Mail delivery problems in Fort Greene?

Subject: Re: Mail delivery problems in Fort Greene?

apollonia666 wrote: I'm curious to find out whether people in Fort Greene regularly have problems with their mail. While I live in Crown Heights, my landlord is located in Fort Greene (11238), and the post office has evidently failed to deliver my rent checks to them two months in a row now. Both times I was mailing from post offices in Manhattan.

My checks had been getting there in the mail since April with no problems, but then last month the check hadn't arrived by the middle of the month. So I stopped payment and took a new check in myself. The old check apparently never arrived in the office at all. So for my August rent I sent the check by certified mail -- and it never got there either. According to the USPS website, it was returned to sender on the 26th because it "wasn't claimed by the addressee." And of course, my landlord is like, "Suuuuuure your rent checks are getting lost in the mail!"

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a problem with my landlord being flaky (entirely possible, given other experiences I've had with them) or whether it's the post office. And any suggestions for what I can do short of dropping it off in person each month? Their office is really not in an easy place for me to get to.

OMG I just got my rent reciept today, and they said the same thing to me... that they didn't get my check either. And I sent it like two weeks ago.... curious. I am going to stop the check and just get a money order and walk it in. I never had a problem before... but its like I work (as we all do)... and I can't get there on time..

My neighbor on my floor said that they lost her "check" too...

I guess we can attept to FEDEX it... you can give it to me... and I can send them both from my office...

I think UPS has a 3 day delivery service for less than 5.00 - you can track it and they will have a record of delivery. Maybe you and your neighbors can split it.

I will call them first thing in the morning...and let you know what they said. I was heated when I saw it this morning and they charged me a late fee....

Okay, so they actually got my check over a week later (they claim). I think we should use Stacey's idea and just use Fedex/UPS to send our checks in. I can coordinate it... and send it from work.

Let's discuss later...

Subject: Write or Contact the Postmaster General

I used to live in the 11238 area and yes that post Office was terrible. I am in 11205 now and have no problems. Why don't you all write to the post master general and complain. If they get enough letters they might just do something. Get the supervisor's name of that particular post office.

I live in 11238 and the mail service is so bad that I started having all my mail sent to my work.

A clerk in that post office told me that they know some of the delivery people were terrible. But then, he said he knew the carrier on my route and he was pretty good. So who knows.

This does not solve your problem though....maybe drop off your rent check?


And here is the information about filing a complaint...maybe if we all do it...

fixed the URL - Mod

Subject: mail service is horrible in 11238

I live in Clinton Hill (in zip 11238) and I think that the USPS service taht I'm getting is the absolute worst I've ever had than in any other place I've lived in.

One day my mail carrier rang the doorbell about 30 times, in anger because I hadn't heard him yelling into the window from the sidewalk. I was in the back of my apartment so I coudln't have heard him. Once I ansewred the door he shoved the box to me and said "why didn't you hear me?". I didnt realize that walking up 5 steps is not part of the delivery service.

In general, however, there are days when there is no mail, but then the next day there is too much mail. It's almost as if once in a while the carrier skips our block. Does this happen to anyone else? Also, about 3 to 4 times a week the mail is shoved left outside our building on the front door matt. I *KNOW* they have a key to the lobby door because other times the mail is actually in the mail box.

Finally, I had ordered something online and it was taking far too long to get the package. I had tracked it and the company said that it was at the post office. So i stood in that crazy line at the Adelphi post office only to find out that they said that they didn't have it. About 3 weeks later, the package appeared at my home.

I wish there was a way to complain about service. Does anyone know how to?

went to aldelphi to pick up a package this morning. mind you, they're supposed to make multiple delivery attempts and didn't, but whatever.

the scene: good-sized, orderly, line. certainly not the longest i've seen in there. distinct skin color difference between me and most other people present.

when i first came in the door, a man at the back of the line, which i had just joined, said, "oh, you don't have to wait here if you're just picking up; just go up there", and gestured to the package window. so i walked up and waited while the woman ahead of me got her package.

then i -- crazy, i know -- approached the window, pink slip held out.

me "hi, i have a package to pick up?"

po lady (in angry voice, as if a middle school teacher to a willfully disobedient and disliked child): "what? are you next in line???"

me "oh, the guy back there said i didn't need to wait in line for a package"

po lady (now kind of snide): "no, no, you gotta wait in line, just like everybody else"

me "okay"

i walk back to the line

po lady "who's next to pick up a package??"

everyone in line stares and/or gestures at me.

i walk back to the window

po lady (still snide/angry): "i didn't want anybody to hit you upside the head. or for me to, for that matter"


i get package. as i walked away, several people in line gave commiserating eyerolls and shrugs.


i'm sorry, but you're threatening me because i want a package? oh, and you want me to fear the other perfectly nice people in the room?

i'm not saying that the adelphi branch gives anyone, regardless of race, good service. but it is the only place in the neighborhood where i consistently feel that my skin is the wrong color. i felt this morning -- and i know it may not come across in the dialogue alone, but please trust me -- that the subtext was "okay little white girl, you think you can get your way? you think you're special? you think you belong here?"

and well, i think i pay the same postage as everyone else, i think i follow the rules and general mood of the other people present, and i think i live here. so, can i just have my package without the aggression? because you, po lady, probably DON'T live here.

sorry, had to get that off my chest. /rant

alafairnadia wrote:

so, I think post office attitude has more to do with the workers and the managers than the actual client base. le shrug.

oh, for sure. it just makes me mad that they can act like i don't belong in the neighborhood when the people who actually LIVE here never do.

i mean, i grew up in the south, so i often feel more at ease in black neighborhoods in northern cities -- where there is often some carry over of southern manners, ways of addressing each other (a little more ma'am and sir), etc., thanks to the great migration -- than in "better" white neighborhoods, where comparatively few people have any connection to the place/way i grew up.

anyway, thanks for the sympathy.

This wasn't in Brooklyn, but for a while I was having similar problems with my mail. Unfortunately, when I finally complained to my local post office, and they told me what happened, I really didn't know what to say; they said that my usual carrier had just been deployed to Baghdad, and they were thus short-staffed.

...You really don't know what to say in a situation like that...

Subject: my rent check was lost in the mail too

I live in CH, 11225. I used to put my rent check in the Franklin and Eastern Pkwy mailbox. A few months ago, I noticed, three weeks into the month, that my check hadn't been cashed. I called the Mgmt Co., and they hadn't received it.

It finally arrived about six weeks after I mailed it. This was for local Brooklyn addresses on both ends! Now I mail my checks from work in Manhattan.

http://www.clintonhillblog.com/blog/2006/09/more-on-post-office-woes.html

There's a person from the NY Sun who contacted ClintonHillBlog concerning the mail problems.