Letterboxes in the front door - what countries have them and which have separate mailboxes

[cakeorwine]

Just returned from a European road trip - many interesting differences - but one thing I noticed was many countries seem to have mailboxes either on a post in the garden, on the pavement or attached to the wall. I don't think I saw any with a letterbox actually in the front door.

So is this just a British thing - or do other countries have them? I wonder why the differences - is a mailbox better / more efficient?

Long driveways or paths to properties and gates at drive entrances are two reason to have mailbox rather than expect the postie to get to the door.
In Sweden there are banks of them on the roadside, anything up to 20 I think.
You walk to your mailbox.

It was fascinating. 1 village in Luxembourg had gorgeous mailboxes. It seemed each house was trying to out compete each other

Yes I suppose in the UK, lots of us would have no place for a mailbox and most of us have front doors relatively near the road rather than very long driveways. Although the door flaps are a bit of a risk for lots - postman gets bitten by dog, random asbo person sticks a firework through. There have been letterbox arson cases that were deliberately targeted. Thieves stick drain inspection cameras on long equipment through and steal car keys or use it to open people’s front doors.

In the US many houses have storm doors outside the main front door, so a mail carrier would have to open the storm door to stick mail into a mail slot. I've seen mail slots in the walls beside front doors, but also mailboxes attached to the outside walls close to the door. In rural areas there are mailboxes on posts at the point where a drive meets the road. Sometimes there are banks of mailboxes at a junction where a local road branches off a main road in rural areas.

New Zealand does separate letter boxes (though I'm not sure about big cities, to be fair). Sometimes it's just because that's how it's done, sometimes (like for my parents) it's because the driveway is long so it's easier for the postie. My parents live rurally, however. I imagine it's the same on farms and things here in the UK?

I know in the US the mailboxes at the side of the road are far more efficient in terms of time and vehicle costs for the post office as you don't have the mail carriers walking up long drives or winding their way up rural lanes and back again. In urban areas, I'm sure they curse people with long drives and a mail slot at the end.

Is it because front doors are seen as an important part of house insulation?

My parents' letter box looks like this. You can leave things in it for the postie to pick up and send off, you just put up the little flag attached to the side so they know there's something to collect. It's a good system.

l450v.alamy.com/450v/cwnb2x/rural-post-box-in-new-zealand-cwnb2x.jpg

In Germany our property has a separate mailbox outside (well 2: one for the company / work and one for the family name). No direct access for the postperson to put their hand through he door at all due to security purposes. Same on road and quite possibly most places.

Lots of dhl Packstations at local supermarkets which is like a PO Box service.

When I lived in Berlin in an apartment everybody's mail box was in the lobby. We had a little key for our own box and just checked it every time we came home. When we lived in an apartment in London everyone had a letterbox in their apartment door which was infinitely longer for the postie.

I’m in the UK and have a separate mail box. Front door was made for us and we decided not to have a letter box put in it.

I'm in Italy and in a flat so ours are in the lobby. Single properties tend to have them on the gate. (Most properties are gated). It's annoying if you want to hand deliver Christmas cards as you have to ring the doorbell to get access!

In the Netherlands board have letter boxes in doors like the UK and flats have boxes in the hall.

In France it was big banks of boxes for flats. The postman had a key that opens the whole front of it in one go so he can lock small parcels in. I always wondered how universal the keys were and how much post gets nicked!

Houses even, not boards!

In Spain our urbanisation has a bank of mailboxes and each house or apartment has their own key for their mailbox.

In Germany everyone had postboxes outside on the wall or in flats inside the lobby. When we moved back to the uk we changed our front door and got one without a letter box in it as our old one was always ready drafty and we didn’t want to ruin the insulation.

In my part of the US, increasingly newer subdivisions, including the one I live in, have banks of locked mailboxes at various intervals along the streets. So we walk a short distance to get mail, usually during one of our dog walks. There are also parcel lockers; the mail person leaves a key in your mailbox with the locker number on it and you use it to retrieve your package.

Older neighborhoods near me have these kinds of mailboxes, which are fairly common in the US.

Oh, and lots of people decorate theirs for the season.

Do the mailboxes in the US have a key or do they really just flip a flag up/down like in The Lake House - if it’s not locked doesn’t the mail het nicked? Maybe I’ve a low opinion of people but where I live if something is not locked it’s gone in seconds

I'd hate to have it outside. Anyone could open it up grab your post and commit bank or loan fraud etc with sensitive documents.

Switzerland - lots of flats. Each flat had a collection of named mail boxes with a small box for parcels underneath. Houses have their own one next to the path. Where I live is a courtyard. So our mail boxes are just inside the courtyard- much quicker for the postman as he doesn’t have to go to every house. However bigger parcels/signed for they will come and right your bell. Each house has a name plack for the family. And flat have them outside the internal front door!

Denmark. You have to have a box at the edge of the property with your name on it.

I saw the postman just driving along and putting the mail in each mail box as he drove past

Fascinating to see that most countries have mail boxes

I've lived in multiple countries around the world. UK is the only one where the postal person is expected to walk to the front door and delivery it through there though!

In the middle east, we all had PO boxes and had to go to the post office to collect ALL post. We had no post box at the house and no post person delivery post there either!

Generally flats abroad, all the post boxes were lined up together, so you physically went to the back of the box, used a key to open and get your post.

Other countries had a postal boxes outside the house, generally along the road

Never heard of or saw a postbox cut into a front door before I moved to the UK 18yrs ago. I believe there are new rules for H&S that the post box in a door can no longer be lower than X cm's/inches off the ground. No idea what happens with existing door post boxes though???

I was a bit shocked to realise that all the mail boxes in our part of France had the same key. It was so the post person could put in parcels that were too big for the slot.
I never heard of anyone nicking their neighbours post, though.