Tiny mailboxes pose bulky problem

WASHINGTON -- America's mail has changed since the Roaring '20s, but the tiny mailboxes built into the lobby walls of the nation's apartments, condos and office buildings generally have not.

In an age of bulky catalogues, home-delivered DVDs and CDs, and surging Internet purchases, the older "panel" or wall boxes are bursting, says the U.S. Postal Service. So the agency is looking to bring a design that was standardized in 1923 and a size that was mandated in 1975 into the 21st century.

Postal authorities say they are trying not only to respond to customer complaints that mail is being bent, folded and, yes, even mutilated to fit, but also to counter another modern problem -- identity theft. So far, though, the changes are being opposed by apartment owners and developers who say it could cost them $2 billion to retrofit all their lobbies.

Under existing minimum standards, the boxes in apartment and office buildings are usually vertical, measuring 5-by-6-by-15 inches. A plan offered by the postal service would require boxes to be 20 percent larger, at 3 inches high by 12 inches wide by 15 inches deep -- a horizontal shape that the postal service says better accommodates today's mail. The proposal also calls for a percentage of separate keyed boxes for parcels.

"Clearly if you talk to anybody in an apartment today, there's frustration about mail being damaged and about having to go to the post office" to pick up pieces that don't fit," said postal service spokesman Mark Saunders. "We're making these changes ... to reflect the change in the amount of mail and the size of the mail."

Americans received 203 billion pieces of mail in 2002, up sharply from 89 billion pieces in 1975, Saunders said. Recent customer surveys also show that while regular letter volume has declined -- most likely because of the widespread use of e-mail -- the average household has had a 47 percent increase in magazines, catalogues and other "flat" mail since 1985 and a 42 percent increase in package mail, he said.

Some claim the proposal could "force apartment owners to run afoul" of other federal laws on accessibility for the disabled because the bigger, deeper mailboxes would eat up floor space.

"If you walk through lobbies of any of the apartment buildings in Washington, I don't see how they could accommodate" bigger, deeper boxes, Arbury said in a recent interview.

Arbury said that apartment building owners also believe existing boxes aren't under increased strain.

"We don't think there's been an increase in mail volume overall ... because of the increase in e-mailing," he said.

Joining the apartment groups in opposing changes to existing mailboxes is the National Association of Realtors. While the apartment groups made a pre-emptive strike before a final proposal had even emerged, the real estate lobby "is more optimistic" that the final regulation will exempt existing buildings or offer significant waivers, said Realtors representative Megan Booth.