Who is responsible for the communal mailboxes?

[kalanamak]

I'm talking about the metal ones at the beginning of a street, which have everyone's little spot and a couple of bigger ones at the bottom for packages?

 

Someone ran into it and knocked it back, so that the paint is missing off one edge and it is tilted. I'm worried that rain will now run it, and also that it wobbles so. It is on the street on our property. I'm thinking, by the angle of the scrape, it was the mailman. The guy across the street with a trailer wouldn't have left this mark if he backed into it, and there is no mark on his trailer. All the "regular" cars on the cul-de-sac seem unscraped. The attitude of the scrape would argue against the neighbor's teens friends, and they are all mo-ped and little Honda types, and not wild at all, anyway. It happened during working hours, and I sleep facing it, lightly and would have sprung awake for that.

 

So, if the post office doesn't own up to this, who pays?

[Jean in Newcastle]

I would assume that someone (a homeowner's association?) put it up in the first place. I would ask some of the neighbors who have been there a long time.

[LaxMom]

At my dad's place (no HOA) it was installed by the post office and they fix it each time the plow truck whacks it.

[Veritaserum]

We have kind of mailbox. I think it's the post office's job to fix it.... We had to get our key from the post office when we bought our house (first occupants).

[JudoMom]

I think it's the PO. We have those boxes and no HOA. We had to get our key from the PO, so I think they are PO property.

[kalanamak]

I think it's the PO. We have those boxes and no HOA. We had to get our key from the PO, so I think they are PO property.

 

Yeah, no HOA, only 6 houses on the cul-de-sac.

 

I've sent the US post office an email. Never done that before. With state agencies, every email is responded to with a visit our website for answers to your questions, or "call us". I'll be interested how the PO deals with email. :)

 

Amazon, on the other hand, is prompt and often has a sense of humor.

[OLG]

It's up to the local carrier to report the problem (that's a shot in the dark around here) and the PO is the one responsible for fixing them. Depending upon how responsive our local PO is, they might or might not care. (We have one that refuses to replace keys from the larger boxes that are missing and refuses to repair a part of the box hit by vandals making it inoperable.Carrier says she is responsible for the costs which I do not believe!) Good luck!