CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — On Wednesday morning, Laura Pokorny greeted her mail carrier in the driveway of her Cleveland Heights home. While getting the mail may not seem like an exciting task, getting any delivery at all was good news to Pokorny.
Pokorny has noticed that since the pandemic began, her mail hasn’t been coming as consistently as it used to.
“I think since the pandemic started, it got sporadic. Maybe not every day, maybe every other day or not on the weekend,” she said. “Then we noticed they’d come after nine o’clock at night, and now we’ve gotten mail sometimes - we hear them come at 10 o’clock.”
Pokorny said in recent months, delivery has been spottier. She said the last time she received her mail was the end of the previous week.
“It just has tapered off, three times a week, twice a week is probably the average,” she said of her mail deliveries now.
Pokorny is not alone. On the app Nextdoor, a community forum, she pointed out people posting and sharing their experiences with delays in mail delivery.
USPS mail carrier Thomas Little is now back on his route in Cleveland Heights after he had to take time off due to a knee injury. He said some mail has been late because of short staffing and the weather.
Now back on the job and back on his knee, he said he’s taking it “one day a time, one step at a time,” walking home to home through the snow to deliver the mail.
Naddia Dhalai, USPS strategic communications specialist, said the postal service has been seeing staffing issues, and they are currently hiring and training new carriers.
“We are experiencing staffing issues due to the ongoing pandemic like many other businesses are,” she said. “We’re flexing our work force to the workload, offering overtime, doing what we can to get the mail delivered as soon as possible. That might be a reason as to why some customers are seeing their mail delivered later in the day. We are working around the clock to make sure we are getting the mail out and getting delivered as soon as we can.”
Dhalai also said the recent snow storm and winter weather have made conditions more challenging for carriers.
“With weather, that is an issue, carriers have a tough time,” she said. “They work in all types of conditions, but right now the snow and the ice can make it difficult. If mailboxes are blocked from snow, or it’s not safe to get to the mailbox because of an icy path, they will reattempt delivery the next day just because it isn’t safe for them.”
Dhalai said USPS is asking customers to clear a path toward their mailbox, or clear off any ice on their steps or porch to ensure carriers can deliver the mail safely.
As for mail delivered to the wrong address, customers can do a few things to make sure it gets to the correct destination.
“If a carrier does make a mistake, we just ask customers they can give it back to their carrier and let them know, take it to their local post office, or drop it off in their mailbox,” Dhalai advised. “It will get delivered to the correct address, and we apologize for that if they do experience that.”
Despite the delays, Pokorny said she's curious about what's going on, but isn't blaming anyone.
"No, I'm not going to take it out on the people that I know – the weather and the pandemic, it’s been hard on everybody," she said. "I'm really working on trying to be patient and understanding."
For more information to track your mail or find missing mail, you can head to the USPS website.
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