Mail mystery

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Post a comment | E-mail this story | Print

Roland Morito keeps checking, but mail service hasn't started yet.

Getting the mail is a daily ritual for most that Roland Morito no longer takes for granted.

He hasn't had any mail delivered to his new house in Hernando County since he moved in January.

"It's really frustrating when you know you got to keep calling all your utility companies just to get how much you owe and they act like you're of course being late," Morito said.

Morito's not alone. Hundreds, if not thousands of people living in developments around the Bay area that are still under construction are dealing with the same thing.

Morito and others in his neighborhood aren't receiving their mail because the postal service is reimplementing a rule that has been on the books since the 1970s. The rule states new housing developments must be 50 percent complete before mail can be delivered to individual homes.

The postal service said it's dusting off the old rule to keep mail carriers safe when there's a lot of construction equipment in use.

Kimberly Baynes moved into her new house a month ago and wishes somebody would have told her.

"The community didn't tell us we weren't going to get our mail," Baynes said. "We didn't find out until we got our keys pretty much."

That leaves frustrated residents like Baynes and Morito Little little to do but wait.

"The trucks come in about 5:30-6 in the morning and start doing their construction and you hope sooner or later the mail will start following them in," Morito said.

Post office officials said they work with developers to make sure they know about the rule and try to get them to plan ahead by setting up cluster mailboxes at the entrances of developments. But if they don't, the only way residents can receive their mail is to drive to their local post office.