Darn Porch pirates

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

My in laws sent gifts early this year. Mrs. just got an email from the post office saying the package was delivered Monday at 12:37 pm to our mail box. Our lane is 900 ft long and we cannot see the box from the house. But the box sits right in front of 3 neighbor's houses. Our former rural route delivery driver always brought packages back the lane to the porch and up to the porch of the neighbor that shares our lane. For the past six weeks we have had a new delivery person. We go days without mail and then suddenly there is 10 to 15 pieces of mail on a single day.. I recently got a notice from the local court, delivered 32 days after the date on the notice. Our mail was always delivered about 2 pm 6 days a week. It is coming all different hours of the day now. sometimes 10 am and sometimes 6 pm. My Mrs. is really frosted. Down the raod, one person put a secure box out along the road for packages and the whole box was ripped off its fasteners.

[Stan Calow]

The USPS is short of workers all over just like every other business. Our service deteriorating too. I asked my mail carrier one night how things were going and he handed me a job application.

[Ed Aumiller]

A year or so ago, our carrier retired, he was very good...
Our new carrier is even better... she puts packages on our daughters porch for us even though it is inconvenient for her...
UPS is also good...
Fedex is another story...
Amazon depends on the driver..

[Keith Pitman]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

[Mel Fulks]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

Anything is possible. Important to understand that Postmaster General is plum job given to a person who helped the guy get elected.
You don’t get that job because you have some great ideas for beautiful stamps that will feature birds , animals , insects, or pretty women.
Or even for a postal breakthrough like delicious stamp glue that tastes better than glazed doughnuts.

[Warren Lake]

91 year old I know has had three letters go missing., They vaporized. Kind of like spontaneous combustion I suppose. Total of four cheques so stuff was not paid then stop payments. Upsetting for an elderly person. Now someone pays all for her online and no issues. Her daughter works for the post office. I heard another story from a friend that one postal worker caught another postal worker delivering and stealing their mail. Long and short union protected the employee. Its an odd world. Mel doughnuts are evil but sure they create business for more than just the sellers.

[Thomas McCurnin]

I'd set up a half dozen trail cameras on that mail box.

[Mel Fulks]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

[Mel Fulks]

For years US post offices had signs about how many years you would be in prison if they caught you stealing one of there fine pens.
Haven’t seen those in years . Around here there are plenty of pens, but apparently all the chains have been stolen.

[Lee Schierer]

pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

The current postmaster is Louis DeJoy. He took office in May 2020 and is still serving. He is not appointed by the Board of Governors for the Postal Service, not the President. The Board of Governors are the only ones who can remove the Postmaster General unless he quits.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

when I first moved here, the postal rural route carriers were so bad hardly anyone on the road put out a mail box. mail in wrong boxes, drivers not closing the mail boxes, etc. The mail at my office building was sometimes just thrown on the lobby floor instead of put into the mail boxes. The mail was running downhill long before the recent appointee that was blamed for everything. I remember people said that suddenly the blue collection boxes disappeared. Yeah the same ones that had been picked up and put in storage 15 yrs earlier, but it took a change of postmaster general for people to notice and blame.

[Dwayne Watt]

Nope, that same guy is still there. That position is appointed by a board of governors, not the president. President does appoint new board members as their terms expire.
pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

[John K Jordan]

… Our lane is 900 ft long and we cannot see the box from the house. But the box sits right in front of 3 neighbor's houses. …

Our drive is further than that and winds down through the trees.

I installed wireless driveway monitors both outside our security gate and inside. They detect motion and sound an alert inside the house and inside the shop. The one outside the gate is positioned to detect a delivery person walking or a vehicle turning around in the driveway and beeps once at the receivers. The monitor inside the gate beeps several times so I can tell the difference between an alert outside the gate and when family or friend is coming down the drive.

When I’m expecting a delivery and hear a single alert I go out to the gate.

I’ve been using monitors for a bunch of years. I bought them at Northern Tool - relatively inexpensive for the value they provide. I think HD sells the same ones too. I see Amazon carries others, one claims 1/2 mile range. (Might depend on whats in between)

We have never had mail stolen. This is on a dead-end road so maybe that helps. It may help that the mailbox is across the road from a couple of friendly neighbors. It also may help that I have a easily-visible commercial camera mounted at the side of the gate and signs warning of video surveillance.

We have excellent delivery service from USPS, UPS, and FedEx. I made it easy for secure package delivery by installing a big steel lock box behind a tree near the mailbox, on steel supports concreted into the ground. One FedEx guy said he wished more people in rural areas had boxes like that.

