please empty your brain below
Having delivered leaflets door to door, the number of evil letterboxes at horrible heights, sizes and designs is impressive.

This year I gave Christmas cards to all neighbours on my new road. Said cards were not especially large, but one had to be folded twice to fit through the door. I wonder what those neighbours thought of receiving a Christmas card paper ball - but then presumably all of their mail arrives in that state.

JJ | 13.09.20 - 8:00 a.m. | #

I remember when I had a morning paper round over 30 years ago, I found that the size of the letterbox was inversely proportional to the size of the paper I had to deliver. I often found myself having to split The Times newspaper into sections and posting it one section at a time. It was always worse on a Sunday with all the extra supplements.

The worst letterbox I remember were those ones with the vertical slots, they always were the smallest opening, and the owners of those letterboxes always seemed to be the Times readers.

Barry | 13.09.20 - 8:09 a.m. | #

Some letter boxes have a spring to keep the flap closed and prevent draughts. All very sensible, except that the spring can be too strong to be pushed open by the envelope or leaflet.

So, you need to open it with one hand and post with the other other. The very worst were those where fierce dogs would react to the intrusion and race to the door to eat your fingers.

Unless you were familiar with the houses, this could come as a very unpleasant shock.

Petras409 | 13.09.20 - 8:33 a.m. | #

I was recently introduced to a piece of letterbox technology.The political party I have recently joined issues leaflet distributors with a special wooden device to push letterboxes open with. Makes it so much easier and you can do it one handed with no risk to fingers. (It is also possible to use a wooden spoon from your own kitchen).

Malcolm | 13.09.20 - 8:52 a.m. | #

Most of our Amazon stuff is delivered to a local Amazon Locker for pickup at our convenience.

Tim W | 13.09.20 - 8:56 a.m. | #

That's my old letterbox!

Michael T | 13.09.20 - 9:02 a.m. | #

One of my part-time jobs in retirement is to deliver election material for the Local Council (poll cards and Electoral Roll letters).

On my "round" I have encountered all types and sizes of letter boxes at many different heights. Some have dogs behind them! A few have very sharp edges!

The smallest ones tend to be on the oldest doors and the larger ones on newer doors, but that is not always the case. Conversely, the lowest ones tend to be on newer doors, some of which have a long vertical frosted glass panel down the middle that prevents the letter box being at the prescribed height.

My main bug bear is that, like where DG lives, many blocks of flats have their letter boxes inside the main door from the street, sometimes behind a gate as well! I then have to ring the door bells in turn before I find someone who will let me in. A few residents do this by coming down and checking me out, but many just open the door remotely!

John Simmons | 13.09.20 - 9:06 a.m. | #

DG can be relied upon to slot in a snappy post about something random that's guaranteed to get commenters in a flap. But posts about letter boxes don't always deliver.

[Sorry]

Frank F | 13.09.20 - 9:41 a.m. | #

DG you mentioned "getting dressed to at least minimum standards", can you please educate us as I couldn't find this stipulated in EN 13724 🤔

Kevin Too | 13.09.20 - 9:48 a.m. | #

How many people googled to see if there is a Connaught Heights in Bow?

Philip | 13.09.20 - 9:49 a.m. | #

Nods to all of the above - especially the vertical letterboxes.
Those and the low ones - which were the ones most likely to have a letter-retrieving dog behind them, were the bane of my days as a postie!

Cornish Cockney | 13.09.20 - 10:13 a.m. | #

We have found that old-fashioned wooden laundry tongs are ideal for delivering political leaflets (which tend to be fairly flexible) through a range of letterbox flaps. The worst ones are those with the horrid bristles on the inside. I have no ideal how how post(wo)men cope.

jack hopkins | 13.09.20 - 10:15 a.m. | #

There's also the letter box cage, so if you angle things correctly, any envelope along with its contents can look as though its been through one of those Euro NCAP tests.

Still Anon | 13.09.20 - 11:00 a.m. | #

I have never observed official postal wokers using anything other than their fingers to open letterboxes. Could be because, unlike leafletters, they need to maximise hand capacity to final-sort letters, so a tool would clutter up their hands. Union advice about safety from dogs would be interesting, though.

Malcolm | 13.09.20 - 11:05 a.m. | #

I recently bought a Slovakian "letterbox sensor" to deal with the problem of having a letterbox several floors away from my flat. It actually works and sends me an email when something new (usually another takeaway menu ~) is plopped through.

Josh | Homepage | 13.09.20 - 11:08 a.m. | #

I wish my communal letterbox had internal access or was sloped. That might have prevented cases of identity fraud. Unfortunately the building design of 2012 vintage makes upgrades difficult.
Secure letterbox design may make things inconvenient for some, but fraud prevention has to have priority.

commonliner | 13.09.20 - 11:14 a.m. | #

Where I live most people tend not to use their front doors, and some have taken that further asking that all mail be delivered to the back door, and in some cases not having a letterbox in the front door at all, which must significantly increase the postperson's walking distance. (I don't use my front door for going in or out but I do collect my post from it).

