his car. They needed the jaws of life - not for the kid - but to get the car off of the mailbox!!

    Wes

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    N Illinois
    Posts
    4,602

    Great stories

    Ken and Wes, sometimes the good guys win!! Liked your stories. Good solutions!
    Jerry

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Collin County Texas
    Posts
    2,417
    Ken S. I hope you find the criminals. Too bad you can't string them up by the feet for a couple days

    Ken F. I surely would like to do what you did, but we live on a state maintained highway and the state will only allow those cheap stamped metal posts, not even as good as fence t-posts. I would just love to get about 10 ft of railroad track and put all but the required height above ground to use as a mailbox mount. If I have to hurt installing it, they need to hurt when they hit it
    Best Regards, Ken

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Delton,Michigan
    Posts
    668

    solid mail boxes?

    would be nice to have that kind of postal box but in our area if the kid hit it and got hurt it would be our butts for having a unsafe obsticle in there path. i had a nice stone flower garden, large rocks actually spent alot time and effort gettin them there only to have the county tell me i had to remove them???? and for the very reason i just mentioned. isnt it wonderful to be ruled by the villians and when we try to protect our own things we get sued or hasseled
    If in Doubt? Build it Stought!

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    New Orleans LA
    Posts
    1,334
    Ken, that sounds like a well engineered job that will keep all people that intend to harm your mailbox at bay. But I doubt it'd stand up the the Waukesha County (WI) snow plows that used to trash mine. I tried everything with no lasting success.
    18th century nut --- Carl

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Collin County Texas
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    2,417
    Quote Originally Posted by Carl Eyman
    Ken, that sounds like a well engineered job that will keep all people that intend to harm your mailbox at bay. But I doubt it'd stand up the the Waukesha County (WI) snow plows that used to trash mine. I tried everything with no lasting success.
    Carl, those snowplow drives must have learned their techniques from Crankshaft in the comics. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a mailbox score card back at the shop
    Best Regards, Ken

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    Westphalia, Michigan
    Posts
    425

    Mailbox

    Ken, I had continual problems with both plow trucks and vandals. I live a block from the local High School. What I did was cement a 1-1/2" steel pipe in the ground and then mount an elbow with another steel pipe that extends the box toward the road. I greased the elbow threads so that when the plow truck hits the box it just swings out of the way. I was tempted to do the 'ole trick of spacing a small mail box inside of a larger one and filling the gap between them with cement. I've heard about this and the particular ringing sound when an aluminum bat bounces off. Also I guess you find all kinds of ash or hickory kindleing wood around the mail box. I decided at last to for-go this approach because of concerns about sue happy people. The sherrifs department caught a teen last year who smashed 100's of boxes. He had to go around and replace each box with his father in attendance and also appologize. This was in addition to fines and community service. I don't think dear old dad was very pleased. I believe he also lost his drivers liscence until he is 21. Justice can be had.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Duvall, Washington
    Posts
    221
    I work for a large rural school district and mailboxes are a favorite target. We have gone to a box within a heavy steel box on a steel post. This stops most, I repeat most. Tie a 4 x 4 pickup to the post and "its gone again". We have found, given time, if we build a better box, the kids just get a bigger bat. We are far ahead on the score but they just keep on trying. So much for "higher" education. Dar

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Just outside of Spring Green, Wisconsin
    Posts
    9,442
    I've see a couple around here, where they use about 1-1/2 pipe (Can't say how thick), but they don't plant it at the curb. Instead, they bury a LOT of it in concrete, well off the highway, and then have a pipe bender "S" it out to reach the "curb". It's low enough for the postal worker to have easy access, yet high enough to clear those dasturdly plow blades. That height also happens to be right around *windshield* height on a lot of vehicles! Oh yeah, and now that I think about it, the mailboxes themselves are mounted below the outreached "leg", thus providing total clearance below the box.
    Cheers,
    John K. Miliunas

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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    McKean, PA
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    15,596
    Blog Entries
    1

    Mail box

    We have straightened, rebuilt and replaced our mail box so many times that I can't keep track . It is the locals kids (not always the ones in high school either) that get to drinking and think it will be fun to bash mailboxes. We just replaced our old one this summer and it survived almost 5 weeks before someone hit it in the side with a hammer.

    For the snow plows, I mounted mine on a post with a flat steel cap on the top. The post is on the far side of the ditch from the road. I have a 8' 2 X 4 with 3/4 sticking out toward the road and 1/4 behind the post. The weight of the mail box is counter balanced by a cement block on the back. Two screen door springs mounted to the ends of a cross bar 2 feet below the top of the post and then out to the post keep the mail box centered. When the plow hits it, it swings out of the way and the springs pull it back in place. The rig isn't all that decorative, but it has survived more than 15 winters here in PA, where we average 100 inches of snow per year.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

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