Wet wooden gates

[deristrong]

When your fingers slip jeez it hurts.

[Patti-Ann]

I'm more wary of stiff brass letterboxes

[Hodsyharry]

And superpowered snappy letter boxes. Ouch

[fluffysnow]

Some of those letter boxes are as strong as the reverse bear trap in saw films

[Lazycarton]

Springs designed to withstand a nuclear explosion.....beware when using just the one hand to push mail through.....when it has reached the point of no return....get your f'ing fingers out fast!!

[Anonymouse]

Worse when those types of letterboxes are at the bottom of the door.

[Spedley]

What gets me is when it doesn't quite unlatch and you end up walking into the gate!

[Dozen]

Letterboxes right at the bottom of the door so you have to kneel down to reach them. Narrow and with brushes on the inside so it's strenuous work pushing the mail through. Great difficulty placing even the smallest of packets through. Then the letterboxes where the flap only opens half-way, or it's mis-aligned with the door so you have to shimmy it around just to open the flap at all, or the letterbox looks like it's big enough for the packet to fit, but then you open it to find it's just a large letterbox covering a smaller box that they've carved in to the door as a butchered DIY job. Or the letterbox IS big enough for the packet to go through, but half-way through placing the packet in, it comes to a stop and you realize they've put a cage or box around the letterbox on the inside of the door, effectively making it impossible to post the packet even though technically it would fit through the box. Rubber bands that snap when you're bundling up. Going through 3 or more rubber bands snapping in a row. Writing out a 739 card on a busy high road for a flat above a shop that has 15 occupants and 15 doorbells of which only 2 doorbells actually work, and none of the occupants speak english and the ground floor shop won't take the packet and it's pouring down with rain there's no shelter, the pavement is crowded, an alcoholic tramp is trying to tell you the packet is for him or that he knows the guy it's for, the PDA keeps beeping and beeping even though you put it on 'lock'. The pen just ran out of ink half-way through writing out the card, not that it even matters because your hands are too cold to write anything readable anyway. Makes you wonder how we don't go crazy doing this job, I guess we're crazy already to want to do it in the first place.

[Bahia Feliz]

Letterboxes right at the bottom of the door so you have to kneel down to reach them. Narrow and with brushes on the inside so it's strenuous work pushing the mail through. Great difficulty placing even the smallest of packets through. Then the letterboxes where the flap only opens half-way, or it's mis-aligned with the door so you have to shimmy it around just to open the flap at all, or the letterbox looks like it's big enough for the packet to fit, but then you open it to find it's just a large letterbox covering a smaller box that they've carved in to the door as a butchered DIY job. Or the letterbox IS big enough for the packet to go through, but half-way through placing the packet in, it comes to a stop and you realize they've put a cage or box around the letterbox on the inside of the door, effectively making it impossible to post the packet even though technically it would fit through the box. Rubber bands that snap when you're bundling up. Going through 3 or more rubber bands snapping in a row. Writing out a 739 card on a busy high road for a flat above a shop that has 15 occupants and 15 doorbells of which only 2 doorbells actually work, and none of the occupants speak english and the ground floor shop won't take the packet and it's pouring down with rain there's no shelter, the pavement is crowded, an alcoholic tramp is trying to tell you the packet is for him or that he knows the guy it's for, the PDA keeps beeping and beeping even though you put it on 'lock'. The pen just ran out of ink half-way through writing out the card, not that it even matters because your hands are too cold to write anything readable anyway. Makes you wonder how we don't go crazy doing this job, I guess we're crazy already to want to do it in the first place.

You could have written the 739 out IN the shop at least!

[fly-catchers]

I hate those letter boxes that have a nasty end of a spring just waiting to piece your finger as you struggle to push a letter through! With blood covering all the next batch of letters.

[stan_lers]

I hate those letter boxes that have a nasty end of a spring just waiting to piece your finger as you struggle to push a letter through! With blood covering all the next batch of letters.

A house I deliver to has a letter box on the wall, and the slot for the mail is just sheet metal folded over. One day I had to push a packet in, and slid my finger along the edge of the metal taking my hand out. Sliced into my finger and it would not stop bleeding, all down my hand and on the post. Had to wrap a rubber band around my finger a few times to cut off the blood supply to stop it bleeding.


Also the worst letter boxes are the ones on the wall that have a slot too small to even fit a Lovefilm disc through. The whole box is also only about 1" deep, so literally the only thing you can get in is a DVLA sized envelope, because anything else has to be folded and then it's too stiff to bend inside. The only purpose of a letterbox is for us to post letters through, it's amazing how many make that so hard or impossible.

[Dorset Plodder]

A lot of these letterboxes sound familiar.....I'm sure we've all suffered trapped & cut fingers. Most customers just think the mail arrives magically on their doormats.......Delivered by The Mail Fairy!

I'm get so wound up by some bloody awkward letterboxes that I knock on the door and have it out with the customer. I know it wastes time but after a couple of times of trying I snap! Normally I just say, "Have you tried to get mail through your letterbox"?

Some customers are really good and never realised the problem, and actually sort it. If they give me the old, "I don't give a damn just get on with it", I just roll their mail up like a sausage roll and force it through. Couple of days later they're normally complaining about their mail getting damaged! I then refer them to my first question.

[Patti-Ann]

I have a few old fashioned wrought iron letterboxes about 4" across so most things have to be bent - one is at the bottom of the door so extra awkward

One house I know (when collapsing) has a vertical brass letterbox, near the ground, in the wall next to the door...it takes me both hands to push things through so have to put the bundle down - great when it's raining

Then there's the house with an electronic gate. The letterbox is in the house door so can only deliver when the gate is open - there's no bell outside the gate to press. He said (some time ago) he was having a mailbox fitted on the wall outside the gate - I'm still waiting...