We are in the country and we went thru this after living here about 12yrs..for about 2yrs. We kept putting it back up not saying a word . Well, for no apparent reason we seem to be targeted again and they even cut the box off our post and left w/it. (About 6 times of a hit in 2weeks)

They were stupid enough to leave some 'evidence' in the box a few times ago, so we sent that off to be fingerprinted-they say it will take 8m! We have been hit twice over the weekend and we are now mounting a night camera to try and catch'm. Which I am being told we can only press charges on damaging of property. Anyone else go thru this? Any input would be great! And, as far as 'federal' charges, they save that for an extreme situation from what the sherriff tells us. Any experience or knowing would be great here! One frustrated mailbox owner..Skeat....who says, if you have teenagers...find out what they are doing on the weekends!:)

From what I heard from the neighbors, it used to happen alot here. Most of the people now have their mailboxes anchored in between cinderblocks/cement. They build a tower sort of thing, then put the mailbox up at the right height, then more cement and cinderblocks around it. Some have used bricks too. Seems that once the boxes started being made like that, no one messed with them. Guess they couldn't whack them over with them being like they are now.

We used to have that happen to us growing up.
I guess I was maybe 16 the last time I remember it happening.
Some idiots on a dirt bike, zooming up and down the road whacking mailboxes with a stick/pipe or something.
Well, dad had had enough of that, so out the door he went with his shotgum. YUP! SHOTGUN! We lived in the middle of the woods...neighbors 1/4 mile down the road and 1/2 mile up the road and none across the street. Woods all around us.
Dirtbike comes down the road again. Dad took aim at the bottom of the mailbox and WHAM!! Hit the back tire of the dirtbike. Some obscenities could be heard from the riders, but they never came back. Dad thought he knew who the hoodlums were, so the next day he told his story at work. Let it be known that the next time it happened, he'd be aiming at heads. Never happened again!

That is horrible. It does happen here on occasion. Our mailbox is on the house so not so much here. You would think there would be more they can do.

I think the Sheriff is meaning that since they are just messing with the boxes and NOT the mail, nothing can really be done except for slap their hands and make them pay damages

If the box is owned by the Post Office, it is, supposedly, but if it's your own personal mailbox, it's not. Only the contents is governed under Federal law.

It happens every once in a while in different area...they seem to like to drive by in cars and whack them with a baseball bat.

My brother was a year older than me and had some wild friends they used to put a pack of firecrackers in and close it . They would launch them 20 ft in the air...I never told......They did get caught tipping outhouses and swiping watermellons :oops: :lol: :lol: Many years ago

yeah we are getting some ...since mine is inbetween 2 the outside ones are getting it.....
Its the end of summer and they are borded NOT AN EXCUSS just a reminder to parents to keep up with your kids ALL SUMMER.
I know if I found out one of mine did/doing that OMGAWD they would be replacing it with the brick one and doing the work themselves.

It is frustrating and crazy!:)I bet your neighbors will be arm wrestling for that mailbox spot soon Ms Sage:)

My dh just called me for he just bought the night time camera for deer:)The guy he bought it from said 'oh, yea, I use to do that when I was a kid'....guess he isn't going to become a rocket scientist any time soon:) Yes, I sooooo agree......know what your kids are doing and maybe review mailbox appropriate behaviors:)

We had ours smashed a few times and once a car took it out (think the damage to the car was worse - kids joyriding)

We have since built a sturdy frame around the box, and knock on wood - so far so good.

Unfortunately my brother and a couple of friends, blew up our old middle school principals mailbox back in 1975...the principal's neighbor recognized my brother's black charger and called my dad...let's just say my brother could not have sat down to drive even if dad had not pulled various wires off the engine to keep it in the driveway. :wink:
Same brother 20 or so years later had some one beating on his mailbox...several times...was not amused at all when I reminded him about his mailbox antic... :wink: :twisted: :wink: It did evolve into mail theft when someone figured out my sil was receiving checks in the mail from her newspaper route customers...then the PO did get involved...they had to go with a PO box to stop the theft...occasionally their mailbox will still get a beating...

I would put a siren on it, it doesn't call the cops or anything, but it should scare the crap out of the theif

Wow, did not realize this was a rather common thing? Here (upstate NY) it's not unusual to have them hit by snowplows, but then the town replaces them - eventually.

I do think kids need more supervision. Last night, we were coming home a little after 9PM. Not quite dark, but getting close. Several kids (10-12 yrs old, I'd guess) were riding their bikes in the school bus loop. Yes it's lit and yes, it's not the road, but still - shouldn't kids be in by then? They might have been safe where they were, but still had to ride home. I don't think I was allowed to be out of the house past 9PM until I was 18!

