MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. — Viewers from across western Washington reached out to KING 5 reporting mail delivery issues.
Residents from Whatcom to King Counties said they haven’t had mail delivered for weeks.
Maple Valley residents Loren and Gail Lascow said the last time they got a piece of mail was last Thursday.
“Thursday I got a small package right in the box and that’s it. That’s all we’ve seen. We haven’t seen any Christmas cards, her birthday is coming up, no birthday cards,” said the Lascows.
It’s not just cards they’re worried about, they’re waiting for monthly bills to come in.
“You get invoices from utilities, credit card companies and stuff like that and they give you 'X' number of days to pay otherwise they hit you with a late fee,” said Lascow.
Loren went to the post office to find out his neighborhood aren’t the only ones impacted.
“The first time I went in was yesterday morning and the line was out the door and there were probably 50 people in line,” Lascow said.
Lascow said there were days worth of mail and not enough people to sort it.
A similar story for people in Bellingham with long lines trying to get mail that never came.
“I didn’t get any mail from the 16th until I went to the post office and picked it up today,” said Bob Stanton.
Stanton said he’s one of the lucky ones who’s mail was sorted. He said he’s been checking his mailbox every hour for nearly three weeks with no deliveries and said he was in the dark about why mail never came.
“It was kind of a relief when we got to the post office for the fact of the matter that no one is stealing my mail,” Stanton said.
Having enough people to deliver the mail is an ongoing problem. Brian Wiggins, Washington State Association of Letter Carriers said out of the roughly 3,500 routes statewide, hundreds are vacant without a full time carrier. He said while there’s a shortage of mail carriers, it’s been hard retaining the ones they do have.
For Loren and Gail, they know there’s not much they can do.
“They’re extremely apologetic and you can tell they’re stressed out and they said some mail carriers quit right before the holidays and they’re backed up and have no idea when they’re going to get caught up,” Lascow said.
KING 5 reached out to the U.S. Postal Service who said it’s checking on the reported delays. They did say it did not deliver mail on Christmas Day or the day after.
While it didn’t speak to these delays directly it said reasons you may not get deliveries are if the postal carrier doesn’t feel safe because of a pet or broken mailbox.
The Postal Service is hiring and will hold a hiring blitz in January.