A person’s mail can be one of the most vulnerable aspects of their life. It’s how many get their bills, personal correspondence, and with the advent of online shopping, it's also often how they receive purchased merchandise. Therefore, your community’s mail solution should never be treated as an afterthought. Rather, it is a vital aspect of the development for future residents that deserves thoughtful consideration.
Recognizing there is risk of USPS delivered mail and package theft is the first step to defending against it. Theft and vandalism plague poorly designed mailroom systems. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Developers, with help from mailroom experts such as Florence, have successfully found ways to reduce mail theft by nearly 100%. Let’s review a few helpful strategies to defend your community’s mail delivery system.
Pick the Best Location
Placing your mailboxes or mail room in the wrong location can endanger the well-being of your residents, mail handlers and the security of the mail itself. Put your residents first, and design your mailroom in a way that keeps them and their mail safe.
Centralized mail delivery systems usually offer the best form of protection simply through location in a visible, common area frequented by people/residents. If your community is consolidated, offering your residents a mailroom close at hand is the way to go. Typically, these mailrooms are either within the resident’s building themselves or in their own standalone structures close to residential dwellings served.
Don’t Forget Lighting
Centralized mailrooms can be made even safer by the addition of prevalent and effective lighting. A poorly lit mailroom can encourage vandalism and mail theft as well as make your residents feel uneasy just by entering the space. Keep your mailroom well-lit to discourage theft and property damage. Lighting is a major consideration whether your mail and package center is located indoors or outside.
Choose the Right Model
The USPS-approved STD-4C and Cluster Box Unit (CBU) mailbox models carried by Florence set the industry standard when it comes to security and efficiency. The 4C comes in three mounting options — recessed mount, surface mount and in a stand-alone cabinet kiosk — while the CBUs are always pedestal mounted. No matter which model you pick, however, they are instantly recognizable as a stylish and clear security and functional upgrade from the dated vertical and horizontal centralized mailboxes.
Keep It Clean
Graffiti begets graffiti. Maintaining the look of your mailboxes and package lockers should be a regular activity for property management/owners. Repairing damaged lockers and/or completely updating your mailboxes will make resident mail and packages safer from theft as well as enhance the prestige of your property. New 4C model mailboxes are also much heavier gauge aluminum with attractive, durable powder-coat finishes making maintaining their appearance even easier.
Florence mailboxes were tested rigorously to achieve USPS-approved status and to ensure that they are the safest, highest quality mailboxes on the market. No matter what the special circumstances of your property might be, Florence makes the right mailbox for your project.
Factors to Choose the Right System
Since every development’s mail delivery needs are as unique and varied as the developments themselves, there’s no hard and fast rule to determine exactly what you need. So let’s review a few factors you can take into consideration when looking for the right mail delivery system.
The USPS maintains strict regulations governing the design and location of the mailboxes they service. In order to ensure that your residents receive their mail in a regular, timely fashion, these regulations must be followed to the letter.
The regulations encompass the actual size of the mailboxes and package lockers, their height from the ground and their distance from the road if located outside. As recently as 2020, the USPS has updated their package locker to mailbox locker ratio from 1:10 to 1:5, to help keep up with the demand for package delivery thanks to increased online shopping.
For interior mailrooms, other regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act need to be considered to ensure that residents have adequate access to their mail. Furthermore, most localities have their own requirements and regulations relating to how and where mailboxes are implemented on publicly serviced property.
By following these regulations when designing your mail delivery system, you’ll be protecting the safety of mail handlers and protecting yourself from having to update your mailboxes in the near future.
Choosing the right system can be complicated — and that’s before you factor in the approvals needed from your local Postmaster or USPS Growth Manager who reviews and advises requirements related to new mail delivery. Fortunately, there are companies such as Florence and their expert authorized dealers that are ready, willing and able to help you configure your centralized mail and package center to make it as safe, convenient, efficient and compliant with USPS and other applicable regulations.
Work with an Authorized Florence Dealer in your area to plan your mail center for your development, and they can analyze the unique design of your project and come up with a way to provide you a safe, durable mailroom that complements your project’s style and works with your budget.
Click here to review our USPS-approved mailboxes. Or get in touch with a Florence dealer who can help you keep your mailroom safe, your residents happy and your project successful.
