I live on a street that has the mailboxes out front on the curb so the mailman can drive the entire route and never take his fat ass out of the car (he's a contract postal employee btw, not a postal employee). My house is in the city limits as well. The problem is that the curb in front of my house is only 30' long with the mailbox right in the middle.

If anyone comes over to our house (which is everyday since my wife gives art lessons from her studio in our house) and parks in front of our house, the dirt-bag postman will skip the mail delivery for the day. This may go on for several days worth of delivery until there is absolutely no one impeding his access to our mailbox, then he'll deliver 3-4 days worth of mail at once.

My question is this: if the mailbox is blocked, doesn't he have to get his fat ass out of the car and put the mail in my box? Isn't he paid to do exactly that? Or is he correct that I have to provide un-impeded access all day long (no telling when he shows up). WTFO? Who knows where you can find out the law on this sort of thing? Am I right or am-I-rillo?

Call the post office and ask???

[This message has been edited by Onlyfornow (edited 2/20/2013 7:28p).]

I have a similar issue but he gets out to put the mail in the box. However I always get a nasty note telling me to not block the mailbox. One time he wrote his note on a card from my grandmother and that pissed me off for defacing my mail.

quote:

---

Call the post office and ask???

---

I considered this.....but I'm thinking they will all tell you the same thing (must be un-impeded) even tho that may not be the truth. Kinda like the union brothers taking up for eachother. I know this b/c I'm in a union. Never trust a union man.

"Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift... Aw fck it, there's a car in the way. See you tomorrow."


Seriously though, can't you call the post office and ask them? Seems like they would have to bring the mail up to the door or something. And your mail carrier is a lazy POS.

Leave him a gift, something chocolaty with ex lax.

I'm pretty sure if they are blocked they don't have to deliver.

Aty last house in Corinth, I had a neighbor that always parked really close to our mailbox. Never actually blocking it but almost. Several times the mail carrier would not deliver my mail but instead would put a form in there that talked about unimpeded access to the box and that by postal regulations you weren't supposed to park within 30' of a mailbox. I think that's a bunch of horse****. They don't own the damn roads or curbs.

quote:

---

Clear Approach

Customers must keep the approach to their mailboxes clear of obstructions to allow safe access for delivery. If USPS employees are impeded in reaching a mail receptacle, the postmaster may withdraw delivery service.

---

Postal Regulations

[This message has been edited by lexofer (edited 2/20/2013 7:53p).]

Agreed about the unions. For $18 bucks an hour, do you really think that he's gonna get out of his car to walk a few feet when he really thinks he's saving hours of his day by not getting out of his car in the first place? No. Another entitlement minded gubment worker. Ridiculous and pathetic, yes. Common sense and very little extra effort, no.

quote:

---

I'm pretty sure if they are blocked they don't have to deliver.

---

This is true. And they don't own the curbs or streets, but neither do we (or the strip of our yard where the mailbox is usually located for that matter). Getting mail is not a Constitutional Right and furthermore it's one of the most illogical and poorly managed companies in the world trying to do us a service. Cut the guys some slack and just be courteous to someone trying to do their job. I'm sure we would hate it if someone repeatedly hindered our ability to do our job. This is obviously a first-world problem and complaining about it makes us seem very entitled and petty.

quote:

---

very entitled and petty

---

Not quite the support I was looking for here. Thanks Lexofer.

If you noticed I said "us" and "we". Not "you"...we all feel the same way at times.

I get those warnings all the time. Even got threatened that if my mailbox continued to be "blocked" by a car, that mail will not be delivered any more and that I would have to get a PO Box.

** Blocked as in the car is parked too close to mailbox which forced the postman to back up his car in order to leave after placing mail in the mailbox. Something about backing up the car is unsafe.

I miss the days when the mailman carried a large satchel over his shoulder, walking door-to-door delivering the mail. Those guys were never fat. My mailman weighs 300 pounds. He's simply too lazy to get out of his truck. I guess he's too lazy to put the thing in reverse as well because he won't do that either (as stated above).

My mailman doesn't deliver in the rain. If it is raining neither me nor my neighbor gets mail those days. A day or so later after it has stopped raining, I seem to have more mail that usual.

Why don't you move your mailbox so it won't be impeded by people parking in front of your house?

Newman!

quote:

---

Why don't you move your mailbox so it won't be impeded by people parking in front of your house?

