Rant: letterbox

Mine doesn't have a slot - the lid opens, parcels/letters slide down to the bottom when the lid is closed. Letters are retrieved by opening the _locked_ front of the box. If you have long, slender, arms and fingers, you _might_ be able to fish something out of the bottom.

Is this on your front door or is it a mailbox outside?

Sounds like it's similar to mine. Flap on front, brush in the middle and flap on the inside.

With mine most people manage to close the outside flap but mail gets stuck in the brush and inner flap.

Yes. I have removed the brush (as it is an inner door) and there is no inner flap but still the mail can become stuck.

It's on a post outside, to be kind to the postie, as the drive is long and steep.

The things wrong with too many letterboxes, are:

This is all before we get to the question of the lunatic dog on the other side of the door.

Yes, I found all of this while leafleting for the election (along with houses without any house numbers). This is what got me started on wondering whether there is a suitable design of letterbox in existence.

Snap.

No mail got stuck in my letterbox, the Dobermann on the inside pulled it through.

1. It punches a massive hole through the house insulation

Well put ...

You're lucky. They usually eat it. And if you're really unlucky, they'll try to have a piece of your hand(s) which you have to insert deeply into the mechanism because of its defects as listed above.

Didn't Jonathan Hartson (long time no see, here or elsewhere) invent a hooked tool for cleanly inserting leaflets through double flap letterboxes?

In message <v6mg63$20e71$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Smolley snipped-for-privacy@rest.uk writes

I had one of those on my temporary Xmas postie job. The normal postie warned me about him trying to snap my fingers. I think that's why he gave me that part of the round - along with the tenement stairs

I recall a Public Information Film on the TV in the 60s about good and bad letter box designs -too low, too high, too strong a spring . I saw a lot of those.

I had a basket on mine, but took it off as large bulky envelopes and catalogues got jammed and were left sticking out.

Brian

I don't remember that but I know a wooden spoon can be used.

Our postman congratulated me on our letterbox. Spring not too strong, no brush (there is another door behind it). And it is large; I specified that it had to accept the thickest copies of Personal Computer World at the time.

We have one of these which has a platform that comes up with the lid on which the mail is placed and on closure the mail drops into the body of the box. The platform act as a security feature which prevents accessing the body of the box. It was expensive when we bought it in 2021 but has rocketed in price since.

The “smart” bit is just a barcode which if the courier has an appropriate scanner can be read to confirm delivery.

How good is the lock? I've seen a box "designed" for fixing to the wall and for mail being opened in 5 seconds with a screwdriver being jammed in the lock and turned. The parcel/letter thief doesn't care about opening a box like this carefully by picking the lock etc.

I don't have a box like that for security, I have it to keep the rain off the letters and to not have to punch a hole through extremely massive oak doors and create a draught...