They Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming . . . Down

There was the case, Wellington Arnette remembered, of the inflated balloons that kept blocking a mail chute in a downtown building.

“It was occurring in a psychiatric hospital,” he said. “Apparently a patient was inserting a deflated balloon into the slot, and then would blow it up and tie the end. This went on for about three months, and then it abruptly stopped. They must have cured him.”

Arnette knows of such happenings, and much more, because most of his 31 years with the U. S. Postal Service have been involved with a little-known aspect of seeing that we get our mail six days a week--the maintenance of its equipment. Currently his responsibility is superintendent of building equipment maintenance for most of Los Angeles.

Average of Five Calls a Day

As such, one of his jobs is overseeing a task force of four men in radio-dispatched vehicles who respond to an average of five calls a day to unclog mail chutes in high-rises--such as removing an inflated balloon that is preventing letters and cards from reaching the bottom-floor receptacle.

A unique situation exists. Although the familiar chutes in every building are the properties of the building owners, only a postal worker is allowed to open them.

You may or may not have noticed it, but at each floor is a locked panel on the 15-inch-or-narrower chutes.

“When we get a call at our special number (894-2305), we immediately send out one of our men in a truck,” Arnette explained.

What the balloon prankster did is highly illegal--such chutes are protected by criminal laws applicable to tampering with, defacing or destroying U.S. Postal Service property. Most cloggings, however, are unintentional.

And, sort of like a pinball machine, sometimes a chute will become unjammed when another descending letter strikes the stuck one.

“Most of the cloggings are on the middle floors,” the superintendent said. “The envelope starts on a higher floor and then gets stuck while falling. Usually it’s because people disregard the posted warnings not to fold oversize envelopes, or not to deposit more than one letter at a time.”

But, he went on, frequent culprits are the subscription and advertising post cards found in magazines. “They are light and they bend. If the building has an updraft, the card sits fluttering in the chute, blocking everything above it.

“We have had cases where somebody from the building will take a long ruler or stick and try to remedy things himself. That sometimes makes the problem worse. If you push down, that only packs everything.”

Breaking the Glass

There was one instance at a 20-story Westwood structure where the building maintenance man had tried to solve a blockage by dropping a 3-foot metal rod from the top floor. All that accomplished, as it dropped to the bottom, was breaking the glass panels at six different floors.

What the letter-box mechanics (top salary of $27,000) do, if the offending mail is visible at a certain floor, is unlock and remove the panel, then take that mail to the first-floor receiving box.

“If the mail is between floors and not visible, the worker goes to the floor below ,” Arnette said, removes the panel, inserts an electrician’s snake and pulls down.

The 50-year-old superintendent was a member of the blockage brigade throughout the ‘60s and into the early ‘70s, and recalled in particular a problem that developed after the big earthquake of February, 1971.

Checks up to $50,000

“A chute in another Westwood high-rise office building had been knocked out of line. We kept getting calls about letters that had been put into it but had never been received. We were told some of them contained checks for amounts such as $50,000.

“We kept inspecting, but a couple months went by and we couldn’t find anything. We finally went inch by inch into the ceiling where we suspected the trouble was. We discovered what amounted to a sack of crammed letters--and they were delivered.”

Sharing the Whiskey

He remembered another incident involving a chute, this one in a Century City high-rise, this time the result of the illegal use of the trough for something other than the deposit of mail:

“There had been a New Year’s Eve party and some partygoers had poured whiskey down from one of the upper floors. Not only was the chute stained, but it smelled. We had to unlock the panel on each floor and stand by as the building workers did the washing. Took two days.”

Sometimes the troughs extend down into parking garages--and are occasionally slammed into by a car.

The busiest time for the trouble-chuters, according to Andy Rooks, supervisor of mechanics, is around Christmas (oversize holiday cards being forced into the slots). The next most troublesome time in high-rises is St. Valentine’s Day, followed by Easter.

Another responsibility of the specialized postal mechanics is what are known as gang boxes, those rows of receptacles located in apartment buildings.

A Vintage Post Card

“One day in 1972, in Atwater, we were called to take a master lock off so the building owner could install new boxes,” the superintendent said. “When the old ones were removed, in back of them was a post card dated 1932.

“We brought it back to the post office and turned it in, possibly to be delivered 40 years later.”

Arnette and his troops operate in the bowels of the Terminal Annex downtown, part of which is shop space, because some of their duties involve servicing the mail collection and storage boxes seen on street corners.

“During World War II, when metal was in short supply, boxes were made of wood and painted olive drab,” the boss recalled.

“In 1960, we had one remaining in storage and were told to destroy it. We took sledge hammers to it, and found that--caught in the sides and never discovered--were four letters written in 1941 to the comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

“Some people might feel that it was a black eye for the Postal Service, but our position is that it was a matter of integrity that we eventually discovered the mail and set things in motion to try and get the letters delivered (Abbott was still alive).”

Arnette’s area currently includes 3,508 collection boxes, 406 storage boxes, and 342 Express Mail boxes.

From Water to Paint

Things have changed since the early ‘60s. “Our crew at that time decided that since there was so little rain, we would personally go out and wash every box by hand,” he recalled. “We took a hose and brushes and cleaned each and every one, inside and out. It took three years.”

Nowadays the method is painting--much like that of the Golden Gate Bridge, an ongoing chore that must begin anew as soon as it is finished.

Every working day, going by a ZIP code schedule, two postal workers each uproots 10 street boxes and brings them back to the shop for painting and possible repairing. In turn, he replaces them with freshly refurbished receptacles. The outdoor boxes are quite sturdy--some still in use date back to the early ‘20s.

In addition to the scheduled rehabilitation, just about every day emergency calls come in--usually the result of vehicles crashing into mail boxes--and the field mechanics replace them immediately. “A customer takes it for granted and expects that the box will be at a certain corner when he comes there as usual with his mail,” Arnette said.

Recouping the Losses

Incidentally, the postal people try to recoup all casualty losses, either from the individual responsible or from an insurance company. A postal box costs $135.

A sad modern trend is the ever-increasing problem of graffiti on mail boxes, again something that is illegal. Two of the workers, E. C. Reyes and Manuel Marquez, stood in one of the shops, surrounded by row upon row of the blue steel boxes, many of these government properties defaced by spray-painted messages, some apparently indicating gangs.

About two-thirds of the 20 boxes brought in every day now have graffiti that needs painting over, Reyes said.

Moreover, as the receptacles arrive for a lube and tune, so to speak, they are routinely cleaned inside--and many are the surprises:

Workers peering inside said they have found eggs, coins, turtles, marbles.

Then there are the occasional fires inside collection boxes. Any recoverable mail, charred though the address may be, is sent on to a special unit, which does its best to decipher and forward whatever is left.

More scary is the lot of the letter carriers in the field--and later the summoned mechanics--after something other than mail has been discovered.

“One time I got a call from a carrier who had unlocked a box and found a live snake staring him in the face,” Arnette said. “I phoned the Animal Shelter, opened the box for the guy and let him deal with the problem.”

All in a day’s work for these unsung men of letters.