JKJ

[Alex Zeller]

The USPS seems to have different policies for different people. Around here if it doesn't fit inside the box you have to pick it up at the local post office. I actually like that because if the UPS or FedEx driver can't be bothered to drive up the driveway it either get's left down at the mailbox (3/4 of a mile from the house) or just leaves it on the truck for a week or two before sending it back to the seller. If you call them up to try and get them to leave it somewhere else they try to get you to go to their store (which is an hour and a half away). I think the real problem is in the past a driver would own a route and learn the people. Now they seem to get moved from route to route never getting the chance to learn the little tricks, like where they can safely leave a package.

[Mel Fulks]

The USPS seems to have different policies for different people. Around here if it doesn't fit inside the box you have to pick it up at the local post office. I actually like that because if the UPS or FedEx driver can't be bothered to drive up the driveway it either get's left down at the mailbox (3/4 of a mile from the house) or just leaves it on the truck for a week or two before sending it back to the seller. If you call them up to try and get them to leave it somewhere else they try to get you to go to their store (which is an hour and a half away). I think the real problem is in the past a driver would own a route and learn the people. Now they seem to get moved from route to route never getting the chance to learn the little tricks, like where they can safely leave a package.

Its up to the people who order the stuff to be home or make arrangements. Sometimes when I’m driving I will see a big steel
box in front of a house . They are usually out in the open , bolted down to concrete , painted with a bright color and marked as the place
for packages. And my guess is most of those people have guns.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks ,for “going postal” ,in a nice way ! I do remember that the Presidents USED to choose a new postmaster when one was needed or
when a friend of his who helped him get elected needed a job.
Don’t remember ever hearing about any being fired. Remember, guys who get paid a big salary seldom steal pens and paper clips, and that
makes sure things run smoothly.

[Rob Luter]

We had a pirate story in the local news today. It reeked of stupidity. Woman orders a large flat screen TV on line. She’s notified by tracking that it’s out for delivery. Decides she has time to go to Walmart. While she’s gone the FedEx truck shows up. A passer buy (she lives on a busy street) helps the driver unload the huge box. Driver leaves. Same passer by returns and steals the TV. All captured on a ring doorbell cam. Woman is amazed this could have happened (really?). The good news is after footage of the theft was televised the thief returned the TV. You can’t fix stupid.

[Bill Dufour]

contact postal police not FBI for this federal crime. Al Capone went to
alcatraz for tax evasion and using the us mail for fradulent purposes. mailing in those fraudulent tax forms.
Bill D,

[Ole Anderson]

A year or so ago, our carrier retired, he was very good...
Our new carrier is even better... she puts packages on our daughters porch for us even though it is inconvenient for her...
UPS is also good...
Fedex is another story...
Amazon depends on the driver.. Yea, FEDEX has a habit of putting packages in front of our garage door. Came close to backing the car over packages more than once. Well covered porch is in clear view of the garage door, 25' away.

[John K Jordan]

Its up to the people who order the stuff to be home or make arrangements. Sometimes when I’m driving I will see a big steel
box in front of a house . They are usually out in the open , bolted down to concrete , painted with a bright color and marked as the place
for packages. And my guess is most of those people have guns.

That's what I have, except I painted it black. I bought a steel job site box from Tractor Supply, fastened a hasp on the lid for a padlock, welded up a stand from 1" and 3" square/retangular steel tubing, bolted the stand to the bottom of the box, then embedded the bottom of the stand into concrete.

I have a note inside the mailbox id asking the carrier to put larger packages into the lock box. Fortunately we usually have the same mail carrier every day. I also put a sign on the box and another on the gate to ask the carrier to put a package in the lock box, or if too big, set it on the ground by the gate and call my cell phone. This has worked very well. The only time I had to go to the post office for a package was when the package was too large for the carrier to fit it into her car. (Now all carriers have little mail vans with a lot more space - a big improvement, and the carriers no longer have to supply their own car with a second steering wheel and foot controls on the!)

The only problem is when I have two deliveries from different carriers coming on the same day. Fortunately the driveway monitors I mentioned usually alert me and I go out and get the first one as soon as it comes.

When I order large things delivered by Amazon truck I provide my phone number and the drivers always call when they are a few minutes away so I can meet the truck at the gate. Unlike other carriers these deliveries let the buyer pick a 2-hr delivery window which makes it easier to plan to be there.

JKJ

[Ken Fitzgerald]

When I first moved here 40 years ago, in about 14 months I had to replace the wooden mail post 4 times. I know because I am making a pile to take to the construction debris dump site and I pulled the remnants down from the carport rafters. I got tired to trying to paint a new post in my unheated shed at the time. So I enlisted a local welder. He made a post to my specifications. 4" schedule 40 steel with a 1/2" steel plate at the bottom and a 1/4" steel plate at the top. I made a form, dug out the ground, mixed the concrete and using 4 J-bolts I manufactured a base to which I mounted the new post with an attached mailbox.

