Have any strange delivery experiences being rural?

[deserteagle71]

Apparently the USPS regulation is for them to deliver packages up to 1/2 mile on a private road if necessary. My driveway is 4/10 of a mile from the public road but they can't seem to make it here. They have used the excuse that the road was washed out (potholes filled with water), unknown address (although mail gets in the box just fine), or undeliverable due to xxxxx.

USPS "Regulations" seem to differ depending on which part of the country you live in. When I lived in Pennsylvania, the USPS driver would deliver to the farm, be it a letter or a package. Out here in Nevada we have "community" mailboxes belonging to the USPS - a huge bank of small mailboxes sitting out in a rural area every so many miles. Each person's individual mailbox is tiny - hard to reach in with your hand to pull out a letter. So everyone has to drive to this bank of mailboxes to pick up their mail. If you get a package you get a slip in your mailbox telling you to drive to the main Post Office in town to pick up your package. Depending on where you live it can be many miles to the Post Office!

So if I'm placing an on-line order for something and they specify that they ship USPS only, I find another vendor as I don't need to drive miles to pick up my package!

 

[TugBarge]

I am in SW Washington - USPS home delivery to our address is dreadful - always a different driver, thrown packages, left in rain, delivery to the wrong address often.

UPS/FedEx is preferred. I used to work for UPS - and I am partial to them myself...

With that being said, I have a USPS PO Box and actually enjoy the local postmaster.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Had a FedEx driver get stuck in snow in our driveway. He was panicking and told my wife he might get fired for driving back to our very secluded property. She actually helped dig him out and he was very grateful. I have almost everything delivered to my place of work now unless I'm sure it's coming usps and fits in our oversized mailbox.

 

[cqaigy2]

Wow, we are pretty lucky here.

All the delivery services, except the one that delivered our cast iron stove have been pretty good. If the package won't fit in the mailbox down on the main road, our USPS person will drive up the secondary gravel road and down our long drive to deliver on the porch.

I do have one complaint, last year they closed the road to replace a bridge. We weren't isolated, but the drive out the other direction adds a few extra miles. Our mail wasn't getting delivered during the road closure and i was expecting some time sensitive material. Called around for a bit, trying to get ahold of someone to find out what was going on. After a few days of calling different phone numbers, finally got somebody that knew what was going on, our mail was being collected at a USPS facility. Great, i'll go pick it up, nope, no customer service at that location. They need to fire that idiot boss of USPS.

 

[Dftodd]

Last week my wife and I came home from an early walk. We left the back door open, just the screen door closed. We grabbed a couple beverages and went to the living room for maybe 5 minutes to look at something. Came back to the kitchen to get some chips, and my wife looks out at the back steps and said "What's that?" There's three plastic bags on the back steps that weren't there 5 minutes ago. 60 soft tortillas. 40 hard shells. 2 tubs of salsa. 1 tub of guacamole.



Someone left us a taco bar.

Knowing that we frequently get packages, people, even their own relatives meant for the folks across the street, I walked over and asked if they were expecting a food delivery. Yep. Tacos for a pool party later in the day. He said he placed the order, then he got a text thanking him for his order with a photo of their food in front of a brown door.... he doesn't have a brown door!

Anyway, that made me and the wife hungry for Mexican food, so we made burritos.

We gave gotten about 30 plus of those orders at our house in the past year.

I live in a new neighborhood. Google hasn't quite caught up with that yet.

Well I put in an address/ location correction for Google maps.

After that I noticed quite a few strange cars parked in the street if front of our house

Then the food and grocery deliveries started to come to our place wasn't bad if we were home and someone bothered to ring the bell. We would explain to the driver they are at the wrong house and to please verify the address.

It was the contact less deliveries that became a bit much. Get home from work and find someone's lunch or dinner sitting on our door step. Pick through it and find the stuff that wouldn't spoil (chips, cookies, ect....) and toss the rest.

A couple times though we caught the delivery within a couple minutes so the food was still piping hot. One such occasion, I came in from walking the dog. Wife went out a couple minutes later to toss the recycling in the bin and found someone's dinner

Of course, door dash doesn't supply any receipts with orders so you have know idea who it belongs to. I slowly spread the word to the neighbors about our ordeal with contact less deliveries being left on our steps and warned them to avoid contactless deliveries in the future

Or... if they recieve a notice that there order was delivered and it's not on their door step, to check mine

 

[ljjhouser]

If I order it, then it is important that we get it. I always ATTEMPT to ship other that USPS. I never knowingly place an order agreeing to use USPS shipping. But then there is Sure Post. When you select UPS and it is handed over to the USPS for local delivery. And I am ALWAYS friendly with just about anyone, including drivers. They are not the problem. USPS around here that won't commit them to be able to deliver. And the trash can below the sign. That is exactly where my requested delivery always is. At the base of the private road sign. And there is a sign there stating so. i called USPS. No , they cannot do that. That is the fourth WILL NOT DO on my list. I even do favors for them when I can. AS in when the regular drivers girlfriend was driving and ran off the road on the neighbors road. I was glad to pull her out with the tractor and send her on the way.

I am really glad others have better service from USPS. That is good news. But I ALWAYS make every attempt to get delivery by UPS, FedEx or Amazon.

 

[ljjhouser]

My neighbors both work for the USPS and say that our servicing post office is the worst one they know of. And they don't get their mail either.

Now that made me smile.

 

[stumblinhorse]

Wow, I didn’t know we were special. We do not get USPS package delivery to my address ever. And we only get mail 3x a week to our mailbox on the road. Any package delivered USPS at the post office 10 miles away we can only pick up if we have the slip they will leave in the Mailbox 3x a week. So if something arrives at the post office on Friday we can go pick it up Monday afternoon after the mail carrier puts the slip in the box at about 2:30…

Needless to say…

 

[NoTrespassing]

UPS, FedEx, and Amazon all deliver to my driveway or porch. USPS is a guessing game due to constantly changing drivers.

Apparently the USPS regulation is for them to deliver packages up to 1/2 mile on a private road if necessary. My driveway is 4/10 of a mile from the public road but they can't seem to make it here. They have used the excuse that the road was washed out (potholes filled with water), unknown address (although mail gets in the box just fine), or undeliverable due to xxxxx.

My neighbors both work for the USPS and say that our servicing post office is the worst one they know of. And they don't get their mail either.

My Dad (still a rural carrier) sends paper checks for deposit to the Atlanta Postal Credit Union, just because he likes supporting USPS and likes to see how crappy the service is. The checks get lost ALL THE TIME, sometimes for over 30 days. They send a receipt back to him via USPS and sometimes it never arrives. He'll wait till the check clears the bank and then call APCU and ask where his receipt is. They'll reply, "we sent it, didn't you receive it?" and usually both get a laugh because of the irony of the situation.

 

[SouthernSky]

Since I’ve been working from home all FedEx business deliveries come 2-3 times per week. Because they come so much the driver just sees the street name and assumes it is me. So when the driver dropped a few packages off one day last year I received one for my neighbor as well. This was definitely not the first time that happened.

Anyway. That night when I opened the boxes I found one box with new adult toys and a couple DVDs. I checked the label and realized it went to a house down the road where a seemingly conservative couple lives. I taped it up and was going to give it back to FedEx but I knew the couple are out every morning for a few hours so I set it on their porch at that time.

I never heard anything more.