The mail is flowing again for hundreds of a residents at a South Florida apartment complex. Sorting out the mailbox mess was fast tracked after 7’s Karen Hensel started investigating.
The fix is in at an apartment complex in Coral Springs, and in this case, that’s a good thing.
Edith Brack, resident: “Oh, we’re ecstatic. So relieved.”
But the last time we met Edith Brack, back in April, she was not ecstatic.
She was annoyed.
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Karen Hensel in April 2022: “Where was your mailbox?”
Edith Brack in April 2022: “Right here, and I was on the top.”
Karen Hensel in April 2022: “Right there.”
The mailboxes at this apartment complex, Park Place at Turtle Run, were on the ground instead of in the wall.
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.”
That structure was falling apart, the boxes junked in a pile.
For eight months, residents here were forced to 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. They go in the back and dig through a bin. Every time we go, they say, ‘You poor people having to have to go through this.'”
Edith repeatedly emailed property management trying to find out when their mail mess would be sorted out.
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.
Karen in April 2022: “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 in April 2022: “OK, can you step outside for a second?”
We didn’t get any information, so we contacted Coral Springs to see if the apartment complex even had permits to fix the mail centers. The city said, no. But if things had been moving at a snail mail pace, they were about to turn lightning fast.
Edith Brack: “So there really was no excuse for it not to be done as quickly as it did get done when you got involved.”
Just days after our story aired in April — someone from the city emailed Edith: “We are aware of this situation and due to the story from Channel 7 News, our building department took action…”
That action was this unsafe structure notice.
That was then — this is now.
Permits were pulled and the mailboxes replaced.
We caught up with residents, who no longer have to drive to pick up what so many of us take for granted.
Resident: “I can go out in my robe sometimes, tastefully. Now I get the mail opposed to driving on a little mission per se to go get my mail off Hillsboro.”
Sandra Rodriguez, resident: “It’s great. It’s better than before. Before we had to drive to Hillsboro, and it’s like 15 minutes like that.”
7News photographer: “You save a lot of money on gas?”
Sandra Rodriguez: “Oh, yes. Yes. And time.”
Edith Brack: “I didn’t get junk mail for a long time. I actually miss it.”
And that is a sign of a long ordeal finally sorted out.
Karen Hensel, 7News.
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