If you’ve been following along you know that this is the last day in what the USPS has designated as “Mailbox Improvement Week”.  This doesn’t mean you can’t turn that ugly mailbox into a presentable one any time of the year, just keep in mind that duct tape is not the solution.

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Number four on our list:

1. Raising or lowering your mailbox to meet local height requirements.
2. Replacing or adding house numbers.
3. Loose hinges on a mailbox door.
4. Rusting or peeling paint.

For example, this could use a new paint job:

I also wanted to share with you, Mr. Witles’ new mailbox. This little shoe box car opens at both ends.  I’m betting those headlights work too.

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Next on our checklist:

1. Raising or lowering your mailbox to meet local height requirements.
2. Replacing or adding house numbers.
3. Loose hinges on a mailbox door.

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Let’s review our checklist:

1. Raising or lowering your mailbox to meet local height requirements.
2. Replacing or adding house numbers.
3. Loose hinges on a mailbox door.
4. Rusting or peeling paint.
5. Remounting a mailbox post if loosened.

We’ve taken care of how NOT to meet mailbox height requirements.

Next step replace or add house numbers:

NO

YES

Let’s review, spraying painting your house number all over your mailbox and mailbox post is bad. Using vinyl lettering made specifically for mailboxes, or neatly stenciling numbers on your mailbox is good.

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The third week of May is Mailbox Improvement Week. The U.S. Postal Service is asking all homeowners to inspect and repair their mailboxes to improve the appearance of their mailboxes, as well as fix any issues that will bring their boxes up to official standards.

Common problems that need to be fixed:

• Loose hinges on a mailbox door.
• Rusting or peeling paint
• Remounting a mailbox post if loosened.
• Replacing or adding house numbers.
• Raising or lowering due to heaving to 40”-46” from the ground to bottom of box (height reqs vary so check with your local post office)

The Postal Service makes this annual request because of the wear and tear that occurs to mailboxes every year.

In honor of this week I’ll be posting some past and present attempts at “Mailbox Improvement” along with some tips.

Here’s my neighbors attempts at meeting the USPS height requirements.

and one that obviously isn’t tall enough.

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Join me on Saturday, May 10th for Stamp Out Hunger™ — the nation’s largest annual single-day food drive! The more people who help, the more successful we’ll be, so forward this to your friends, too.

To learn more, tell a friend or download materials to promote this cause, visit: HelpStampOutHunger.com

ABOUT STAMP OUT HUNGER

On Saturday May 10th, letter carriers in more than 10,000 communities will collect food items and deliver them to local food banks to help some of the millions of Americans, including an estimated 13 million children, who face hunger every day.

Since 1993, families have donated more than a half-billion pounds of food to Stamp Out Hunger. You can help make this year our most successful ever. Simply place bags filled with nonperishable food items like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal and rice next to your mailbox on Saturday, May 10th. *

Your letter carrier will pick up the bags and deliver them to your local food bank.

* Please do not include out-of-date items or those in glass containers.

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This news story has been floating around a couple weeks now and I debated posting about it, but since I couldn’t find any good links with pictures I did not.

Artbot e-mailed me with two decent sites that give the story and pictures of the famously smashed mailbox.

Short story: a mailbox was involved in a interstellar game of mailbox baseball and lost. It’s now up for auction and valued at $80,000!

You can check out the history and news here:

History Claxton Page

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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or else I’ll have to drive up there and take them myself! Actually, I probably will do exactly that since I’ll be there for Christmas anyway. It would be nice if someone took them for me before then though. *hint hint*

Glen Burnie mailbox maker reaches new heights

By LISA BEISEL Staff Writer

 

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King Kong has made an appearance in Glen Burnie.

But don’t worry - he’s in miniature.

The gorilla sits atop Ed Witles’ 7-foot replica of the Empire State Building that also serves as the mailbox for his Eastern Street home.

It’s a new high for Mr. Witles, who’s been the subject of Maryland Gazette stories before for creating mailboxes. He’s been doing it about two years, since he retired from his job as a steam fitter at Crownsville Hospital Center.

“A lot of people like the tower out there. They ride by and they look,” he said.

His latest work is one of about 50 to 75 he’s made over the last two years. Each one is lighted and many of them have moving parts.

His hobby takes up a huge amount of time, and he often spends 10 or 11 hours per day working on mailboxes.

“I had to do something instead of sitting around here and watching TV,” he said.

Nancy Bueche, his niece who cares for him, said she likes the hobby.

“It keeps him out of my hair,” she said with a laugh.

It’s no wonder people often stop to marvel. His mailboxes are less like the standard box and more like works of art. There’s a fire engine, a tug boat and several cars, a dump truck. There’s a pony, a dog, a couple airplanes, and a spaceship.
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I really want to get pictures of this. Does anyone live in Santa Cruz, or know somebody that does? /beg

Retired electrician turns ordinary mailboxes into whimsical works of art

By Leah Bartos
Sentinel Correspondent

Villa Santa Cruz retirement park just may be home to the world’s largest collection of programmatic mailboxes — at least according to Jim Healy.

The Aptos resident is an enthusiast of programmatic architecture — structures resembling objects like food items, animals, or characters like Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

“I’ve been all over the country,” Healey said, “and that little place, the Villa Santa Cruz, is loaded with programmatic architecture”

Mailboxes, to be precise.

Bill Layher, the mailboxes’ creator and a five-year resident of Villa Santa Cruz, was never looking for fame, though Healey is not the first to be drawn to unique mailboxes that adorn the park, including an oven, several lighthouses and a handful of birdhouses perched at the house fronts.

Layher says it’s no surprise to find strangers at his door inquiring about the mailboxes and some even wondering whether they can put in an order. Though Layher will accept an occasional order from the general population, the bulk of his creations reside in his own community.

“I don’t know how they find me,” he laughed, adding that he doesn’t advertise his services and builds the mailboxes out of the love for woodworking. Just a glance in the backyard reveals Layher’s hobby: a full set of handmade patio furniture, a new mailbox with the paint still drying, and the woodshop where Layher has worked on everything from cribs for his grandchildren to toys that he donates as part of his dues as a member of the nonprofit Santa Cruz Toymakers organization.

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From Fox News

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
POTTSTOWN, Pa.

Cremated human remains were found Tuesday inside a package placed in a mail collection box, police said. “In my 19 years of police work, never has something like this occurred,” Pottstown police Capt. F. Richard Drumheller said.

The letter carrier found the package wrapped haphazardly in a plastic bag, with no mailing address or return address, and notified police. A police dog did not detect any explosives, so officers opened it and found a box with a metal plate with the deceased person’s name on it and the years “1957-2000.”

Police asked that the person’s name not be released until relatives are found.

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