British Couple Reacts to European vs American Homes 

We never have a problem with our mail getting stolen

Oh, tampering with mail IS DEFINITELY a federal crime. It can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for individuals, or $500,000 for organizations. And it's taken VERY seriously in the U.S.

You have to be crazy to mess with the US Postal Service. Federal crimes aren't as lenient as other felonies.

Having several tv’s in a house or apartments is common in America. You don’t have to be rich.

lol. I just counted my TVs and we have 7. 😅 I will say that their house is pretty typical for middle class. Their view of the lake is very lovely.

I’ve never had mail stolen.

Not rich by a long shot, and I live in an old 3 bedroom house by myself and I have 5 TV, one in each bedroom, one in the kitchen, and one in the living room. 😂 a lot of TVs are very common

Very common to have multiple TV ‘s in the U.S. you don’t have to to be rich because the new flatscreen TV’s are fairly inexpensive now.

no one really steals outgoing mail from mailboxes. delivery packages left near the front door however can get porch pirated stolen. we have 5 TVs in the house in various rooms.

I've personally lived in houses with 3 or 4 TVs, but 6 seems like a lot. Also, that house is more like upper-middle class than actually rich.

I have 6 TVs in my house. I even have one outside on my patio or “outdoor living room”. They do make TVs and furniture like couches chairs ect. just for outdoor living areas. I also have an outdoor kitchen. I’m not rich but I live comfortably.

Another critical thing about screens is that they keep the pets in. Of course, if the window is a story up, a fall can be dangerous. Even on the bottom floor, a pet roaming loose can be hit by cars, eaten by coyotes or hawks, get into fights with other pets or raccoons or skunks, or simply get lost. The USA does not have the level of outdoor pet culture (particularly for cats) that the UK does, and so the screens are a significant part of keeping indoor pets indoors.

I live alone in a two bedroom place and I have 4 TV's. Hey if one TV breaks during my work week I have backup TV's ready to go.

Not only is mail theft extremely high risk in terms of punishment but the USPS actually has their own law enforcement

My family even has a tv in the garage. So yes normal. Once we were all going to church for Christmas, there was 13 people going and we all drove 13 cars there. So....

If you have sensitive or valuable mail outgoing, and you don't want to risk using your own mailbox, you can find one of the blue USPS mailboxes every few blocks in residential areas, drive-thru and walk-up outside the Post Offices and inside too, of course. And often there is a place to send mail in most malls and shopping centers, and sometimes clusters of blue mailboxes in industrial parks and business centers. I have never once had problems with my mail, and I've lived in some pretty sketchy areas. But I never took many chances, either. Tampering with the mail is a big deal and can put you in federal prison for a long, long time if you make any kind of habit of it, because there are recommended sentences for each offense, and they stack up quickly (although very complexly).

Homes in the Midwest tend to be larger for the money compared to homes on the East and West Coasts. These people are probably comfortable but not rich. As for the # of cars, that's something that you tend to see more of when you get further away from the cities and metro areas.

I’m retired and live alone. I have three televisions. Not all mail boxes are at the street mine is at my door and I leave the mail out . I only go to the post office to mail a package. Mail theft has never been an issue. I keep my thermostat at 75/23c at all times ( Florida) if you’re used to the climate you don’t blast the air.

That’s kind of an average American house. Just didn’t want you guys to think it’s a rich-people thing.

It’s hard to say without actual statistics but I’m guessing that of all federal crimes, stealing mail is one of the most rare crimes. What someone would get from mail would not be valuable compared to the crime they would be charged with.

Of course it is a federal crime to mess with mail. The flag on side you raise to tell mailman pickup contents, so if it is not up they will just deliver, even if yesterdays mail still there just put new mail on top. It use to be real common to see a smaller plastic tube under it on the pole with the newspaper logo, the newspaper delivery would slip days paper in it to keep dry(we hoped)

It's culturally ingrained.. you don't touch anyone's mail or what's in the back of their pickup truck.... It's not gonna go well for ya 😂😂

Mail theft is indeed a federal offense in the US, and the reason is that the US Postal Service (USPS) is a federal agency. This is for pretty obvious reasons, as until very recently the mail has been the only real way to reliably send important correspondence like bills, business related mailings, federal correspondence, and a whole host of other things. The Internet is of course changing that in a radical way, but the mail, although slower, is still a vital service for millions of Americans. So it makes sense that the mail is protected as such.

Also, postage stamps can be purchased in many supermarkets, from some ATM machines, and the occasional postage vending machines - further decreasing the need to visit the local post office in the U.S.

