Country deliveries to 'locked gate'... what do you do?

[Industrial Toys]

Having numbers for the delivery people seems like a poor plan. Here Delivery drivers change all the time.

Thought of this in the shower. Cabinet with mag lock. Five minutes after opening, cabinet locks. This would allow for multiple packages and the cabinet possibly closing prematurely on the driver.

I bought the BIGGEST mailbox they made, and still routinely have slips saying there is a package for me at the Post Office "assuming" I have the usual punney mailbox.

UPS or Fedex will not use the mailbox, but Purolator will, probably because they are owned by Canada Post, just guessing.

 

[oosik]

Well......smut. I've got a mile long gravel driveway and in the winter I only plow it wide enough for either my Jeep or F-150. So about 20 years ago - "Big Brown" got stuck about half way down my driveway - coming in. The driver didn't have the balls of a hummingbird or he would have easily made it all the way and into my yard. But that was not the case and it was a real PITA getting him all the way in - turned around - back out to the county road.

So - - I sent a message to any and all delivery agencies - - "You are hereby authorized to leave any and all delivered packages hanging on my gate, in an appropriate protective plastic sack. PLEASE - do not leave a message of "delivery not possible" and do not attempt to come down my driveway. I hereby accept delivery of any and all packages hung on my outer gate. Thank you - blah blah". If the delivery is something of great value - I will meet the vehicle at the outer gate.

This has worked fantastic for the last twenty years or so. In the summer most drivers will come all the way down the driveway to the house. Summer is no problem. Even when completely plowed - my driveway can be a "tad challenging" in the winter. I ALWAYS recommend that any visitors come in a 4WD vehicle if its in the winter.

Besides - most all deliveries now-a-days are by the postal service. They have no hangup leaving a package on my gate.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Around here, the big couriers have adopted very customer unfriendly SOPs. You can't talk to a driver. I used to have their cell phone numbers, You talk to a call center, so good freaking luck getting any info to the driver. Even when it's in their best interest. Like, don't try and deliver, you will get stuck. You can't even call the local Depot. I notice that the drivers now even keep the back locked at all times.

 

[Dadnatron]

I'd look into BoxLock but my gate is nowhere near any Wifi.

I like the thought of it however.

 

[skylarkguy]

My delivery folks developed their own solutions. UPS sets stuff in the climbing bushes on the fence. Fed ex leans it on the gate or slips it inside the gate. The private carriers for Amazon likely huck things over the fence given how far into the property they end up.

 

[mark02tj]

What about a big metal box with an unlocked padlock inside? Delivery driver makes the delivery and uses the lock to secure the box. You come home, see the lock on the box and you know there's been a delivery. Since you are generally going to know when you're getting a package, you don't have to leave the lock in the box all the time.

The suggestion to register with USPS so you know what is going to show up in your mailbox is also a good one. I have this for my PO Boxes for my business. When I first got the boxes, I lived within walking distance of the Post Office. Now I live 20 minutes each way and don't get much in the PO box. So it's pretty handy to see what's coming when they email me the images. And, they're already scanning every piece of mail that's delivered to you, so any "privacy concerns" you might have don't matter - they've been spying for years! :laughing:



I don't want to get off track of the thread subject, but do you have any cameras installed outside? I have a couple of wi-fi cameras that work pretty well. My driveway is about 375' long and you can't see the house from the road. I am of the opinion that if you're a stranger and come all the way back here, you don't generally belong here. One of my cameras is mounted on the corner of my garage and is in a perfect position to capture license plate numbers. And, yes, I have shared the plate numbers with the local police.

 

[Dadnatron]

I do have cameras. And they actually work pretty well. But I only installed them after the 'incident'. That is on me.

My biggest issue is that whatever I do, it is temporary, given this is a rental and we are hoping to be building our house in the next 6mo or so.

The box with lock is a good idea.

 

[EddieWalker]

When I drove for UPS and Airborne Express, I would have customers with all sorts of different types of boxes at their gates to leave packages in. Most where more for rain protection then theft, but a few had a padlock there with a note to use the lock when leaving a package. I only remember once going there and seeing the lock already in use from another delivery driver, so I put the package behind the box and never heard anything about it.

For my place, they just leave the packages behind the gate posts where it's hard to see from the road. I've never had a problem, but eventually I'd like to build a nice box on the inside of my fence to hold the packages that is access from the outside with a chute, or ramp that allows the package to travel down to a safe place that cannot be accessed from the other side. I tend to over complicate this in the thinking stage of things, so who knows what I'll finally end up doing.

I've noticed that we order more and more stuff online then ever before, and this will just increase in the future, so having a "place" for packages to go is going to become more and more important.

 

[Gem99ultra]

We also live about 1/4 mile up the driveway from the mailbox, which is on the opposite side of the road. Our mailbox is small - only large enough for letters, fliers, etc. In addition, just inside our driveway we have a large box marked "Parcels", for packages about twice the size of a loaf of bread. Fortunately, both FedEx and UPS bring any deliveries larger than that up the driveway and leave the on our front porch.

So far that's worked well for us, except for the occasional driver-idiot that simply tosses large parcels out onto the ground next to the box marked "Parcels".

 

[sdquick]

This made me think, which usually make me google... Here are some ideas that I found:

dVault.com | Secure Package Mailboxes for Home or Business

Parcel Drop Boxes - Residential Mailboxes - The Home Depot

Porch Box(R) & Parcel Box: Rugged, Lockable Storage For Home Deliveries!

Protect your online purchases from 'porch pirates'

Amazon.com : The Original Porch Pirate Bag : Everything Else

https://www.thelandport.com/learn-more/how-it-works/