My mailbox was vandalized Thursday night/Friday morning for the second time. The first time was last summer when some kids kicked it over, kicked several trash cans over, and moved my For Sale sign to a neighbor’s yard. The mailbox stand is just one of those cheap ones with 2 small square metal posts. The posts broke off but I was able to rig it by sticking 2 dowel rods into the part that was still in the ground and then sticking the other part down on the dowels. Problem solved, until my neighbor accidentally backed over it with his truck which finished it off for good.
So I bought another stand and it’s been doing the job, until I walked out yesterday morning and found that I’d been hit again. This time they not only kicked it over, but ripped the box off the stand itself, so dowel rods won’t fix it this time. One thing that really made me mad was that I was the only one who had damage, so it felt more personal. It’s stupid I know, but I’ve really struggled with anger over this, so I’m determined to get even! I’m leaning more towards Old Testament law here, so cut me some slack.
Here’s the plan. First of all, I’m done with cheap mailbox stands. I’m getting one of those big wooden 4×4 post types that I’ll have to bury several feet down. Trucks? Bring ‘em on. Secondly, I’m determined to figure out a way to electrify the thing so that if anyone touches it after dark, they’ll get zapped! I’m convinced I can do it, and I’m mad enough to see it through. Punks? Bring ‘em on.
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Bad news, I did some research into the matter and it seems that the authorities frown upon booby trapping your own mailbox. I say it’s none of their business, but there are enough ministers who have federal offenses on their record right now, so I’m going to play nice. I just went and found a railroad crosstie to mount my box to since my main issue is with kids pushing over and breaking my stand. I figure if that thing is buried 4 feet deep they’ll have a tough time pushing it over. We’ll go from there.
Another little psychological trick is to put a brick or something on top of your mailbox. Then when they’re driving by, they just want to hit that.
But then again, it might look stupid to have a brick sitting on your mailbox.
Rig it to ’splode!!
They aren’t playing mailbox baseball, it’s just kids walking through my neighborhood at night pushing/kicking it over and breaking the post that it’s mounted to.
Yeah, just put a longer post on it. Someone told me a story of a guy that kept having his mailbox get run over. He would replace it and a few weeks later someone ran over it again (on purpose). He decided to dig a hole 6 feet into the ground and fill it with concrete. Then he put the post into the concrete and covered it when it dried. A few weeks later he came out and a truck was wrapped around his mailbox.
I don’t know if its true or not but I promise they won’t knock it down if it has a concrete base.
I’ve got 4 feet of railroad crosstie buried out there, the sucker is solid now. I’ve got to get a chainsaw today and take a little off the top then mount the box back, then I’ll paint the post white. We keep some vine type plants growing at the base of ours so that will all grow up around it soon and you really won’t even notice it’s on a crosstie, but I don’t think it’ll look bad anyway. I’m tired of this mess, but I hope I’ve got them beat this time. I didn’t do anything to strengthen the actual box itself, but if they try to destroy that then I should hear them and have time to run out there.