This is the sort of thing he noticed but ignored, the poorly connected railing, and after this fall is recalling how yesterday's lack of proactiveness is biting him in the ass today.
Or maybe I'm projecting as that's definitely something I'd do.
That was me this morning. I knew my house has an issue with pipes freezing, I knew it was going down to -30c (-22f) with a -40 windchill last night here, yet for some boneheaded reason I never bothered to put a space heater in the area where the pipes freeze.
So I got to swear at myself this morning for a half hour while I was running around with a propane torch in my basement to thaw the lines out so I could flush the toilet and make coffee.
One good thing with being an idiot is you get to learn how to fix things at least, so there's that...
Probably rusted out. Sometimes some top rails are carelessly welded which leaves a gap where it attaches to the square tube. In time, water accumulates inside the tube and pools on the bottom, rusting away from the inside out. To the naked eye it might just look like fine since it's covered by 17 coats of paint, but structurally it's just corn flakes.
SOURCE: Grew up in the Caribbean and Louisiana. First salt (Caribbean) then rain & half-assed everything (Louisiana).
idk it kind of looks like he hit himself in the head with it pretty good during the fall. It's obscured behind one of the housing posts but you can still kind of see based on how the railing and his head/upper body moves.
Is that normal to have the mailbox attached to the railing like that? Where I live they're always attached to the side of the house next to the door unless there's a free standing box out by the curb
Varies. It is kind of nice to the mail carrier who doesn't have to walk up those steps and can deliver to the house that much easier. It would be a walking route, so I would bet the carrier would appreciate it if everybody had their mail box that conveniently located and avoiding slippery steps.