Post office drop boxes are prevalent all over in every US city to drop off important mail

I don't have a lot of money and I am single. But I still have 4 TV's. You'll find in most American homes even every child will have a TV in their room 😂

I only use my garbage disposal for small cooking scraps. Easier to rinse them into the disposal than to stand there picking them out of the sink and carrying them to the trash.

I liked it when I had a mail slot in my door and they would deliver the mail and if I had outgoing mail I would just stick it halfway through the slot where the mail carrier could see it and pick it up before he dropped off my mail.

Even if you have a mailbox attached to your house, just leave the letters half in with the lid holding them down and the post office will pick those up.

Stealing mail is a Federal offense and punishable by up to 5 years in prison plus fines for each piece of mail stolen

No, it's not typical to have a tv in the kitchen or dining room. However, most modern homes feature an open floor plan where the living room tv can be seen from the kitchen and dining room.

I have 6 TVs in my house and 4 are sync and come on to what I was watching on one when I changes rooms.

A lot of those mail boxes are gone now. Most suburbs went to a central box system that you use a key to open your assigned box. It's still super easy, and you can send out mail in the outgoing box that is collected every day by the mail person.

I’ve never had mail stolen from my mailbox.

In the U.S.A it is common for most homeowners to have a television in almost every room in the house.

Ahh the fridge! I recall donating for Millie to have an American fridge 3 years ago! It’s time to make that upgrade

TVs are inexpensive, especially smaller sizes. In every room where time is spent I almost expect one or a tablet for a similar purpose. Family room for the biggest, every bedroom and workout area, kitchen if not open concept room and time spent there, laundry, even seen some occasionally with an entire garage wall with a huge tv or projector lol. When temperatures are in the good range, outdoor activities and backyards to be used can be common so even there can be found a fair sized tv

It is NOT common for Americans to have more cars than people in a home. Unless it's used for a specific thing, like off roading, or a classic car.

1:26 omg her reaction to that info was amazing!

The house is middle/upper middle class. It didn't look very big at all. That it's on a lake will obviously make it more expensive. But the house doesn't look exceptional by any means, and the front of the house (garage area) that she showed actually looks a little shabby.

Not many people want to steal bills in your mail box. They don't want their own bills let alone somebody else's!😊

All pretty common. We have four TV's in our house. My next door neighbor has six, four inside, one in the backyard and one in the garage. It's also not uncommon for people to own more than one car, the US is a big car culture of course. I own a truck, a 1985 Mustang GT, and now my parents old Chrysler Sebring along with a couple of motorcycles. I have been looking at new homes in Arizona, top of my "must haves" is a three car garage for the Superformance MKII and RV siding. Having plenty of ice is a must, especially if you have friends over to watch a game, or a party. During the summer, it is either hot and dry, or hot and humid, so ice is important.

There was a time when most of the population in the USA was rural, and maybe got to a place that had a postal dropbox once a month. It just made sense that if a letter carrier was dropping off mail, he (they were all male at that time) would also pick up mail. I have seen comments on the early US mail system which said that you could also leave the letter without postage stamps, but with the coins needed to cover the postage and the mailman would put the stamps on for you. Again, many families would so rarely get to a town, and the distances were so burdensome, that this service was just considered just part of providing postal service.

Touching someone else's mailbox is a federal crime including destruction, or tampering with someone else's mail

I have 3 tvs and I live alone. One in the living room and one in each bedroom. Also in my neighborhood, we have a community mailbox for each house on each corner with a lock. There’s also a slot for outgoing mail and a section for some parcels.

Something I notice on American TV the people always seem to have their shoes on in the house. But the truth is most people remove their shoes when they come in. Also, many people wear house slippers in the house and those never go outside so the soles remain clean as do the carpets or tile floors. Or just bare feet or socks indoors.

We had 5 TVs in my home as a kid. One in the den, and one in each bedroom. The home in the video is an upper middle class home in the Mid West USA. It's not a "rich" home, but being on a lake is really cool.

This house is upper middle class, not rich .

Five TVs. Family room, kitchen, bedroom, finished basement, laundry room.

James just so you know, America does indeed have brick homes. It is just that wooden homes are much more affordable. And yes there are complete neighborhoods where every home is brick. Just have a look at some of the homes in Charlotte North Carolina neighborhood. Google relaxing walks channel and this person goes for walks around many American neighborhoods.

I have two cars, a scooter, and a bike. One car I use for work, the other car is to carry heavy stuff around which I’m in the middle of doing my yard for spring so yeah, the scooter for shopping trips, and the bike for small stuff like the pharmacy. I’ve even seen people that have cars in their garages that are pretty beat up in the middle of being fixed up with four cars in the driveway along with motorcycles, boats, rvs, and all sorts of stuff just lying around. I find it quite normal especially for Florida as you kinda need all of it.

