I have a custom mailbox at the end of my driveway. It looks nice, but the mail carrier doesn’t always put the flag down, and we don’t always put it up.
I’ve also noticed on our driveway camera that, on at least one occasion, a car drove up and stole our mail shortly after it was delivered.
I want to install a small wireless camera in my mailbox (like a Blink camera) to notify me when I have mail and hopefully deter mail theft. Is this legal? Some websites suggest it’s not, but the laws seem vague and mostly mention not tampering with mailboxes if they are the property of USPS.
I understand there are specific laws in the United States regarding mailboxes. This is not a ‘Property of the United States Postal Service’ box, and it’s not a public mailbox. It is only used for our house.
It’s generally not legal to place a wireless security camera inside your residential mailbox. Privacy laws often prohibit recording in areas where people expect privacy, and modifying the mailbox could violate postal regulations.
Instead, consider installing a fixed camera with a variable focus on your house to monitor the mailbox area. This avoids battery and WiFi issues, requires no mailbox modification, provides a better view of potential theft, and reduces the risk of the camera being stolen.
Not in my opinion. I installed a basic driveway motion sensor in my mailbox, which notifies you when someone opens it and puts mail inside, or when someone is entering your driveway. It’s quite basic and runs on batteries. My route carriers are people I know fairly well, and they haven’t mentioned anything yet. It was really easy to drill through and mount because my mailbox is made of plastic. Just make sure that it is watertight to prevent moisture from getting on any equipment and soggy mail.