Mysterious colored dots on our mailboxes just showed up the last day or two. What are these about?

yours truly | 8-28-11 | rawhide

[cowboyway]

Soylent Green

[Travis McGee]

It’s the secret police listing of people to purge.

Just kidding.

[RightField]

In mobile home parks in Florida, the USPS puts a red dot on the mailboxes of the snowbirds when they are gone for the summer. They look like paper to me, though, as they get faded pretty quickly.

[wintertime]

Steven King could have a lot of fun with this.

[Truth29]

"There are no dots on my mail box. Say it: There are no dots on my mail box."

Inside joke: There are five dots. (There are five lights). Who can identify what that comes from?

[knarf]

A gummint skooled kid now has a job delivering newspapers and, just like at McDonalds ... numbers just can't enter and stay in a head of mush, so he/she delivers to the green dot if your a subscriber to "A" and two green dots if you have a 7 day sub ... etc.

IMO

[mamelukesabre]

The markings were used by hobos during the great depression. They didn’t mark the house. The marked trees and posts leading up to the house(or business) from highways and railroads. The markings were in use as long as the hobo lifestyle was common, which ceased to be in the 1970s I believe.

[DouglasKC]

Hmmm, I do not get any newspaper, but come to think about it, I get Barron's and for last couple of deliveries, I have found it in my driveway, instead of mailed to me and put into my mailbox by the postman. That may be it?

Probably...but most people in most areas also get those free "shopper" newspapers...or sometimes a weekly newspaper put out by a local paper designed to get more ads to you and possibly entice you to buy their daily paper. By default everyone gets these and they will deliver them unless you request to be taken off the delivery route.

I know because I used to deliver them a few years back....

[DouglasKC]

Hmmm, I do not get any newspaper, but come to think about it, I get Barron's and for last couple of deliveries, I have found it in my driveway, instead of mailed to me and put into my mailbox by the postman. That may be it?

Probably...but most people in most areas also get those free "shopper" newspapers...or sometimes a weekly newspaper put out by a local paper designed to get more ads to you and possibly entice you to buy their daily paper. By default everyone gets these and they will deliver them unless you request to be taken off the delivery route.

I know because I used to deliver them a few years back....

[Afterguard]

Pull them off and see if anyone come to arrest you.

[count-your-change]

Star trek. Capitan Jean Juan Luc Luck Piccard is tortured until he agrees that he sees the lights(”for a monment I really did see them!”)

[xrmusn]

The guy down the street who has 2 green dots, a blue and a red, what does he get?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
If the people who live in these houses are ‘Middle Easterners’ who wear the dots on their foreheads.
this is the code.

2 GREEN Dots means you get 2 7/11’s.

1 BLUE Dot means you get a Gas Station.

1 RED Dot means you get your hack license.

So this family hit the Trifecta with a bonus 7/11.

[baddog 219]

If there are stickers on your mailbox, it means that a government agency put them there. Your mailbox is government property, believe it or not.Therefore they do not need to ask you for permission to tag your mailbox.If they're reflective, they can be scanned by a portable device and most likely has a chip embedded. Most likely some indicator for them.

[macquire]

Buy a box of dots and start putting them on mailboxes and see how long it is before you get arrested for defacing property.

Your mailbox is YOUR MAILBOX. Rip them off and complain to the newspaper.

[Average Al]

"We don’t care if you get a newspaper or not, just accept the dots and do as you are told."

Thanks, now I have coffee up my nose. LOL!

[Truth29]

"Star trek. Capitan Jean Juan Luc Luck Piccard is tortured until he agrees that he sees the lights(”for a monment I really did see them!”)"

Right! You win your own set of dots...

[count-your-change]

As I recall it was borrowed from Orwell’s 1984.

[Average Al]

Perhaps your HOA is grading how you take care of your home.
Another possiblity is a bunch of street racers are marking
your street with reflectors to race at night. ;-)

[InvisibleChurch]

You’re welcome. A coffee enema for the nose is the best way to start your Sunday.

[baddog 219]

From the U.S. Postal Inspector’s website:
“Mailboxes are considered federal property, and federal law (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1705), makes it a crime to vandalize them (or to injure, deface or destroy any mail deposited in them). Violators can be fined up to $250,000, or imprisoned for up to three years, for each act of vandalism.”
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