We have 4 TVs in the house and only 2 live here

No problem with outgoing mail being stolen. TVs: Not that many TVs in most homes.

never had any mail stolen but now the individual box has been replaced with large multi box units with locks

Live just north of Tennessee. Four televisions: bedroom, living room, den, media room. Also have one or two portable TVs just in case,

Adding to the mail talk you can only send letters in boxes with flags. If its a door slot or box by the porch theres not usually a flag so you cant send in those.

Also we have four people in our house and four tvs. We are definitely not rich. The funny part is that only one of us actually watches tv. Lol

It’s very common in the U.S., to have a tv in every bedroom, the entertainment room or basement and even the kitchen like my mother does since she spends a lot of time there.

To be fair a lot of homes in the United States do not have garbage disposals. A lot of it has to do with the home is on sewer lines or a septic tanks as we have a lot of homes that are not within city limits in the US.

Some older neighborhoods like mine will have the mailbox on the house or even a letterbox, but yeah, most have boxes at the end of the road. Sometimes a basic one like that, and I've also seen ones covered in bricks. My uncle who was a mailman had a mail truck themed mailbox.

From 1965 to 1987 when I was growing up and when I moved out in 1987 we had 2 tv's one in the den or family room and the other was in my parents room. Our tv's in the 60's were black and white and some color and fairly small in screen size of 21"-23." In the 70's you started to see more color tv's and bigger screens on average of 25" and better pictures. In the 80's 27" inch screens and a better picture.

I just watched Lewis and he thought the recliner was a theater seat. I couldn't believe he hadn't seen one

People don't generally steal mail anymore as people don't send money through the mail which was the main reason people used to steal it. Also, mailboxes such as the one shown in the video used to be more in rural areas and at people's houses who had long driveways. City houses generally had a mailbox or mail slot connected to the house itself or in the door. Becoming less common as it's easier for the mail carrier to deliver to a box by the street or road. Less animal, privacy and trespassing issues this way for the mail carrier as well. Average number of tv's in most people's homes is 1 - 3 unless you have a very large home with many more rooms and people than average living there. As far as air conditioning America has two types. An air conditioner which mounts in a window which generally only cools a small space or section of the house and central air conditioning which has a large system installed outside of the house which utilizes the same ducts that heat blows through and can cool the entire house and all rooms at once. Today's A/C as well as heating systems can be regulated to only cool or heat certain areas at a time as well by closing of ducts to certain areas. As far as fences in America there are more in city areas where people live closer to each other. They are generally put up as an aid to privacy and to establish where the property lines are. In the country areas fences aren't as common as properties are farther apart. If someone has animals such as cows, they may put fences of a different kind up to ensure the animals don't wander onto other properties or into the road.

We each have a car, and have TV's in all three bedrooms, 1 in livingroom/kitchen. Have central AC but no ice maker, my husband will not use ice. So for parties I grab some bag ice from store.

We have 6 TV’s. Family Room. Living Room and 4 bedrooms , each with its own TV

Tv is pretty common in every room of the house these days not so much when I was a kid guess cause you can hang them now!

There's 4 TVs at my house...each bedroom has one and one in the livingroom....we are building a indoor movie theater too 😅😂😂😂

This is a pretty standard house you'd find everywhere. It's not super wealthy or anything. It's a house you might find if the parents have good, but normal jobs like if the husband is an accountant and the wife is a teacher. Also, every house has a bunch of TVs. Even "poor" people have multiple TVs. TVs are so cheap now, people have them in every room. We have 8 TVs at my house. One in the living room, one in the den, one in the office, one mounted to the wall outside on the back patio, and one in each of the 4 bedrooms.

Blown away by mailbox technology. That right there is funny, I don't care who you are. You two are great.

In my experience most Americans have 1 tv per "adult" room. For example living room, offices, hobby rooms, adults bedrooms. In my 2bdrm apartment we have 3 tvs, one in the living room, one in our bedroom, one in the office. At our new house we'll probably end up getting 2 more tvs because it's a lot bigger than our current apartment.

Some of the states ( Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota have thousands of lakes like the one shown here…makes for fun backyard activities and gorgeous views!

My daughter and her husband have 3 teenagers and they all have cars. The garage is for two cars but the house has a circle-shaped driveway so there's room to park all 5 of their cars.

She's right about screen windows. They're a must have. You have to keep the bugs out. She knows her stuff. 👍

We do have to buy postage stamps, so we do have to go buy them to send off in our mailbox. Also, it rarely happens stolen Mail.

