Can a post office withhold a new owners mail if you don't put up a curbside mailbox while all existing owners can keep their mailbox on their house?

Answer 1

Answer 1: It is common for neighborhoods wherein all houses have traditionally had mailboxes on the house to convert to mailboxes out on the curb. During the conversion period, the Postal Service will request that everyone please move their on-the-house mailboxes out to curbside mailboxes; but will actually require new homeowners in the neighborhood to so do. Eventually, though, even those with mailboxes on their homes will be required to erect curbside mailboxes, and remove the ones on the fronts of the homes (or on front porches or porch railings, etc.).

So the answer is probably "yes." The question is how willing is the local postmaster to enforce it.

I don't see why anyone would fight it, though. The kind of mail route wherein the carrier must walk up to each home and put the mail in a box on the house is far more expensive for the Postal Service to operate than is a route wherein the carrier may drive a vehicle, and just pull-up to each curbside mailbox and deliver that way. And the US Postal Service is running out of money, and funding, and so needs to be able to save money wherever it can. Therefore, many routes which have traditionally been walked by the carrier are now converting to routes that are driven by the carrier.

Why would you want to fight that? Do you want the US Postal Service to go out of business? Do you want to have UPS or Fedex deliver the mail? Or, instead, do you want the only way to communicate in a manner that used to be done by the US Mail to be by internet email? Really? You'd actually prefer those undesirable things? Really?

A curbside mailbox costs almost nothing... around $20 for an aluminum mailbox, around $1 for the piece of plywood to wich to moun its bottom, and anywhere from as little as $3 to no more than maybe $10 for the post on which to mount it. If you get the right kind of post, you don't even have to dig a hole and set it in concrete. And even if you do, that's even lessexpensive.

A handyman (be sure to hire only a licensed and bonded one, and get references, and look him up on Angie's List) should be willing to do it for you for the cost of materials, as I've herein specified them, plus maybe a small and reasonable markup; then the labor... which should be maybe $50, give or take. Maybe $100, tops. He'll probably even be willing to remove your old on-the-house mailbox, fill its screw holes, and paint where it used to be so it doesn't look like something's missing.

Have a heart. Don't fight it. If the US Postal Service is asking you to erect a curbside mailbox, and remove your on-the-house one, then please just do it. Please. Eventually, when the local postmaster finally puts his foot down about it, you'll have to, whether you like it or not. Don't fight it just for the sport of it. Cooperate. There's a good reason why you've been asked. Just do it!