Our mailbox was damaged this week and now needs to be replaced, probably less than $50. There was broken plastic from a tail light next to it so I know the vehicle that hit it has damage. I went through our security cam videos and I have video of the incident. A van parked on the street right in front of our driveway. A girl got out of the van and walked down the street towards her house. We have seen this girl walking home from the bus stop after school, but don’t know which house she lives in. After she gets out, the van turns around in our street and backs right into our mailbox. We can see the moment of impact and pieces falling off our mailbox. The van pulled away without checking for damage or notifying us.
We are now trying to decide what to do. We can’t see the van driver but suspect it was a teen as multiple teens appear to be in the van. The girl got out at least two houses away from where she lives, so we suspect there is some reason she didn’t want her parents to see who dropped her off. Our state has restricted licenses for teens so it is possible the driver shouldn’t have been driving with that many people in the van. So it is possible that if we pursue the issue that more than one teen could get in trouble besides having damaged their parent’s van.
Given all that, would you try to track down the girl that got out? Post video to the local Facebook group or Nextdoor to ask for help identifying the van? Go to the police (ours might actually investigate this)? Just replace the mailbox and forget about it?
I would definitely just replace the mailbox and move on. Life is too short to add that much drama over a mailbox.
Of course, where I live people have steel pipe mailboxes to discourage the time honored prank of putting fireworks in a mailbox and running away. Ymmv.
I thought this was going to be a mailbox baseball thread. My answer, had that been the case, would be completely different than what I’m about to suggest. I’d pay the $50 and move on. Kids do dumb things. I sure did. They likely had no idea they did damage to your mailbox, or their van. Their parents will likely dole out the justice in this case, because of the broken tail light.
Thanks, you are all confirming what I was thinking. It might be different if there was more damage like if the whole post needed to be replaced or if it was intentional like the baseball bat example. If my S or D had done this when they were younger, I would want to know and for them to cover the damage, but not to the point of getting doxxed or the police involved.
In cases of deliberate damage, I have heard about people sinking a post into an underground cement footing and using a really thick post. The next time someone drove into it, it did significant damage to the truck.
But in this case, the damage was unintentional so I doubt you need to prepare for the next incident.
I personally would not care about the cost to fix the mailbox. Probably I’d fret over whether to alert the parents about the odd dropoff… but likely I’d let it go unless there were serious safety worries.
When we lived in rural Texas- either they backed into it or hit it with a baseball bat so often we kept a spare mailbox in the garage. We could not move the box (post office rules).
One time I almost started laughing we got up in the morning and saw a father and son replacing our mailbox. We went out to talk to them. The son sheepishly said something about slick road from rain (no rain) had caused him to slide.
I see mailboxes daily that are what appears to be slammed with a baseball bat. However, our main issue now is mail theft in rural Colorado. I’m sure we had that happen and money was taken from an account. We replaced it with The Vacationer Fort Knox Mailbox.
Back in upstate NY we had a mail slot in the front door - loved that! We rarely used that door, and that entryway was a great and secure place for mail. We did not receive many packages back then… I think maybe the mail deliverer put those on our back porch, but the door we usually used.
In CO, our neighborhood has group mailboxes, all locked. Each has 8 small boxes for homeowners and 2 shared package boxes. When you receive a package, you get a key to the package box with your mail. Our group mailbox is only one house away, pretty handy.
I consider replacing my mailbox one of those nuisances that comes with the territory. Obviously if I caught someone in the act and could track them down, I would ask them to replace the mailbox. Once, the town snowplow knocked it down. I called them and they fixed it right away.
In my town, it’s snow plow drivers who are the biggest offenders when it comes to knocking out mailboxes. A few years ago after replacing our second mailbox, we decided to get a box at the local post office.Best decision ever!
I wouldn’t expend the time/energy to track down the folks who killed your mailbox. Let it go.
I do have a PO Box for our nonprofit as well as a mailbox for our house. We don’t get a lot of mail for the nonprofit so I only check it a few times/month. We get mail to our house nearly every day and lots of packages. Our mailbox is attached to our carport so we’d be pretty shocked and upset if anything happened to it. The plastic of the mailbox finally failed after 30+ years and we just replaced it with a stainless steel one.
For those not aware, Informed Delivery is an easy way to see what mail is coming. It would be really helpful of you had a box at the post office, defer stopping if nothing interesting.
I’ve tried to sign up for informed delivery but it isn’t offered for my P.O. box for some reason. I’m told to check back later to see if the service will be offered.
That’s a good point. We had to do an address check as initial step, since not available everywhere.
We picked up mail for neighbors (gone longer than the 30 day max for mail hold). They were happy to learn of informed delivery, keep eye out for anything critical. They asked us to open one item and send photo.
This thread is making me appreciate our mailman that walks down our driveway and places our mail in the mailbox, on our porch, sheltered from the elements.