I still don't know why people hit that box with their vehicles because about 16" away is a utility pole but they do. I have replaced the mailbox 3 times now, used a comealong attached to my SUV to pull it back vertical. I haven't had to replace it. The owners of the vehicle are now paying the price. BTW, I have hazardous zone reflective metallic tapes attached to the pole and mailbox.

[Lee Schierer]

When I first moved here 40 years ago, in about 14 months I had to replace the wooden mail post 4 times. I know because I am making a pile to take to the construction debris dump site and I pulled the remnants down from the carport rafters. I got tired to trying to paint a new post in my unheated shed at the time. So I enlisted a local welder. He made a post to my specifications. 4" schedule 40 steel with a 1/2" steel plate at the bottom and a 1/4" steel plate at the top. I made a form, dug out the ground, mixed the concrete and using 4 J-bolts I manufactured a base to which I mounted the new post with an attached mailbox.

I still don't know why people hit that box with their vehicles because about 16" away is a utility pole but they do. I have replaced the mailbox 3 times now, used a comealong attached to my SUV to pull it back vertical. I haven't had to replace it. The owners of the vehicle are now paying the price. BTW, I have hazardous zone reflective metallic tapes attached to the pole and mailbox.

Ours was taken out at least once a year by either wandering drivers, teenagers with baseball bats or the snow plow until I moved it farther off the road and hinged the arm.
490478

This one has been hit several times and it still looks good.

We haven't had a Porch Pirate problem yet, but you can't really see the porch from the road. I've seen a couple of videos of people putting fake packages with out for potential pirates. The packages have questionable contents inside.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I have had my mailbox taken out by snowplows 3 times in the 33 years we have lived here. The picture is of my current mailbox on a 4" x6" post instead of the normal 4x4. Since this picture was taken the post was hit and shattered again. I simply cut a step (lap joint) in what was left of the post and grafted on a new top using most of the original parts. Our town road agent is a friend and I rarely miss a chance to bust his chops about the events.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Just heard a really good one, that I suppose may turn into a lawsuit. A person placed a marine smoke flare cartridge inside a carboard box with a smile on the lid and placed it on their front porch. Apparently the flare was rigged to activate, when the box was opened. Thieves got down the road and passenger opened the box. car filled with red smoke, they hit a mail box. and a grand in damage to the car. not to mention the red smoke crap all over the inside of the car. Years ago, I heard of someone putting such a flare inside a piece of firewood at a vacation community where firewood was being stolen all the time. One cold winter weekend suspicious bright green smoke was coming from a chimney.

My imagination would be limited to a dog pile in a package. maybe some really smelly urine like trappers use to attract animals.

.

[Jim Koepke]

Just heard a really good one, that I suppose may turn into a lawsuit. A person placed a marine smoke flare cartridge inside a carboard box with a smile on the lid and placed it on their front porch. Apparently the flare was rigged to activate, when the box was opened. Thieves got down the road and passenger opened the box. car filled with red smoke, they hit a mail box. and a grand in damage to the car. not to mention the red smoke crap all over the inside of the car. Years ago, I heard of someone putting such a flare inside a piece of firewood at a vacation community where firewood was being stolen all the time. One cold winter weekend suspicious bright green smoke was coming from a chimney.

My imagination would be limited to a dog pile in a package. maybe some really smelly urine like trappers use to attract animals.

.

Yeah, some guy is going to call the cops because someone's stink bomb he stole off of their porch made him crash his car.

Check YouTube, search > porch pirate vs glitter bomb < One guy has made glitter bombs with old cellphones in side so he can video the thing going off in the car. My recollection is he has also rigged some with nasty smelling sprays that stay in the vehicle for a long time.

My feeling on porch pirates and mail thieves is they should spend a long time in jail and have no right to file assault charges if the people they are steeling from take action.

jtk

[Kev Williams]

The current postmaster is Louis DeJoy. He took office in May 2020 and is still serving. He is appointed by the Board of Governors for the Postal Service, not the President. The Board of Governors are the only ones who can remove the Postmaster General unless he quits.

Direct from Wikipedia:
On May 6, 2020, the USPS Board of Governors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Governors_of_the_United_States_Postal_Ser vice), all selected by [The Current President at the time] and confirmed by the Senate,[28] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy#cite_note-28) announced DeJoy's appointment as Postmaster General and CEO, despite concerns about conflicts of interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest).

I'll leave it at that...