MONMOUTH (AP) – The deep snow along Maine’s roads has taken a toll on mailboxes in many rural parts of the state.

With high-rising snowbanks, many residents have found mailboxes buried under snow, damaged or sometimes missing altogether from snowplows clearing the roads.

R.D. Treadwell, who lives in Oakland and delivers mail in Waterville’s rural zones, said he has never seen so many destroyed mailboxes as he has this winter.

“I’ve seen whole neighborhoods wiped out,” he said. “It’s outrageous.”

Ronald Deering of Winthrop cleared snow on Sunday from around his damaged mailbox, which seemed to be propped up in place by a snowbank.

“It’s on its last legs,” Deering said of his mailbox. “But they’ve got to put the snow someplace. I can’t blame the snowplows.”

While Deering writes off the mailbox damage as a part of winter in Maine, others aren’t so understanding and complain bitterly about their losses.

Rules on mailboxes vary from town to town if municipal snowplows damage or destroy them. Some will pay to replace or repair them, but others won’t and there’s no Maine law requiring them to do so.

Mailboxes are in the public right of way and there is no legal entitlement to replacement or payment if they are damaged, according to the Maine Municipal Association.

Joe Harrington, 86, cleared out the mailbox at the end of his driveway in Monmouth on Sunday, a scene repeated all across central and southern Maine after a storm dumped more than a foot of snow in places over the weekend.

Harrington is all too glad to shovel if it means he’ll get his mail.

“You have to have something to read,” he said. “You spend all your time inside with this weather.”