My regular postman was off today,

My regular mail man might find that note degrading to his own intelligence.  I respect him too much to insult him.  It's the substitute(s) who annoy me.

mrmaplewood said:

Sprout

I just checked out your recommendation.  It is almost an exact duplicate of what I already have.  I left the lid down, the carrier left it up.  The lid is not self-closing.

Interesting. I have one that's very similar, and I just tried to get it to stay open. It won't. The hinge doesn't let the lid open far enough to get it straight up from the back of the mailbox. It's limited to a few degrees less than that, so it can't be propped open.

@mrmaplewood - Just thinking: Is it against a wall? If so, you could stick something to the top of the lid to act like a bumper (like an adhesive door bumper/wall protector), and prevent it from being able to be opened 180 degrees. In other words the bumper stuck to the top would hit the wall (instead of the mailbox lid hitting the wall), and it couldn't be propped open.

mrmaplewood said:

My regular mail man might find that note degrading to his own intelligence.  I respect him too much to insult him.  It's the substitute(s) who annoy me.

My guess is he'd get over it, but I don't know him.  You could have it say, "If you're not our regular mail carrier, please be sure to close the lid when you're done."  Other than that, I'm out of ideas.  Your substitute mail carrier will continue to increase your blood pressure.

It was a trip down memory lane to hear someone refer to their "mailman", however.

I once had a substitute letter carrier place my mail inside the storm door at the side entrance, which i never use; rather than placing it where it belonged at the front entrance to the house.  One day, when I saw them doing it, I showed them where the front of the house was.  No problem after that.

mrmaplewood said:

My regular mail man might find that note degrading to his own intelligence.  I respect him too much to insult him.  It's the substitute(s) who annoy me.

Install a spring, or get a box with a spring loaded door so the door cant be left open unless an abundance of Mail prevents it from doing so.