We also live in the country - kindof. We have one of the plastic mailboxes. A few years ago the front door to the mailbox was destroyed, being rather cheap - I took the back door off and put it on the front then covered the back with tan ducktape. All has been well until this spring - someone cuts a square in the duck tape - weird!!!!

I live in the city and one of the selling points when I bought my house was that there is a slot in the outside wall and the mail is dropped through into a box in a closet! Never had that problem when I was home and we had a road side mailbox. But here in Missouri, they are marketing the brick and mortar mailbox stands and I see lots of them!

I'd let them try to sue for that!
Idiots for running into it. I can see if the mailbox jumped out in front of them, sure, sue then........

:lol:

Skeat this is so awful for you - probably teenagers like you say. If they're bored why don't they go read a book? That's what my Mom used to say to me if I said I was bored! :mrgreen:

I heard a case in the UK of a man who had an allotment and his shed kept getting broken into and vandalised and the police just weren't interested. Anyway one day he got so fed up with coming down to find his stuff wrecked AGAIN so he wired the shed up to the mains. Then HE was prosecuted for potentially causing bodily harm to the vandals! I also heard that if a burglar is injured in your home for example by falling because of an unsafe bannister, YOU can be sued for negligence! It's a crazy world. :shock:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: That's so funny!

I heard a case in the UK of a man who had an allotment and his shed kept getting broken into and vandalised and the police just weren't interested. Anyway one day he got so fed up with coming down to find his stuff wrecked AGAIN so he wired the shed up to the mains. Then HE was prosecuted for potentially causing bodily harm to the vandals! I also heard that if a burglar is injured in your home for example by falling because of an unsafe bannister, YOU can be sued for negligence! It's a crazy world. :shock: [/quote]

Not here....you have the right to protect your property and we actually thought of wiring the mailbox to give them that electricity of love:)But, I want to catch the troll at it...and, if it is who we are thinking it is...he's in his 20's! Our last mailbox lasted for awhile for we bought one of those cheap plastic ones and lined it w/wood....so, when they drove by and hit it...it would hurt! They finally took a knife to it and cut it to pieces. So this one is no fun...I have it on the top of the post (for nowI can't mount the box since they cut off the other one at the post!)tied on w/bungee cords...so, hitting it, it will drop....hopefully no fun!:)Wish me luck, camera was on last night and by the looks of it...I still have the mailbox today...darn!

All familiar stories! We have replaced our mailbox so often, mostly after it was hit in accidents. We moved here in 1976, and our mailbox was vandalized within a month. They left their screwdriver and we gave it to police. Snowplows do a lot of damage, too. There was an accident here in the spring with police involved and we got all the information this time. So we got a new mailbox and gave the bill to his insurance company. That mailbox is 4 months old. It won't last a year. I have bought old used mailboxes at yard sales too, instead of replacing them with new ones!!

Drive a large steel pipe in the ground and fill it with cement. Mount the box on top. When the idiots hit the post with the bat they will regret it. The immovable object thing. That will make a good video.

Sorry, to hear that Skeat!
We had a neighbor that used to come home drunk all the time and when backing up his car to make the swing into the garage he kept hitting and knocking down the posts in my chain link fence.
After he paid for the repairs several times I decided to fill the posts with cement...lets just say, his car lost the next time.....
:D
I like the idea of the cement blocks, fill them with cement, then use a mount, like for a deck post, into the cement and attach the mailbox....it WILL HURT when they hit it!

hmmmmm we have a rural mailbox....in the middle of a line of about 30. None of them have been hit like that. Pure luck I guess.

I wonder -- if you put a cement pillar on either side, with reflective tape on it, if that would stop the vandalism. The reflective tape can be seen, so they can't say you hid it. They've put those up next to some electrical box (size of a dog house) on a corner here. We've had 3 cars miss the corner and ram into it and knock the whole subdivision's electricity out for hours. They put up wooden pillars here. It's just an idea!

I live out in the country also and all of us out here had trouble for months. As soon as we replaced them they destroyed them. Threw mail all over the roads and fields. Sheriff would not do anything about it and neither would post office. Said we needed to catch it on video. Even though we saw it being done and gave them the license plate number and described the kids. We were told it was our word against theirs. So we set out at night with a camera and got it on video. They still wouldn't do anything. After 4 months and 5 mail boxes we changed tactics. We installed a steal post cemented into the ground, then totally covered at the base with dirt and grass. The top of the box was regulation size and looked plastic ...but....it was solid thick steal. It had the red flag on the side that you can raise up when you have mail to be picked up. The bottom was painted to look like aluminum the top portion was painted black with our address lettered on it. Then I set out for 2 nights with my camera and got it on video (for our use this time) and filmed it as they swung at it with a ball bat and broke their arm. Our mail box and all of our country neighbors mail boxes have been safe these last 4 years. True we were lucky that the kids didn't decide to do other damage after that but guess they figured it wasn't worth the risk fooling around with crazy people like us.

