Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window
Netflix's The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window makes a point to repeatedly show Anna's broken mailbox; here's what might have happened to it and why Buell never fixes it. As a parody of the dark thriller genre, Kristen Bell's new Netflix series plays with many tropes as it attempts to subvert audience expectations. However, the comedic elements of The Woman in the House also mean a few unusual elements, such as ombrophobia (a fear of rain) and ventriloquism, are included in the main murder mystery story to find Lisa's killer. However, although many key elements of the plot are clearly answered, Anna's broken mailbox remains something of a mystery.
As Kristen Bell's Anna spends most of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window trying to discover who murdered Lisa, the show also spends a great deal of time exploring her personal life. This includes revealing how Anna's daughter Elizabeth died in the past, which led to Anna losing her love for painting and splitting up with her husband Douglas. While Anna spends most of her days drinking wine and hunting down leads about what happened to Lisa, there is one other element of her life that persists throughout the show: a broken mailbox. But, the show doesn't focus on the mysterious running gag or resolve it with The Woman in the House's finale.
Anna's broken mailbox is established in The Woman in the House's first episode, as her handyman Buell is shown trying to fix it. However, the series never actually explains what happened to the mailbox and why it needs fixing in the first place. The mystery apparently goes back several years, as Anna mentions that Douglas hired Buell to fix the mailbox "all those years ago." Unfortunately, The Woman in the House doesn't provide many clues as to why it needs to be fixed. Based on what Douglas revealed about Buell to Anna, it is possible the mailbox was never even broken to begin with or that Douglas purposefully broke the mailbox.
During The Woman in the House episode 7, Douglas tells Anna that Buell was his first patient as a therapist. Buell was diagnosed as being criminally insane, but Douglas worked with him for an unspecified time. This resulted in Buell being rehabilitated and released from a state hospital. Since Anna was not aware of Buell's past for all these years, it seems plausible that Douglas hired him to be their handyman as a way to provide him with a job and stability. If that is the case, then it would make sense for Douglas to give Buell a menial task like fixing the mailbox, even if there was nothing actually wrong with it.
This could also explain why Buell never truly fixes Anna's mailbox in The Woman in the House. He doesn't seem to be all that equipped to actually fix a mailbox or even be a handyman. The Woman in the House's ending shows him to be good at taxidermy, but that's about it. Anna may not have known about Buell's full past, but she appears to understand her mailbox won't be fixed or simply doesn't care if it is since she never questions why it is taking so long. Perhaps the mailbox mystery will be properly explained if The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window gets a second season.
All episodes of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window season 1 are available on Netflix