(Memphis) People living in a Memphis neighborhood say they hadn’t got their mail in weeks until News Channel 3 stepped in and delivered.
Neither rain, sleet, nor snow is supposed to stop mail carriers from making their rounds, but the weather wasn’t the problem — it was a couple of out-of-control dogs.
On Holly Ridge Drive, neighbors said no one got their mail because of one house that often had two dogs on the loose.
“She needs to take care of her dog,” said Sandra Carroll, whose elderly parents live on the street. “Mail shouldn’t stop because she has a dog on the loose.”
No one wants to be bitten by a dog, and a postal worker isn’t any different.
“Her dogs got loose and when they got loose, they tried to jump up in her mail truck,” said Lakesha Wells, who lives on Holly Ridge and hasn’t gotten her mail.
“The dog was chasing the mail carrier,” said Eddie Skinner, the father of Carroll.
Neighbors tried to help.
“He came out with a big stick and tried to fight the dog off and he trailed her up and down the street until she was able to finish delivering the mail,” said Wells.
The mail carrier decided she wasn’t coming back.
“They didn’t inform us. They didn’t tell us anything,” said Wells.
It’s the postal service’s policy that “delivery service may be suspended when there is an immediate threat.”
Yet weeks have gone by, police have been called, animal control has come and gone, the dogs are tied up — and there is still no mail.
Neighbors are having to get themselves to the nearest post office and wait in line.
“They are taxpayers so they should not have to drive anywhere to get their mail,” said Carroll. “My father has Parkinson’s disease, my mother had open heart surgery four months ago.”
“So she is not trying to wait in a 45 minute line,” said reporter Sabrina Hall.
“Oh no!” said Skinner about his wife. “ She doesn’t even go up there.”
News Channel 3 made some phone calls Friday and not even an hour later, 71-year-old Skinner got his first mail delivery in weeks and the postal service says the whole street should be back to normal with its deliveries ASAP.
That’s because Fido is now tied up behind a fence.
Neighbors say the woman’s dogs kept getting out because she has a large hole in the back of her fence.
We tried to get her side of the story, but she wouldn’t answer our questions when we knocked on the door.
