Landlords Could Face
New Mailbox Rules

Having lived in four apartments in four different cities over the past nine years, Anne Tramer is tired of having her mail treated like junk.

Sometimes when she received two magazines on the same day, "all my mail would be bent" because the mailbox was too small, the 31-year-old Ms. Tramer says. Digital pictures sent by a photo developer and photocopied cartoons sent by her father in 8-by-11 envelopes were often crammed into her tiny mailbox, leaving them bent or with curves, she says, which "are hard to get out."

Now, after years of catching flak about such problems from both companies sending mail and customers receiving it, the U.S. Postal Service is working on developing new design standards for apartment mailboxes that will make them bigger and more secure. The agency is working with a group including real-estate representatives, mailbox manufacturers and distributors, magazine publishers, and merchants that use direct mail. The plan also calls for parcel lockers, or receptacles for large packages, to be located at various places on a property.

The Postal Service says the effort stems from an increase in mail volume -- as well as increases in the size and shape of mail coming from Internet purchases -- and concerns about mail theft.

Costly Changes

But there's one hurdle standing in the way of the Postal Service delivering bigger, safer mailboxes to residents: landlords.

Apartment owners are balking at the proposed new standards, saying the cost of retrofitting mailboxes in existing buildings could easily exceed $2 billion. (They aren't opposed to the standard eventually being applied to new buildings.) Some owners also say the Postal Service is exaggerating the problem of mail theft. Owners of other types of commercial buildings, who may also be affected by the new standards, have joined apartment owners in opposition.

In addition, the National Multi Housing Council and the National Apartment Association, Washington, D.C.-based trade groups for apartment owners and managers, claim that the bigger mailboxes could run afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act because the boxes will take up more space, making halls narrower in potential violation of fire and safety codes. They also claim the larger mailboxes could even infringe on rental space.

Ted Gullicksen, office manager of the San Francisco Tenants Union, which represents about 5,000 area apartment residents, counters that by saying landlords are "just blowing smoke" when they bring up the disabilities act as one of their justifications for opposing the change in standards for existing buildings. "Unless the mailbox is big enough for FedEx trucks, I can't imagine that these will impede into hallways or lobby space," he says.

Jeff Lewis, the Postal Service's program manager for apartment mailbox standards, calls the apartment groups' claims "a bit exaggerated." But, he adds, the service remains optimistic that it and the committee of trade groups meeting on the issue will "end up someplace that accommodates everybody."

The Postal Service prefers mailboxes that would be flatter and wider: three inches high, 12 inches wide, and 15 inches deep. The current standard, in place since 1975, is six inches by five inches by 15 inches. But it doesn't specify which should be width, depth or height.

The Postal Service, which began the meetings in February, hopes to come up with a draft standard by the end of the year. The next of the group's monthly meetings is scheduled for next week.

Some office and apartment landlords have been pushing for waivers or exceptions in certain cases. The National Multi Housing Council opposes any retrofitting and says waivers would be an impractical regulatory nightmare. The Postal Service can refuse to deliver mail to mailboxes that don't comply with its standards.

More Volume

The Postal Service says mail volume has steadily increased on an annual basis, except in fiscal 2001 and 2002, when it declined due to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and anthrax fears. Volume totaled 202.8 billion pieces in fiscal year 2002, up from 190.9 billion pieces in 1997. Volume totaled 89.3 billion pieces in 1975, the last time mailbox standards were changed. According to the Postal Service, households surveyed said the amount of flats they have received -- magazines, newspapers, catalogs and other periodicals -- has risen 47% since 1985. The amount of parcels they've received is up 42%.

Arrests for mail theft rose to 5,858 in fiscal 2002 from 5,603 the prior year and 4,942 in 2000, the Postal Service says.

But citing a survey the National Multi Housing Council recently conducted, Elizabeth Feigin Befus, its legislative analyst, says that "99.42% [of its members] said they do not have a mail-security problem." She adds that "if apartment residents desire larger mailboxes, apartment firms will respond to that desire" on a case by case basis.

'Overblown'

Meanwhile, a number of tenants unions, which aren't directly involved in the discussions, are all for bigger, more secure mailboxes.

When told about the landlords' objections, they also found them overblown.

"In the scope of things, I can't see that this is going to cost [landlords] all that much money," says Ed Democracy, treasurer of the Portland Tenants Union, in Portland, Maine, which represents 36,000 area residents. "They'll just have to be creative and resourceful in dealing with it, just as tenants are in dealing with paying their rent."

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