---

I live in a deed-restricted neighborhood. Every mailbox is at the end of the sidewalk on the right-hand side. No exceptions or face face the deed-police.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Clear Approach

Customers must keep the approach to their mailboxes clear of obstructions to allow safe access for delivery. If USPS employees are impeded in reaching a mail receptacle, the postmaster may withdraw delivery service.

---

Postal Regulations

[This message has been edited by lexofer (edited 2/20/2013 7:53p).]

---

Lexofer beat me to it. I actual looked this up one time after finding a little yellow USPS card in my mailbox saying if it was blocked I wouldn't get mail. Sure enough, it says it right in their regulations. Whether you agree or not, if it's blocked they can and will quit delivering to you.

We can call 'em lazy, but if that were our job we'd probably be annoyed by blocked mailboxes too.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Clear Approach

Customers must keep the approach to their mailboxes clear of obstructions to allow safe access for delivery. If USPS employees are impeded in reaching a mail receptacle, the postmaster may withdraw delivery service.

---

Postal Regulations

[This message has been edited by lexofer (edited 2/20/2013 7:53p).]

---

Does this mean clear approach with a vehicle or just clear approach with them being able to walk their lazy arses out and putting it in the mail box? I live in a neighborhood where there just isn't much curb space period and over half the mailboxes are always blocked and still get my mail everyday. Guess I need to tip my mailman.

[Rant] All street mail should be delivered to cluster boxes!

No more door-to-door mail delivery!

No more delivery to rural style mail boxes at each house. Clustering them together on each block would be okay, but they wouldn't be locked!

No more door-to-door delivery in commercial buildings, including high rise offices, strip centers, and malls!

The USPS must make drastic changes to reduce their labor expense or just close down!

[/End Rant]

You know, reading through this I was thinking about one of my favorite establishments, Chic fil a.

I don't care what you ask of them at the chic fil a, you get a smile accompanied by a "My pleasure."

THAT is customer service. The Post Office wouldn't know customer service if it bit them in their fat but. At least from a cultural standpoint. I actually like my postman. But I've had my share of zeros.

"If that were my job ..." Well, just what exactly is their job? Is it to deliver the mail, or is it to sit in a car and stuff envelopes in an approved receptacle between the mandatory range of 41-45" off the ground ... only if they don't have to expend more than 1/2 a calorie to do the bare minimum to complete the task.

Just can't wait til they take over health care.

quote:

---

Agreed about the unions. For $18 bucks an hour

---

If it is a contractor, he's probably getting paid by the job, not the hour. So he's sure not getting out of the car and taking longer.

BTW, if you have a loose dog in your neighborhood, you may not get your mail delivered then, either.


[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 2/20/2013 10:13p).]

Obamacare was designed from the get-go to fail, and fail spectacularly.

I guess I consider myself lucky we get mail delivered to the front porch box by real postmen/women.

You get what you pay for... You can't air up your tires for $.45, but we expect a letter to be mailed across the country and a mailman to go the extra effort to get it into your box for $.45?

quote:

---

You get what you pay for... You can't air up your tires for $.45, but we expect a letter to be mailed across the country and a mailman to go the extra effort to get it into your box for $.45?

---

I don't buy this bs. It's not the revenue side that's the problem, it's on the expense side of the ledger. Haven't you even gone into a post office and noticed the productivity level of the employees? You're standing in line for 15-20 minutes, finally you're next, and then the old "Lane Closed" sign pops up. Yep, union break time. They don't give a crap about customer service. This applies all the way down to my deliveryman. This monopoly needs to be broken and let Fedex/UPS take over sorting and delivery.

I agree w. the neighborhood boxes - it'd also make your mail less likely to get stolen.

Sounds more like a neighbor problem than a mailman problem.

Move your mailbox or tell the people taking lessons to park elsewhere. You should be providing access to the box.

USPS isn't about customer service. They are a bottom bid, lazy, pathetic excuse for a government agency. They are trying to do the least work possible, so IMO your only solution is to accommodate them.

You may have answered this in your deed restriction comment but can you remove your curbside mailbox and put one on the porch which would make him walk up to the door?

I had a neighbor who did this because they had three teenage boys who all parked their trucks on the street.

I thought it was based on the age of the neighborhood. I live in a 50-year-old neighborhood and we all have boxes by our doors. A newer neighborhood in town has individual mailboxes at the curb. The newest neighborhood has lock boxes at the end of the block.

I figured we in the deliver-to-the-door neighborhood were grandfathered in, as were the mailboxes at the curb. Would obviously be much easier and cheaper to have neighborhood lock boxes.