A very bad mailbox

A bit of a rant, I'm afraid...

Last month, when I had the new fence put up, I was in need of a new mailbox. The one I already had wouldn't do; it's one of those little metal boxes which you have to open by lifting the roof of it up, and wouldn't work on a high fence.

So on the Sunday before the fence was due to be completed (and the old mailbox rendered unusable), I set off to find a new one which would suit a high fence i.e. one which didn't have to be perched on top of a post.

There's a fancy kind of mailbox which I've seen advertised a bit, which is basically a large, flattish green box with a lid on top and a lockable door at the side. You fix it to the wall or outside of the fence, at any height you like. It retails for around three hundred bucks I think, so it was always a nice-to-have rather than a must-have.

I went to Placemakers, and found that most of their mailboxes weren't any good - they were mostly variations of the chalet-shaped one I already had.

I did spot one particularly striking one, though; it was stainless steel and looked remarkably similar to the big green beastie which I couldn't afford to buy. Apart from the difference in materials, it was smaller, and instead of a lockable opening at the side there was a lock which opened up the whole front of the mailbox (thus making it impossible to leave it unlocked without leaving it useless in the mail-holding department).

But it looked pretty cool, it would be able to hold a fair amount of mail, it was lockable, and it was a couple of hundred bucks cheaper than the green beastie - so I bought it.

I had problems from the start. Once in the lock, the key was often hard to turn, so it was either hard to open or hard to shut. This was frustrating, because it now took about ten minutes of patient manipulation to get my mail at the end of a long day at work. But I persisted, because I'd already bought it and it was already bolted to my fence. Yesterday I seemed to have a break-through. I'd been told by a key-cutter that if you have problems getting your key into a lock you should scrape a bit of pencil lead against the key. I tried this bit of advice, and sure enough, the key went in smoothly. I had no problem opening and closing the mailbox.

Tonight though, was a nightmare. I couldn't even get the key more than halfway in the lock. I am furious. I paid a hundred bucks for a mailbox which I can't even open to retrieve my mail. For all I know, streetkids may have been playing about with the lock, but I don't know. I just know it's really quite crappy that I will now have to break into my own mailbox.

I really hope Placemakers will give me my money back.