The Inviolate Mailbox

In the winter, it is snowballs. Last month it was firecrackers. Now is the season of bees, wasps and gypsy moths. Indeed, U.S. mail carriers are used to finding all manner of surprises in the 25 million home mailboxes that line America's roads. But whether citizens leave a week-old baby boy (as once happened) or a cup of steaming coffee in winter (as often happens), it is all illegal. Though a man's home may be his castle and though he must buy and maintain his mailbox, its interior space essentially belongs to Uncle Sam.

"A mailbox remains the private property of the individual," says Postal Service Lawyer Jack T. DiLorenzo. "But we do have some control." Yes, indeed. That control began shortly after the 1896 start of rural free delivery. By 1899 Postmaster General Charles Smith was already grousing that "tomato cans, cigar boxes, drainage pipes upended, soap boxes and even sections of discarded stovepipes were used as mailboxes." There followed three quarters of a century of regulation and regularization. Now the owner of a rural mailbox must place it at a height convenient to the carrier, and the box he buys must be of a type approved by the Postal Service (minimum size: 19 in. long by 6 1/2 in. wide by 8 1/2 in. high; maximum, 23 1/2 in. by 11 1/2 in. by 13 1/2 in.). If a homeowner wants to build a mailbox himself or buy one not made by "approved manufacturers," his choice must be okayed by his postmaster.

Maximum Fine. Originality is allowed, but postal regulations warn that posts or supports "may not be designed to represent effigies and caricatures that would tend to disparage or ridicule any person." Boxes must also be rust-free and "neat." Regulations for mail slots and apartment mailboxes are very nearly as detailed. Persistent violation of the rules can bring a halt to home delivery. Mail can, of course, be picked up at the post office, but that involves renting a box at rates that just went up from $21.60 to $25 a year, or using a general-delivery window, which often requires waiting in line.

Breaking some mailbox rules can bring fines or jail sentences. For example, "destruction of letter boxes or mail" carries a penalty of up to three years or $1,000. Also, no one can put anything in a mailbox that doesn't bear postage, and no one other than the owner, his agent or the letter carrier can take anything out. The person who puts mailable material into mailboxes himself to avoid payment of postage faces a maximum fine of $300 per offense. The Postal Service claims that otherwise mailboxes might become overstuffed and the security of the mail weakened.

The major problem with private delivery to mailboxes is that the Government monopoly would be undermined. The law has long banned competition from private mail services, and it was tightened in 1934 after public utilities started delivering their own bills. The law does permit home delivery of newspapers to a separate box and private delivery of such non-first-class material as magazines and ad circulars that can be hung on doorknobs, in plastic bags, or pushed through a mail slot in the door. But in the mailbox itself, only mail with U.S. postage is legal. Without a monopoly, the service fears being stuck with costly deliveries to remote areas, while the more easily handled and economical urban and suburban routes are snatched up by private deliverers. Planned hikes in postal rates may increase pressures for private service, but a pending House bill to open first-class mail delivery to free enterprise has practically no chance of early passage. Nor do the courts find the present protectionism unconstitutional. Federal judges have turned thumbs down on private efforts to leave shopping guides atop mailboxes and put handy hooks on the boxes for the benefit of ad-circular deliverers.

So the mailbox remains an odd "private federal preserve, established and maintained at the expense of the individual owner," as the Evening Journal of Wilmington, Del., recently complained. Rural homeowners will have to go on putting up with such advice as is contained in Form 4056: "Your mailbox needs attention." But the Postal Service still offers the time-honored advice that whatever the restrictions, "this does not mean that you may not meet your carrier at the door if you desire and greet him as cordially as ever." After all, he probably has a mailbox of his own.

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