Sarah | Homepage | 13.09.20 - 11:19 a.m. | #

We've gone ten days until today without having any mail, but then my partner's new bank debit card arrived.
Our Australia Post parcel service is terrific at the moment, with maybe a three day delivery time in spite of parcel delivery being so busy. My London Tube Map mouse pad has not arrived by normal post and the prescribed time is 18 working days, which is Wednesday. Then I will have to complain.

Andrew | Homepage | 13.09.20 - 11:54 a.m. | #

In France letter boxes are standard sized, and can be opened with a key by the postie. This means that anything smaller than a fridge* can be delivered.

(*desktop..)

Simon | Homepage | 13.09.20 - 12:38 p.m. | #

"asking that all mail be delivered to the back door"

It's the norm where I live for terraced houses to have their letterboxes in the back door. The problem is that most only have a house number on the front facing the street but not at the back so you're having to remember which house is which. I've not seen this anywhere else in the country.

Anders | 13.09.20 - 1:11 p.m. | #

I'm another political leafletter who finds letterbox designs a pain and wish the guidance could be strengthened into mandatory at least in the new build regulations.

As well as many of the sort described above other problem cases include:

* Outer and inner flaps that open in opposite directions as though you're expected to use three hands to hold them open & post.
* Draft excluders that destroy anything thin pushed through them.
* Draft excluders that stop the flap from closing and so actually create more of a draft than if the bristles weren't there.
* Badly installed flaps with spikes and nails that catch hands.
* Gates over the porch/drive that make it impossible to reach the letterbox.
* Communal post rooms off lobbies that can be entered on the press of a button but require a fob to get back out.

Tim Roll-Pickering | 13.09.20 - 1:16 p.m. | #

What part of th country is that Anders?
I am in west Sheffield where at least the byelaw terraces have a passageway every two or four houses - further to walk but easier to keep track of than if you had one long back alley / twitten / ginnel / gennel for the whole street like we had down south.

Sarah | 13.09.20 - 2:19 p.m. | #

When my letterbox was replaced last year, I assumed it would be flat like the previous one. Without discussion, I arrived to find the new one had a curved chrome surface, so every time I appoached the door I could see my reflection as in a distoring mirror. I was contemplating a further replacement, but asked the postman for a view. He approved, so it has stayed.

Cau1khead | 13.09.20 - 2:52 p.m. | #

I used to live in a block of flats that had DOWNWARD facing boxes, that were only about 10cm deep. So letters would bend fine, but anything else not a chance. Of course, only the postie could access the front door, not amazon, so I used to have a similar dilemma.

Designed like that because they made the entrance corridor too thin to install actual post boxes.

In my current house the front door is a facade when it was split into two houses from one giant house, with the real door behind the house. So I get the 'delight' of the worst of both worlds whereby some of my post is neatly on my doormat, and other post or parcels just left basically on the footpath for any neer'do'well to nick on a main road.

R | 13.09.20 - 3:05 p.m. | #

When I did door-to-door deliveries (papers, leaflets, whatever would give me a bit extra cash when I was a kid!), I always hated the doors which had their letterbox on the bottom. Pretty sure they were lower than the 700mm set down in the regs, but it wasn't having to bend down to them that was the annoying part, but the fact that it was awkward to open them (because, invariably, they had strong springs on them too...).

RG | 13.09.20 - 6:27 p.m. | #

Street Door 230mm x 40mm, original house door now inside 6" x 2"

Andrew Jarman | 13.09.20 - 7:03 p.m. | #

I live in flats that were built with the communal postboxes, but after a spate of thefts, the management company ended up removing them and cutting letterboxes in the door of each flat - much better for security, if not for the post delivery person!

Moogal | 13.09.20 - 7:53 p.m. | #

The trick as I recall when leafleting was to roll rather than fold the leaflet to give it greater rigidity to push past any obstacles. It was therefore always rather annoying to get a batch of leaflets that someone had kindly pre-folded.

Sarah (again) | 13.09.20 - 10:21 p.m. | #

During my later years as a manager Royal Mail brought out a Posting Peg which was the H&S 'solution' to dodgy letterboxes, dogs etc.
They were almost universally disliked by the delivery staff as it made the final sort check at the door slower.
My personal preference was to place my fingers half way up an envelope and fold it back over towards me.
This gave a very good protection to the cuticles and was strong enough to force past the bristles.

Mikey | 13.09.20 - 11:42 p.m. | #

Mike, Yes that's a good way of protecting the postie's fingers, but it does mean that any letter containing a photograph or picture will arrive with a crease.

There's always a downside.

Petras409 | 14.09.20 - 9:05 a.m. | #

New low level letter boxes were banned in 2019 via a Private Members Bill.

The bill came to prominence as it was debated in the ten minutes between PMQs and the Vote of No Confidence in January 2019, ensuring a near full turnout in parliament.

MPs leafleting experience was shown as it unsurprisingly received unanimous support. The proposing speech is worth reading.

TomH | Homepage | 14.09.20 - 9:18 a.m. | #











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