[musicman]

Just curious if anyone else is/has had delivery issues with the Lady Lake post office. When I talk to people around the community, I almost always get a horror story about misdirected/misdelivered/delayed mail. I have experienced it with home delivery (nearly 200 pieces of mail appeared in a parcel locker one day with a range of postmarks spanning two months) and business delivery (letters being delivered to neighboring businesses, letters being returned to sender because the address is not 100% correct and even letters being delivered to businesses clear across town). I remember the days when I knew my mailman by name, greeted him, passed the time and thanked him for getting that piece of mail to me that had the wrong house number but he knew was mine. No "return to sender" because they misspelled my street name. The issue is never a one time thing, it's constant. My interaction with the postmaster usually ends with him trying to place blame on me. His reasoning for the nearly 200 pieces of mail being held/delayed was that I didn't pick up my mail often enough. His personnel failed to follow the proper procedures regarding that mail, yet he felt it was better to blame me. I read about a person who had a 5 figure check delayed for several months do to issues with this post office. I've experienced problems, read about them, spoke to Congressman Ginny Browne-Waite and spoke to countless residents about them. Is it just me??

[Bogie Shooter]

I have had no problems in 6 years.

[chuckster]

Must be you............sorry 5 years and no problems.

[villager99]

it's often several days before i get to the mailboxes and have never had a problem in my 10 years.
if my small box gets to cramed the postal folks bag it all and put it in one of the larger parcel boxes, leaving the key in my regular small box so i can pick up the bag when i get to the postal station i do know our contract postal carriers casually and they're aware that my limitations often mean i'm irregular about picking up my mail but i think all residents in my village get equal treatment.
when i go out of town on occassion i place a hold on my mail and our
contract carriers go thru a procedure similar to the times when i'm home but unable to manage to get to the mailboxes regularly.
sorry to her not everyone gets satisfactory service. wonder if it will be better or worse if we ever get our own "official" postal station

[OpusX1]

Yes I have had some problems. We are snow birds but we do not have mail addressed to our old address forwarded, we have it collected and shipped to us. That works just fine. When some of our friends send mail to our Villages address about half the time they get it returned, about half the time it gets delivered. I tell them to just send it to the up north address that way I am sure I will get it just a few days late.

[graciegirl]

Yes. We are snowbirds and we have received three other peoples mail.

[RayB]

We have lived in The Villages for two years and have had no problems with the mail. Occasionally, we get mail in our box which is not ours. We simply put it in the box labeled for wrong mail. Very convenient. Maybe some of the problem is that some people who get the wrong mail do not put the mail in the appropriate box for misplaced mail.

[Barefoot]

We've had great service from the LL Post Office. When we left for the summer, our mail was forwarded to our Canadian address, no charge. And when we returned, we just called the post office and they took the "forward" off.

A few times we've received mail for other people or for previous owners. I just put in back in the box and push it onto the floor so they can resort it.

The misdirection of mail seems to happen occasionally no matter what city you live in.

[samhass]

I have had neighbors drop off mail to me and I have done likewise...many times.
If I sort the mail at the box, I drop other peoples mail in the designated box. I have gotten hand delivered bank statements opened by neighbors by accident
I know our numbers are legion...but still in all, our postal service has room for improvement. Maybe my tip needs to be larger next year!!

[zcaveman]

I always check my mail before I leave the mail stop. If there is mail that is not for me, I just put it all the way through the box onto the floor in the working area.

The mail person will put it in the correct box the next day.

That is better than trying to track the person down and try to deliver it - especially if they are not home.

We are not postmen.

[musicman]

Yes, I always sort my mail at the mail box and put the items that aren't mine back in the outgoing mail box. Sometimes, I find it in my box again (and again and again). It doesn't always get to the right person the next day. I don't always have a pen to write that it doesn't belong to me. Unfortunately, not everyone does this. And, frankly, as you say, we are not postmen. I have never had such a problem with mail anywhere else I have lived. Yes, I sometimes got mail that wasn't mine, but that was extremely rare...perhaps an item or two a year. Here, I have had many, many times where it is 10 or more items a DAY. Yeah, I'm frustrated. I hate that I didn't get my birthday card until 6 weeks after my birthday even though it was postmarked 2 days before. I hate that customers send me letters and checks and they sit in an office across town that doesn't place them back in the mailbox, holds them for a week or two and then calls to say "hey, we got ten letters here for you". It has happened at two different home addresses and two different business addresses. But, apparently, from the posts here, my situation is rare. Glad to see it's not widespread. Sad to see that it is following me around.

[redwitch]

I do know of one case where a real mess has been created. Two people who own homes here near each other with the same last name. One is a snowbird and has his mail forwarded. The other has moved here permanently. The permanent resident's mail has been forwarded to the snowbird. According to the post office, it will take at least 7-10 days to "find" the missing mail. I wonder how mail that has been incorrectly forwarded be found. Another person has it, may or may not have returned it, so how do they plan to find it?

The joys of subcontractors to sort/deliver the mail to the various mailboxes here. Something tells me if regular postal employees were used, things would be a lot better and a lot more efficient.

[Talk Host]

The mail service to our box is superb. The one complication (aggravation) is that "overnight" mail being sent to us through USPS is not delivered to the house like it is suppose to be. It is rolled up and stuffed into our mail tube at the mail station. If it is an envelope that requires a signature, it is never brought to our house, a notice is put in our box and we have to drive to Lady Lake and stand in line to get it. Yet, UPS and Federal Express both deliver to our door.

We talked to the Post Master about it and receive a different story each time. The most common one seems to be that the postal union does not have to deliver over 1/2 miles away from our postal station. HUH??????

We receive lots of important overnight deliveries because of our business. We tell people and companies to NOT use United State Postal Service.

[handieman]

I also have experienced the same "forwarding" problems. I enter the forwarding information online and pay the $1.00 charge only to have the dates totally ignored on both ends. I speak with the postmaster in my hometown and she treats me like an idiot. Possibly with another postal rate increase they might be able to missmanage my mail even better.
Being a retired business man, I always admire the mentality of the postal service and the New York Thruway Authority, "business is slow so lets increase our rates"
Handie

[Sidney Lanier]

The only misdirected mail we receive is for the previous owners of our home. And virtually all of it is junk mail which I just sort at the pickup place and drop in the slot designated for what they call 'misthrows.' No big deal.

As snowbirds, the first time we set up forwarding was confusing. No one told me it was my mistake; I realized afterwards that it was. Besides filing the forwarding cards, I have to let BOTH post offices know, so the one we're heading to (whether here or up north) knows to hold our mail for, say, a week before we're showing up there.

We frequently use carrier pickup via usps.com, and in all this time only once did they fail to pick up; instead, they were here the following morning for it.

I would have to say one sort-of negative about the Lady Lake PO: It's extremely difficult to reach them by phone. Generally when we need to walk into a post office, we go to Oxford (small post office with exceptionally friendly folk working there) which is close to us.

Given the volume that the Postal Services handles, IMHO they do a pretty remarkable job and at rates a lot more reasonable than postal services in other countries we have spent time in!