Do you receive advance notification of the date on which the utility meters are going to be read, as there seem to be quite a few gated villas in Luz?
As a side issue, where are the collection points for incoming mail?
There are many gated villas in Luz. Gated is the norm for a villa in Luz.
No-one gets advance notice when the meters are to be read.
Standard practice is that meters are on the outside of the property, so do not require entry to the plot. The main meters are water and electricity. Mains gas is rare, at least outside of major conurbations. Bottled gas is dirt cheap. We go though roughly €100 per year. Bear in mind we do have gas central heating, but we have seldom used it, so gas consumption is cooker top and hot water for showers.
Incoming mail is fairly complex. When we make our next move to a home we are purchasing, we will have a post box of our own on the outside wall of our villa. Mail etc will get stuffed into it without entry to our property. It is not normal for people with holiday homes to use such a system.
When we were shifting from pillar to post a better method was to use the Royal Mail, which operates a re-direct system (for a charge). At the moment, our mail heads to an address in the UK, to a property we sold years ago. Then Royal Mail intercepts and re-directs to a UK address occupied by our family. Then the family looks at the mail, and takes appropriate action.
We therefore have 2 types of people in the McCann scenario, which I assume is your point of interest.
People who have made Portugal their home, such as Mrs Fenn, and our new neighbours. And people who simply have a holiday home, such as most of the Ocean Club.
People with holiday homes would not be interested in getting mail directed to Portugal, so no mailbox. I am not aware of any letterboxes or external mailboxes around blocks 4, 5 or 6, but please don't quote me on this. If it is important, I can wander down and have a gander.
Then there's people like me, hopefully moving into a new home. The property has a much battered mailbox on the outside. I have a shiny new mailbox. I hope to have our mail delivered to our shiny new mailbox, but this is Portugal, so I am far from certain.
This leaves us with people like Mrs Fenn, who appears to be resident, but seemingly no apparent mailbox. A further option is that we can get mail delivered to the Post Office on Rua Direita, and pick it up from there.
One final trick on mail. Some bits and pieces, such as from Amazon, we get delivered to where the children live in Luz at the moment, on the basis that Mum is highly likely to be in at delivery time.
