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by newobj 4598 days ago
Based on the same premise that I would let someone secretly save my unread snail mail by giving them a key to my house.
2 comments

Which a lot of people do. They give a trusted entity (a neighbor) their access token (keys) to check on and maintain their property while on vacation.
Except that you know where your neighbor lives and are able to find him in the event something goes wrong.
... I would never, ever do that.

A sibling, sure. But a neighbour? Hell no. If I haven't seen you get born, you sure are not getting unlimited access to where I live.

Why trust your family? As Biggie said-

  Number 3: never trust nobody
  Your moms'll set that ass up, properly gassed up
  Hoodied and masked up, shit, for that fast buck
  She be laying in the bushes to light that ass up
http://rapgenius.com/The-notorious-big-ten-crack-commandment...
To counter your Biggie lyric with a Kanye lyric:

See you're, unbreakable, unmistakable / Highly capable, lady that's makin loot / A livin legend too, just look at what heaven do / Send us an angel, and I thank you

http://rapgenius.com/Kanye-west-hey-mama-lyrics

This seems sad to me. You don't have a single neighbor you'd trust with a key to your house?
Nope. I can't even trust them not to burn their apartment down. There is no way I would let them have access to mine. I don't even know most of them. That being said, I don't live somewhere where having a relation with your neighbours is common.
Older siblings and parents are right out, huh?
... it was a figure of speech. I have actually never seen anyone get born. I was talking about the sibling-like relationship you can get with people that are close to you.

Sure, if one of my close friend is also my neighbour, I would let him take care of my house. But it would be on the basis of him being my friend, not my neighbour.

Sigh... I really wish I didn't have to restrict my self entirely to the use of phrases like "trusted entity" to avoid the excruciating minutia of debates like this.
Are you implying you lock your mailbox?
Are you implying you lock your mailbox?

Would that be surprising to you? I assume you might be an American - I was really surprised when I visited the US and noticed that most people use unlocked boxes located outside of their houses to get their mail. Where I live people either lock their mailboxes or they get mail through a slot in their locked door - nobody leaves their mail accessible.

Mail slots are typically used in America in all row-homes (aka, very nearly all houses in towns or cities). Apartment buildings almost always have locked mailboxes, unless you are really scraping the bottom or your apartment is in a converted row-home (my old apartment had a single mail slot on the front door, the 3 different apartments just sorted each others mail). Private developments often have locked mailboxes outdoors by the entry gate.

Unlocked mailboxes outside the house really only exist in rural areas or regular suburbs (to be fair, these sort of homes probably make up a plurality of homes in America).

The bigger problem is what happens with packages. Unless you live in an apartment building with a staffed leasing/mail office, chances are your packages get left by the door (usually in plain site), or you need to be home to sign for them.

No idea how this works in other places, but in the USA, messing with someone's mail or mailbox is a federal crime.
It may be a crime, but an unlocked mailbox still leaves the temptation there.
Cool, so I suppose you don't use keys for your car neither. Convenient
First, stealing a car or stuff out of a car isn't a federal crime. Second, I almost never lock my car, but that depends on the neighborhood.
I am from Australia and where I'm from everybody leaves their mail in an unlocked box outside.
Well, in the US it's a substantial federal offense to steal mail or to read someone else's mail (coughunlessyouarethegovernmentcough), so that acts as a big deterrent, I think.
How many people are ever caught stealing mail though?
I'm not sure, but I'd assume that if you go around stealing packages, you're probably not doing it just because. You're doing it systematically for financial gain. In which case you have to be a repeat offender for it to make sense. In which case it's easier to track down. This happened near me last year:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/12/20/two-arrested-for-theft...

Mine is certainly locked. Many places in Britain also just have the letter box in the front door, which I assume the parent is referencing.
My (US) house has such a slot but it has been glued shut decades ago so that nobody drops dog poop, or worse, a flaming piece of mail, into it.
Strange country. Is never even thought of anybody doing that, and I've no reason to think that I would ever draw someone's ire who would do so.