Everybody knows that locking mailboxes are more secure, and in this day and age, with identity theft on the rise, security for your personal papers is ever more important. But what if you already have a mailbox which you really like? Is it worth getting rid of it in order to install a locking mailbox? In most cases, the truth is that you don’t have to.
There are various ways to fit a lock to your mailbox yourself. The simplest is to secure the door with a padlock. However, if you drill through the surrounding structure to do this you can weaken it, making it vulnerable to rot, rust or fracturing.
A simpler method is to secure the door with a chain. Secure one end of the chain to the door handle and loop the other round the post, padlocking it in place, so that the door cannot be opened. This method is easy and cheap, but, of course, it depends on you having a suitable attachment point on your mailbox door.
If you have a standard style of mailbox, you can buy a locking insert for it which is much cheaper than buying a replacement for the whole thing. This insert is easy to fit and will provide you with a locking mechanism more similar to that on your house. This type of lock doesn’t always work on plastic mailboxes, which may be damaged by the fitting, but then, plastic mailboxes don’t offer much security anyway, as it’s easy to cut through the body of them.
There’s no need to spend a lot of money purchasing a brand new locking mailbox when a simple locking insert will give you the security you need. This will give you time to look around for the best deals in locking models for when you are otherwise ready to purchase a replacement.