Well, we did have excitement last night:)LOL DH went down after 10 to re-adjust the cameras and for the first time, before midnight they came while he was down there and put an arrow thru the box! To make a long story short, the sherriff did come out, took the arrow after he took many pictures, the description of the trucks (yes, there were 2) will be running not only fingerprints but dna...for real! Anywho..the one truck lives about the distance of about 4 city blocks from us. Can you believe that. They left later in 2 seperate cars down the road and the sherriff was waiting for them over the hill. We did not get the plates...dh was too far. So, that is where we sit...we moved the camera again, closer...which also, missed the pictures for I think dh set it off before they drove up. Obv. not a real smart bunch of cookies. Let's hope it quits now that they have the 'heat' on them and know we 'know'...I'd like to be quilting and have it in my mind only:)Skeat

*Who has been cracking up over the shared stories of how you solved the problem:)We've been thinking of putting a big box up, let it sit for awhile..take it down and put a smaller one in it w/concrete all the way around...so all they see would be the big box...which wouldn't have worked last night w/an arrow:)

An arrow? AS IN BOW AND ARROW?
OMG! They could have gotten your hubby!!!!
That's scarey!
I know if my dad were still here, he'd be willing to "help" you out. He's a dead aim with a shotgun. Took him a FULL box of shotgun shells to get the raccoon out of the tree. lmao Yes, it was TOO funny! Poor tree was bare when dad was done and the raccoon ran down the tree on it's own.
Don't understand HOW he hit the guys tire on the dirtbike that night, but never touched the raccoon lol

Yes, a real arrow from a bow! Real cute-huh?! And, yes, dh could have been hit too....think that is what got the sherriff's attention too. Good thing he's spry and quick for his age:)I'm hoping they scared the pooh out of themselves for bit. I need sleep:)

OMG!
And I thought I had it bad with people trying to break into my house with me IN it!
Yup, I'm in my house and these idiots try breaking in. Can they NOT see the vehicles in the carport that they just entered? Idiot drug addicts! Hubby wants to get a gun, but the idea of that scares me with Courtney here. She'd hear a noise, get the gun and end up shooting me or hubby.

there was a thing on tv about that and the homeowners were held responsible for the kid's injuries, because they deliberately set those kids up. by knowing in advance what would happen.

that sounds like a greatidea. when we had the beach house, they would drive down the block and whack every mailbox along both sides of the street. in the morning, every box was lying on it's side. and you're all right. they have nothing else to do.

Oh Skeat....we've been down this road before with you. We've done the lightweight just barely hanging on box so that when its hit..it flies easily with only minor damage. We just hoped the kids would grow up and find something else to do. My DH became an expert at mailbox repair.

We've been really lucky since moving here...our little road has so little traffic that we haven't been hit...yet. (I've probably just jinxed us)...But, a week ago we were babysitting our friends house/animals...and yup...their mailbox was run over...the truck bumper was still laying there..the mailbox thou....it just was pushed over. Seems the guy didn't dig a very deep hole and the entire thing just pushed over and the pole didn't even break...whoda' thunk about doin' that??

We have been hit once since we moved out here in the woods. I rented a PO box for the important mail. Magazines and such still come to the house. We put up a cheap box. They make some that are steel and made to withstand vandalism but they are a little pricey.

I have friends that are targeted so often that their mailbox is mounted on bracket that fits the post and is removable. Doug puts the mailbox out in the morning when he gets the paper. After the mail is delivered, the mailbox comes in the house with the mail. All that is outside at night is the post. It has saved them from having to buy new boxes.

Greetings,
Some years ago, we were hit like 3 times within 2 weeks. My husband go tired of missing his farm paper delivery and came up with the best solsution we have found. We purchased a large mailbox and a smaller one that fit easily into the large one. We then poured cement into the shell between the two. Shortly after we put it up, it was assaulted by a rock, idiots!! I wish the rock had bounced back and hit their vehicle to cause a little damage. The mailbox still stands, a little scuffed up from the hit, but in good shape!! I will never understand people who easily destroy anothers property without regard. Lori

if you can get the license number on camera, can you visit the parents and tell them you'll report it to the police if it doesn't stop? if they don't know what their kid is doing, that might do it.

if not you can run an ad in the local paper and embarrass the heck out of the whole familiy.

what i can't understand is why the police and/or the post office is unwilling to step up to the plate. unless it's their kids. i'd be going to the att'y general, the postal dep't or whatever it is. there has to be a gov't office for this. look in the phone book or google it.

when i called the police at the beach house, they cracked down and found the kids, would you believe on bikes? morons!

