PARSIPPANY — The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is asking homeowners to examine and, where necessary, improve the appearance of their mailbox this week.
Your mailbox keeps you connected to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). It’s where your carrier drops off your mail and picks up any outgoing letters—allowing you to avoid a trip to the post office. But the USPS is serious about mail security, so it won’t deliver your mail unless certain conditions are met. The agency has strict mailbox regulations, and you may need to make some modifications to meet current standards. Read on to learn more about the mailbox changes the USPS requests starting Sunday.
If you don’t get mail on a given day, it’s generally not cause for alarm—but in some cases, your house was skipped on purpose.
As the USPS warns on its website, blocked or full mailboxes may prevent your mail from getting delivered. This can also happen if your mailbox is damaged or broken. Property owners are responsible for their personal mailboxes—which means they must maintain them and make any repairs when necessary, according to the agency.
Not doing so could prevent you from getting your regular deliveries. If you don’t correct issues, you “risk having your mail service suspended until the problems are resolved,” the Postal Service says.
The Postal Service is gearing up for its own spring cleaning through Mailbox Improvement Week, which it holds every year in the third full week of May. This annual campaign from the USPS is meant to “encourage customers to examine and, where necessary, improve the appearance of their mailboxes,” the agency explained.
Mail Improvement Week runs from May 21 to May 27 this year. To honor this annual event, the USPS asks homeowners to inspect their mailboxes at the start of the week. Your mailbox should be safe to use, designed to protect the mail from weather, conveniently located, neat in appearance, and in-line with approval regulations from the Postmaster General, according to the agency.
If not, you must take action to avoid losing your delivery service.
