Mailbox security issues

Contact the postal department. They can help you with many of these details and should. There are regulations involved. Plus they have their own postal police. So contact your locAl postal inspector. It is a federal thing not local.

Theft of mail is a felony. At a minimum, your HOA should report the damage to the HOA owned mailboxes to the police, to help others who had their mail stolen.

WOW!

I honestly thought mail theft was a thing of the past (as cyber crime is easier, per news reports).

I agree, contact postal service.
I would also contact the police (as they should also be aware it is happening).

I suspect that almost any locked door can be opened with a crowbar.

Suggest doing an internet search for high security cluster mailboxes and see what you like.

If they want it, they will take it. Including dragging off bank ATM machines.

While HOA needs to protect the community elements they are responsible for, things like this can not be prevented. When they do happen they are a "shock" expense/event.

Involve the local police and the P.O. federally. The mailboxes will need to be replaced, which is an unfortunate HOA expense. Carefully weight the costs, maintenance, and continued support of a full time security system to protect mailboxes. That security could cost the HOA $0,000 of dollars a year to install and maintain for something may be unlikely to ever happen again.

We've had owners request cameras to guard our dumpsters from resident's disposing of garbage improperly.

Unless the governing documents state so, the HOA is not there to protect residents, or their personal property from criminals, suspected illegal activity, or their neighbor they don't like.

Typically, the US Postal service.

Per postal regulations, and it depends when the development was built, size and location, gang mail boxes are the only ones being authorized anymore.

See: USPS National Delivery Planning Guide for Builders & Developers

Basically, whenever possible, the postal service is moving to cluster mailboxes. It saves time for the delivery of mail.

In my previous Association, the regs changed during development and one section is allowed to have mailboxes attached to the wall of their home and the other section has gang rural boxes. They are not allowed to have individual mail boxes mounted to their home. We were also informed that if the development changes to gang mailboxes, we can not go back to the rural mailboxes.

Henry,
We just finished updating our Cluster mailboxes with very bright LED lighting using Solar. It cost us just about 2k per cluster. We have a total of 9 clusters for 1400+ homes. The owners really like it and seem very happy and safe getting the mail in the evening. We had problems using Solar with motion sensors as they were just not reliable.

I doubt anyone will have an idea that cannot be beat by a crook that wants to get into it. Criminals don't like to work in very well-lit areas because anyone driving by may see them and call the PD.

I had not heard that the PD would not respond to those calls. I doubt criminals know that as well.

Bill D,
The file I have says it is too big to attach. The Company that provides the lighting is Beyond Solar who is out of Stone Mountain Ga. our Electrical contractor did the install. They work great and make it just like a clear Sunny day at midnight. We choses to have the lighting on at dusk and off at dawn. We had much cheaper motion lighting in the past and they were not very reliable.

I did not include the actual proposal but we paid just under 2k for each location. In our case that is about $11.00 per owner. Sorry I do not remember the lifespan data but I am assuming it will outlive me. We have to see what the Reserve company says after the next study.

I would very much like to hear more about the lighting system you used. Our developer finally (after three years) placed a cover over our mailboxes so we no longer get rained on, but it is still very dark this time of year. The residents have just started looking into solar lighting.

At the risk of promoting fear and paranoia: I’ve reviewed a fair amount of video footage of the one mailbox cluster that we’ve got covered. I’d been informed that someone had broken into a bunch of package lockers in the previous 24 hours. At one point in the video a guy rode up on a bicycle, wearing glasses, a hat, backpack, and unremarkable clothing, talking on his cellphone.
I do not know that he was a thief, but:

- bicycle makes for fast getaway w no license plates or other identifying information.
- bicycle also has no real ID info and may well be stolen; easy to dump if necessary.
- hat, glasses, cellphone obscure features. Ditch hat and glasses if necessary.
- cellphone is a great prop that allows someone to me, but I’ll be looking askance at bicyclists hang out for as long as they like while potential witnesses come and go (ie, talk until everyone leaves).
- backpack won’t hold large packages, but I think only the relatively small stuff goes to mailboxes.
- backpack is easy to dump, if necessary.

I’m not a cop, I don’t have any ‘real’ data to go on, but it occurred to me: if *I* needed to rip off a mailbox cluster, this is probably how I’d do it. Alas, the lack of motion detector sensitivity etc didn’t leave me with any actual proof. And I’m sure there are myriad other ingenious schemes for stealing mail (ripping an entire mailbox unit out of the ground with a pickup truck and chain in the dead of night isn’t subtle but wow, it seems like it’d be *effective*). Just me, but from now on I’ll be paying extra attention to bicyclists when I see them at the mailbox.

BillD