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They may well have a key to give me at closing (hopefully). If not, I'm sure the USPS can guide me.
I really wish this house had it's own mailbox. Oh well. Thx again
It's a lot easier for me to steal your mail if you have your own box either at the curb or on your front porch.. With these they are locked and harder to get into.. Also out in the open so people can see what you are doing
Cluster boxes do not belong to the government. Do you think the government would pay to have all those boxes installed... no way. The boxes had to be installed with USPS guidelines. If you don't have your key, wait for the "post person" show them a utility bill with your address and they will open the back of the box. Remove the lock, which is held on usually by a retaining clip. Look on line for "universal mailbox locks" similar to the L730-NA or L735-NA. They are inexpensive and really easy to match up and replace. Hope this helps.
The US Postal Service calls them CBUs: Cluster Box Units. They may be owned by USPS, by an HOA, by an apartment building.
For USPS owned and sometimes for HOA owned, the USPS may make a key for anything from free for a new owner to as much as $80, depending on specific locale. I recently paid $30 to USPS in Phoenix and was provided with 3 keys and a receipt.
Bring copy of closing papers or rental contract if this isn't a lost key, in which case if your drivers license has the address you should be good to go. Also ask yourself why you were so stupid as to lose your only key. Keep a copy.
In my own area I understand the CBUs are owned by the HOA, but a USPS delivery supervisor told me that a new owner could get a key for free here. My HOA owned CBU got knocked over and it took USPS 2 months to replace it. It was only afterwards, after picking up my mail at the local office for two months, that I found out the HOA owns it. In fact the local USPS delivery supervisor got so annoyed at the delay in their maintenance department that she found a colleague who finally came out and fixed it on his personal time.
The moral of this post: you never know. Try asking at the local USPS office first.
Where do we, as a community, go to petition to have our community mailbox relocated. The current location is in a high targeted area for mailbox theft and we wish to have the mailbox relocated onto our street. Who can help us?
It's a lot easier for me to steal your mail if you have your own box either at the curb or on your front porch.. With these they are locked and harder to get into.. Also out in the open so people can see what you are doing
Agree^^^. They're also really nice because they're big enough for most packages; that way you don't have the carrier leaving packages on your doorstep that could be stolen.
Another positive is they're great for vacations. Our locked box is big enough to generally fit at least 10 days worth of mail so we don't have to worry about stopping service, or finding a neighbor to hold it. We also don't have to worry about potential burglars seeing that we aren't collecting our mail; the carrier is the only one who can see that we aren't collecting our mail.
I would never want to go back to having an unlocked mailbox.
Where do we, as a community, go to petition to have our community mailbox relocated. The current location is in a high targeted area for mailbox theft and we wish to have the mailbox relocated onto our street. Who can help us?
B. in Rancho Cucamonga
Contact your postmaster at your local post office. Also ask them about changing the mailboxes into a locked set if they can't relocate.
For those who say "try your key until you find a box it fits" .... i moved into a condo complex with cluster boxes. I was working and going to school, and didn't get home until after dark. I thought I knew which box was mine (lighting was poor), and my key opened the door, but I never had any mail. After a week or so, I finally got to check it when I could actually see, and found out I was getting into the wrong box. And I had a week's worth of mail in my "real" box.
I spent many many years working at the post office taking reports from people whose mail had been stolen. i wish I still had my locking cluster box.
The cluster boxes are post office property, and I can't imagine a locksmith willing to deface government property. The post office will rekey your box for a small fee, usually around $25, but it varies. You take them your closing statement to show you are the new home owner, and they give you a new key. Don't use someone else's key for your mail as you never know who else has a copy, just like with your front door. Always change your locks!
In my area, the boxes are not post office property. The post office delivers mail to them but the boxes and locks are private property and any maintenance and rekeys are done by a private contractor at the homeowner's expense.
Glad I found this thread. I closed on a condo last week and received some keys from the seller's lawyer, some from the realtor and found others in the unit. I needed 2 keys to get in the condo but had all these additional keys, and did not know if one was for a mail box. The USPO told me to come in with ID and it cost $25 to get a box. What happens if I have a key to one, who knows? I'll try to catch the mail person tomorrow. Suppose to be 2 garage remotes, only received one.
I changed all the locks and re programmed the garage door pad and remote. Some sellers just aren't nice.
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