Letterbox at bottom of door - why?

[Justanotherusername30]

Can anyone explain the reason behind wanting/designing front doors with letter boxes at the bottom?

if you have one, why did you pick that?

(question comes after a conversation with a postie friend who finds them really inconvenient!)

Yes my 16 year old son delivery's papers 6 days a week. His sister does them once a week for extra pocket money.

Mines at the bottom for security reasons, no one can reach through to open the door & I heard enough stories about wire coat hangers & magnets being used to reach keys on hallway tables to put me off a mid height letter box for life! That said our front door is up some steps so also not back breaking for the postie!!

You could always keep your keys well away from the door in the first place, as a basic security measure....?! Don't some car thieves come searching for Range Rover keys that are near the door and only need to hack into them at short range without even touching the key itself.... or have I misconstrued that?

This brings back memories of helping my daughter with her Sunday paper round.
There were a few very low letter boxes, one of which would trap your fingers if you weren’t very careful, but the worst one was low, stiff, tiny and they had 2 large papers, complete with supplements. Even when we separated them into 5-6 lots we struggled as the first parts blocked the way of the others as the letter box was so low.
We also had to fight their overgrown hedge.
On the plus side they did give her a tip at Christmas.

It's so even small dogs can bite the postie's hand.

It's funny you've posted about this. I got a virus that's affecting my balance in September, labyrinthitis, and volunteered to deliver flyers on a big new estate for the Macmillan Coffee morning. Nearly every letterbox was at ground level and I overbalanced and headbutted a lot of doors! The relief when someone had a wall mounted letter box was immense :)

I always wonder as well as the postie what about heavy rain flooding. Yes I know it would come though the bottom of the door too but surely a letter box that low is just an invitation for even more water.

I'm very, very clearly not a teenager anymore, but my current state of health and mobility means that I would still be able to (slowly) deliver papers or leaflets to houses with mid-level postboxes, but houses with floor-level ones would be pretty much impossible for me - and I'd probably have to just miss them out. They'd be as inaccessible to me as the things at the back of the lowest level shelves in the supermarket.

That's a point, actually - why do so many shops put things that tend to appeal to (mostly youthful and agile) teenagers at eye or hand level, whilst products more squarely aimed at older folk who are far more likely to be less flexible are down on the bottom? Probably the same 'reason' why so many shoe shops put the big sizes (more likely to be taken by taller people) at the bottom and the smaller sizes (more likely to be taken by shorter people) right at the top.

I always wonder as well as the postie what about heavy rain flooding. Yes I know it would come though the bottom of the door too but surely a letter box that low is just an invitation for even more water.

Flooding has never crossed my mind. How often do you get get water that deep outside your house?

I mean part of of my area is near a river lots of houses are on constant flood warnings come late autumn / winter. Not my house personally but plenty of roads locally are on flood warnings right now and often the houses sit lower than the road.