Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Mail/package delivery area

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

 Our mailboxes are standard apartment-type mail slots on one wall of the CH
foyer. We started out also having a wall of cubbies for each household (33)
across from the mailbox wall, but they were not used a great deal and we
wanted to use that space differently.

We substituted a set of 9 square fabric boxes that slide in/out of a 3x3
frame. Above this, on the wall, is a whiteboard with a grid for the 9
boxes. If you put something in a box, you use a non-permanent marker to
write your name and the name of the person it's for in the appropriate
square on the whiteboard, and presumably you tell them to look for it. When
the person picks it up they wipe off that square on the whiteboard. This
has met our needs very well, and I don't know that we even need 9 boxes.
When we instituted this I was sad to no longer have my own household's
cubby to stick things in temporarily for my own convenience, but I got over
it.

We also have a bench for giveaways in the foyer. So as not to have
permanent clutter there, our rule is that you can put out your giveaway
items only one week per month. The person who looks after the foyer sends
out a note saying "It's this week" and at the end of the week that person
takes everything left on the bench to a local thrift shop. (It's a
workshare task.)

    Muriel @ Shadowlake Village

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 5:17 PM Katie Henry <katie-henry [at] att.net> wrote:

> We're under construction and recently had to redesign our mailboxes to
> include more USPS package delivery boxes.
>
> In the previous plan, we had a little cubby for each home so residents
> could leave things for each other. With the new plan, the cubbies have been
> shrunk down to mail slots, 10" wide x 14" deep x 1-1/4" high. This is big
> enough for a piece of mail or a magazine, but not much else.
>
> Should we even bother with the mail slots? Or should we omit them and get
> some rolling carts with hanging Pentaflex folders or some other solution?
> In my experience, cohousers often need a way to leave bulkier items, such
> as books or small packages, for their neighbors and mail slots wouldn't be
> very useful. What do you have in your common house and does it work well?
>
> Katie Henry
>
> Heartwood Commons - Tulsa
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