COLLINSVILLE, Okla. — Notices about the height of mailboxes started showing up in a Collinsville neighborhood not long after a road project.
"I had a notice in my mailbox saying my mailbox was no longer compliant with regulations," said May McCombs.
Homeowners believed the resurfacing job raised the roads and prompted the U.S. Postal Service to send out notices about raising mailboxes.
The notices said bottom of the mailbox needs to be a minimum 42 inches above the surface of the road. People had had 30 days to comply and failure to do so puts them at risk of having their delivery suspended.
Ethan Rickett said, "We were kinda shocked. I mean, I never would have suspected it. The mailbox has been there for 21 plus years."
Four people reached out to the 2 News Problem Solvers through emails and phone calls to get some answers about the situation.
Rogers County Commissioner for District 2 Steve Hendrix said, "The postmaster in Collinsville had been planning on sending out letters of non-compliance for two years. She became aware that were were going to rehab the roads, so she delayed sending those letters until we finished the rehab."
Now, neighbors want to know why the postmaster did not give them a heads-up sooner. They told 2 News the cost of making the changes to their brick curbside mailboxes falls on the homeowners.
"It's financially a burden to a lot of people in the neighborhood with the economy the way it is," said Lori Hickman. She estimates replacing her old mailbox with a brick curbside mailbox could cost $500.
Driving around the area it's clear to see different attempts by neighbors to bring their mailboxes into compliance. Some partially knocked down the old brick mailbox and put up a post with a mailbox on top. Others inserted blocks of wood into the middle of their brick units to raise the bottom of the mailbox. A few removed the old brick box completely and put a post in the ground with a small mailbox on top.
May McCombs is leaning toward not changing her box at all and instead renting a P.O. box, "that's a big inconvenience for me, and in the wintertime it could be interesting trying to get my mail. My husband's medications come in the mail. I don't know what we're going to do about that."
2 News reached out to the USPS for an interview with the Collinsville postmaster, but USPS declined to allow it.
2 News also also emailed the questions residents have about why the Collinsville postmaster didn't do a better job of communicating so they had more than 30-days to deal with their mailboxes. There is no response yet.
Contact the Problem Solvers:
- 918-748-1502
- problemsolvers@kjrh.com
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Twitter