I only have two TVs. I can't imagine the average is more than two or three. As others said, regular mail doesn't have a problem with getting stolen. Packages, however, have become a problem. We're working on fixing that one, but still scum around.

9 Tv's. 3 bedroom Tv's, 1 study, 1 living room, 1 back porch, and 3 in shop [mancave]! Middle Class!

In the southwest, more houses are single storey. (Because of the weather).

Remember... over 300 million people use this type of mailing system. We also can rent post office boxes at a fairly cheap yearly rate that is inside the post office in locked personal boxes. If you do valuable sending and receiving packages or mail just use a post office box using your assigned P.O. Box number.

I haven't heard of anyone stealing mail, if it happens, it's rare.

Um, aren't you supposed to run the water faucet while using the disposal?.....she didn't do that.

@TheBeesleys , With in the last few years since the pandemic there have been stories of people's mail getting stolen, but not from random people from the people that work for the USPS. Having a lot of tvs is not necessarily just for the rich here, when I was growing up we had about 5 tvs. One in the Florida room (Which is a room with a lot of windows and couches to sit on and it had a tv in it. One in the kitchen on top of the refrigerator, one in the den, one in the spare room/my sister and my playroom and then there was one in my parents bedroom. Then when my grandmother moved in with us for about a year before she passed away, we put one in the living room, which was turned into a bedroom for her. So by the end of it there were six tvs in the house.

most people who have an outside mail box know when their mailman delivers to them so they will wait before they put outgoing mail in the box.

we have 5 TVs. One in each bedroom and one in the living room. None in the den where we just play music or talk.

My mom had a TV in her kitchen so that she could watch TV while cooking. It wasn't big but it did the job.

I'm pretty sure the refrigerator front door just dispenses ice made from the inside. Notice the opening on the inside of the door. I doubt there are 2 icemakers.

I have 65"4K 2.1 in my bedroom and I definitely have a lot of custom cups. Good video guys 👍

I rarely use the outgoing mail with my mailbox but it is very convenient if you need to. I think a recliner is as standard in an American home as having a sofa. Just about every home has one. I have 6 TVs in my 3 bedroom house, one for each room except the bathrooms. Our family room has 2 TVs because my husband wanted to watch 2 sporting events at the same time and then he decided to leave it that way. And both of those can be seen from my kitchen.

It's the old honor system regarding the mail box. It was a different time.

We have about 6 t.v's and 5 vehicles. Oh I guess I should say that there are three adults living in the house. We never have an issue with someone stealing our mail. Our mail is delivered to our door but there is a area where you can put your mail so they can pick up.

Depends on where you live because this house is typical of houses around me. Not rich, middle class.

I have a TV in every room but the bathroom and the kitchen

Typical upper middle class home with the exception that it’s on a lake- the lake front house would make the property more expensive relative to what part of the country you are in. The Midwest is more affordable than the coasts- I have nearly all of these items in my upper middle class home in Colorado. I even have two ice makers in my fridge- I only have 5 TVs- one in the family room, office, my bedroom, tv room upstairs near kids bedrooms, and one in the guest room- no reclining sofa, but I do have that feature in an adjustable bed- my mail has never been stolen- and we have always had one car per driver in the family- so when kids could drive, we’d get another car- their high school years made for a crowded driveway

I live in a ranch style house we have 3 tvs now but when our boys lived at home we had 5.

i would say about one tv per bedroom, one in the basement and one in the living room, definitely some money behind that house especially since it is along the lake

Another thing about mail is that if you don’t have a stamp, you can leave coins in the box to buy one from the mail carrier. I don’t know how common this is, but my parents have done it several times.

I have no idea why window screens haven't caught on in the rest of the world. They're easy to install and very cheap to replace. You can even replace or make new ones yourself if you can handle a tape measure and a hacksaw. The house she lives in is upper middle class and lake front property is not cheap.

We are middle class with 5 drivers and 5 cars. However, my guys watch "tv" on their computers and laptops mostly. However, we still have 3 tvs. We have 2 poodles and a cat as part of our family, so our backyard is fenced in.

I have 4 TV's in my home. Family Room, Office, Master Bedroom, Loft. When I was a kid (before the days of iPads) my sisters and I each had one in our rooms (6 TV's in our house). I don't think this is just a rich person thing. The cars on the other hand.... Most families don't have more than 1 car per person. Usually a car/SUV/minivan per adult and maybe a motorcycle or 2 for those that ride (I personally like the safety of a car).

Its pretty rare for mail to get stolen. But if you dont raise the flag your mail will still get taken when they drop off your mail and see there is something in there waiting to go.

Yes, stealing the mail in the USA is indeed a federal felony crime. However, it is also socially unacceptable for every level of society.