On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 6:47:01 PM UTC-5, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Tue, 21 Feb 2017 11:36:29 -0000, Cindy Hamilton wrote:

On Monday, February 20, 2017 at 5:10:49 PM UTC-5, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:22:15 -0000, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 02/16/2017 10:30 AM, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 15:31:30 -0000 (UTC)
HerHusband wrote:

Our old mailman used to run like clockwork, right around 10am every
weekday. In recent years they've been a lot more variable, anywhere
from 9am to 4pm. It can be frustrating to walk the few hundred feet
to the mailbox and back to the house, only to hear them drive by a
few minutes later.


Save all the postage paid envelopes from the junk mail. Stuff each one
with stuff from another.
Put out in your mail box for pickup.
When you look and see the flag down you know mail has
went by.


Here, they ignore the flag and don't put it down.

One interesting junk-mail thing here comes on some Thursdays. That's the
day for curbside recycling pickup here. If mail comes first, I can
transfer most of it directly to the recycling container.

Note that some of the junk mail (from charities) comes with a little
money inside (usually just a nickel, but I have found $2 bills), so you
might want to look first.

How do they know the difference between the flag for them to collect, and the flag for you to collect?

The flag for them to collect is red (and its appearance is probably
regulated by the Office of the Postmaster General). On my mailbox,
the one for me is yellow.

Are they manually erected then? I can't se how the box distinguishes otherwise, I thought it was a weight sensor.

When I put out mail, I manually raise the red flag. When the postman
picks up the outgoing mail, he manually puts the red flag down.

When the postman puts mail in the box (whether or not there is outgoing
mail), the yellow flag raises automatically; it has a tab that catches
on the mailbox door that pushes the flag up. When I retrieve my mail,
I manually put the yellow flag back down.

Cindy Hamilton