Special delivery (signed for post) is pointless

Yeah. Get one from any modern car engine that is scrapped.

An easier approach might be to install an IR sensor that activates the doorbell or other noisemaker. I really should do that.

The door is very near the street, so I would probably get false alarms.

Something I've considered. There's a problem getting the sensitivity right so it doesn't ring the bell every minute or more on a warm windy day.

My doorphone used to ring the telephones on wet days.

Not if you can point the movement sensor at the door from say just inside the porch edge. The Philips Hue movement sensors are very easy to adjust what they look at and are entirely internally battery powered and the battery lasts for years quite literally and have a brilliant mount, so trivial to tweak what they sense.

Not a problem with a Philips Hue movement sensor which looks at the door itself.

Maybe an IR beam that people break as they approach, rather than an error prone PIR - mounted high enough that cats and other animals won't trigger it.

From having looked at MegaSquirt in the past, engine knock sensors seem to be just specialised microphones, relying upon software to interpret the signals.

Good thought.

That could work for me. I have an about 3 feet wide opening between bushes to get to my front porch.

Then you're a pest. If I bought form you, the parcel would be returned to you and you'd be forced to refund me. It is not sensible to expect someone to be in during the day.

This only happens to me with one of the 5 postmen I regularly get, because he knows me personally, the others refuse.

Why would a court be involved in such a trivial matter?

Try being realistic.

I wasn't aware they'd split.

So what's this about the UK market they don't understand?

The way it should be. Royal Mail should be removing this antequated bullshit. I have a letterbox. If it's gone through it, it's in my house where nobody can steal it. I'm not a Merkin with a letterbox outside my house like a f****ng neanderthal.

They take photos.

I have a shed in the front garden, and CCTV covering the entrance to it, and a notice on the front door saying so. Anything they don't put in there is not delivered as far as I'm concerned. It can be retried twice, taken back to the delivery office, take up space on a shelf for 18 days, then go back to the sender who can try getting a f****ng clue.