(WSVN) - For most people, grabbing the mail is a pretty easy part of the day, but hundreds of residents at a South Florida apartment complex are not even getting their mail delivered. Here’s Karen Hensel with tonight’s 7 Investigates.
Edith Brack and her neighbors are dealing with a mail mess.
Karen Hensel: “Where was your mailbox?”
Edith Brack, resident: “Right here, and I was on the top.”
Karen Hensel: “Right there.”
These empty holes in the wall are where the apartment complex mailboxes used to be, but for the last eight months, they have been here on the ground.
Edith Brack: “The other side is way worse.”
Karen Hensel: “What do you mean?”
Edith Brack: “The mailboxes are sitting out in the rain rusting away.”
So we went to the other mail drop at Park Place at Turtle Run, an apartment complex in Coral Springs.
The structure is falling apart, propped up with wood planks. The mailboxes have been junked, sitting outside in a pile. For Edith, the mail ordeal has been more than an inconvenience.
Edith Brack: “I was expecting two very large checks in order to pay my rent, and I couldn’t get them, and I was late for my rent that month.”
And she says she just got her tax documents that were mailed back in January.
Edith Brack: “So I have to figure out really quick what to do, because it was stuck at the bottom of a bin somewhere.”
At the bottom of a bin, because residents have to do what this sign says, drive 20 minutes to a post office, in a different city, to pick up their mail.
Edith Brack: “There’s a post office right across the street from where I live, but they make us come all the way here for some reason.”
Once inside, the wait begins.
Edith Brack: “It’s about a 45-minute process. They go in the back and dig through a bin, so it’s mixed up with everyone.”
Edith says even the postal workers feel the residents’ frustrations.
Edith Brack: “Every time we go, they say, ‘You poor people having to have to go through this.'”
After months of emailing the property manager, Edith still has no concrete answer to her main question: When will all this be fixed?
Edith Brack: “They’ve been saying they’re going to fix it over and over every month, and they don’t.”
So we went to the office looking for answers.
Karen Hensel: “I’m Karen Hensel with 7News. We want to talk to you about the mailboxes. What’s going on with the mailboxes, and why it’s taken so long?”
Property Manager: “OK, can you step outside for a second?”
We did, but never got any information, so we turned to the city of Coral Springs to see if the apartment complex had permits to fix the mail centers. Turns out, the city says no permits have been pulled.
The day after we raised questions, the building department slapped the complex with an unsafe structure notice and a stop work order, even though no work has really been done to replace the mailboxes.
Edith Brack: “I will never, ever take for granted the fact that I receive mail. In fact, I thank them every time I see them now.”
The U.S. Postal Service tells us replacement of these mailboxes is the responsibility of the apartment complex. The property manager has assured a city building inspector they will now apply for permits, but Edith Brack was told this week the work was delayed again, based on “unforeseen additional concerns.” Karen Hensel, 7News.
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