We were told by our insurance agent that any mailbox, trash holding area etc. that is solid enough to not breakaway when hit, we would be liable for damages and any injury. To deliberatly make a mailbox post not breakaway is asking for a lawsuit. There are many entitled parents raising entitled brats that will sue and they will win.
I had mail stolen from my mailbox and my neighbor saw the teen that took it and knew who he was and where he lived. The Post Office just said call the police. The police took a report and said the parents took the kid's word not the neighbor's eye wittness statement :evil: The kid ruined my mailbox several times after that just because he knew he could. He wasn't worth getting mad enough to get in trouble for me over it. His parents never belived he did those things, that the neighborhood just had it out for him. Last we heard he stole a car and robbed his parents checking account. :wink:

KARMA

If it wasn't the kids "playing mail-box bingo" it's the snow plow flying by at about 60 mph and dumping a huge load on the box shoving it all catty-wompus. We moved it back a little with permission of the PO so the driver can get off the highway to deliver and it has slowed the vandalism a bit. We also got a PO box at the post office so that check etc aren't messed with anymore.

My sis used to have that problem. They even had it blown up once. After that, they got a post office box. She put a mailbox back up a couple of years ago and we haven't had any problems yet. (knock on wood)

Here's the latest on our situation....we have the same, not on the ground, nor run over, nor stolen mailbox now for ....drum roll......'8', yes, 8 glorious days!!

We kinda 'fixed' our problem hopefully...and, not on purpose. We 'knew' it was the little 20yr old down the road...and, yep, we were right! How do I know??We put up 2 deer cameras down there...one on each side, one to do night and the other was for day...but, since we put a dusk to dawn yard light (the cheap one) on a t-post for more light....well, around 10pm, dh decided he needed to walk down to adjust the one camera...just in time to witness it himself the kids shooting an arrow in it!! Laughing the whole time, not knowing he was standing w/in feet of them doing it!! Then they took off...not knowing they had an audience, etc...then their buddy came in right behind them after they left...only dh said some very choice and scary words from a deep voice from the dark! They took off..sherriff came, made report, took pictures and took the arrow in for prints and dna...(I am thinking these boys must have a list waiting for them elsewhere...espec when he was told the 'who' and where to find him). I am thinking and hoping and really praying that he has been kicked out of the place he was living. For we haven't heard or seen his truck since. Oh, and the dumb-dumbs left in their car after the sherriff was done writing license plates down from his drive (which is right on the road!)Only they weren't counting on the fact the sherriff was on the phone w/my dh when he left over our hill....only dh was able to tell him there were 2 cars coming his way from that residence. Sherriff said he was pulling into a drive and was waiting on them:) Darn..so sad:)We haven't seen him since:)I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed! Let's hope we are done w/it all here! I get up every morning and look first thing to see if we survived another night! Maybe he'll try to sneak another one in..I sure hope not!
Now, I know in every state, there are different set of laws....here in Missouri, you have the right to protect your property...concrete between 2 mailboxes was next on our list!:)We had boards framing the inside of the last one...which did buy us a bit of time:)Now, my box sits w/bungee cords holding it on a post....for there is no way to mount it since the dumb-dumbs cut off my last one! Skeat.....keep wishing me luck this way!

My mother was of the mindset that children need to learn that actions have consequences, and I was (on occasion) the perpetrator of action and the recipient of the consequences. At the same time, one of our neighbor boys (a perpetrator of MUCH action) was constantly protected by his mother. He could do no wrong. Last month he threatened her with a knife and he is now in lockdown. I'm soooooo glad I paid attention to my mother's life lessons.

I also do not understand the concept of entitlement - nor do I understand taking things that isn't mine to take or destroying things because they are there. May be I'm just old school.

We have been the recipients of games of "mail box baseball" about 6 times in the 3 years we've lived here. I talked to the folks at the post office and they recommended 2 metal posts driven outside the mailbox highly visible, but protecting the box itself. When I lived in the country in Missouri, I bought a big metal Milk can, put the mailbox post in it, then put rocks in it to hold it upright. I leveled a spot on the side of the road to sit it flat, then when I got it in position, I poured a couple of bags of quickcrete powder in with the rocks, then added water so it would set up. if a car would hit the can/box it would fall over, but it would also do some dandy damage in the meantime.
I also painted it a nice reflective silver so it's very easily seen. I never had any problems there with that being hit.