Deliveries to neighbour

[beanbag19]

Not really an AIBU but thought i would get more opinions here.

When a person takes in a parcel for a neighbour, is the obligation on them to take it round to the addressee or for the addressee to go and collect it. What's a reasonable timeframe for doing so?

I have my own thoughts on the matter but there have been a couple of instances recently which have made me wonder if I'm wrong.

Bit of both here...if I notice the neighbour has come home, I'll pop over with it if I'm not doing anything, or they'll send a child.
It's probably 50/50, and no one's ever been unreasonable about timeframes in over 15 years of living here, with various neighbours in that time.

I give them until the end of the day to come round, then next day I will knock (usually it's pretty obvious if my neighbours are in - lights on etc., I don;t like to knock after about sevenish because I don't want to wake their toddler up or disturb when they are getting her off to bed).

I often hand stuff over the fence to them if I see them outside.

For myself - I always try to go round and pick up stuff as soon as I see the delivery card (for some reason delivery people like to knock lightly on my door then run away, depsite me having a large and obvious doorbell. Also my neighbour on the other side opens his door if he here's my bell/a knock and takes my parcel in before I've had a chance to answer the door, becasue he likes to have a good nose at my parcels)

I'd give it two days before getting arsey. But as pp said if the driver doesn't leave a card how the hell would the neighbour know?

I am surprised at the comments saying 'it's like a sorting office in my house in the run up to Christmas etc.'

Just don't take peoples parcels in. I don't. And I don't expect people to take mine in. I am a very busy person, and am out a lot, and my work hours are erratic, as I am self employed. So I leave a note on my front door on the very rare occasion I am expecting a package, telling the delivery person to put it in my shed at the side of the house.

I could not be arsed with fannying around taking in other peoples parcels, and then having to wait for them to catch me in so they can get them. And I certainly won't be fannying around trying to catch them in so I can give the parcels to them.

Similarly if I have had a parcel delivered, I don't want to spend a week trying to get my parcel, because some neighbour I don't even know has it in their hallway, and they are out every time I go around!

Where I live, there is a large population of busy professionals, (myself included,) so I don't want to be taking people packages in OR have them taking mine.

I think strictly speaking it should be the addressee to collect. We get on very well with our neighbours so I will happily take it round to them if I'm not busy or send one of the kids round with it. I don't assume that the delivery driver has left them a card as I don't always get one.

It's up to the person to collect their parcel I think.

I take in parcels and neighbours take in mine. My new broadband router came on Friday when I was at work, went to a neighbour. DW is at PILs all weeekend with our son, I've been on afternoon shifts. I've stopped by both mornings to collect but they're not in. It's no big deal I'm in all day tomorrow so will collect then. I don't see why people get arsey. I've kept their parcels for a few days before, it's always as and when

It's definitely the job of the addressee to collect.

However everyone, be aware - I was mortified a couple of weeks ago to get chased up by a neighbour who'd been sitting on a rather large parcel for me for three days. I hadn't had a card through the door. Instead I'd had an email to say it would be delivered on Friday. In fact the delivery company had (for a change!) excelled itself and the parcel arrived four days early.

I work on the policy of going to collect if there is a card left and taking it round if we receive - my neighbours tend to do the same so it works out even as to who gets to the door first. We are all busy and out a lot so its a fairly common occurrence.

Its a bit different if you are in a block of flats and the person taking in for the entire block - I can understand why that gets to be a pain at times.

Doesn't happen to me too often, but I'd mostly take it round myself (especially when it's been wrongly delivered to my door but that's a different story!!)
Usually I'd wait til I knew they were in then pop it round; but sometimes they'd come for it first if they had picked up the delivery card before I'd registered that they were home.

I try to avoid having parcels taken in for me, but by lovely neighbours do taken them in, if asked.

If i get back at a sensible time, I'll go straight round when i get home. Otherwise, I wait to see of of 'em to walk past my kitchen window, and rush out to follow them.

Reading this thread, i see i have focused on the disturbing them as little as possible, rather than minimising the time they are storing the parcel. Makes sense to me...i like to think they didnt want to, they would just would refuse to take it in, rather than take it in and grumble on a public message board.,,

I recently had a huge parcel for a neighbour in our hallway for two weeks. I didn't see the size of the thing before I signed for it unfortunately. We live in a small terrace and there isn't space for such big parcels to sit around.

I attempted to take it to them after 48 hours as they hadn't come to collect it, they didn't answer the door, and they were in, lights on and cars outside. Both DP and I attempted to take it over a few times each, at different times on different days, never any reply to knocks at the door. I was getting pretty pissed off as it was taking up space and its difficult to take such a huge parcel over with a baby in the pram, but there was no return address on it. I was considering chucking it over into their back garden because I was so fed up of seeing it and moving it to get the pram out of the house every bloody day. Eventually after two weeks the guy turned up with his delivery note, I assumed that the driver hadn't given them a slip to say where the parcel was after so long with no one attempting to collect it, but when I said we had tried to take it to him multiple times he just said oh I just didn't get round to coming to pick it up with a half hearted apology.

I won't be taking parcels for number 12 again that's for sure. I often take things for neighbours as I am a SAHM and most people are polite and come asap to collect, but I don't think I will anymore because I don't want my house looking like a postal warehouse to be honest. I always go to collect as soon as I get the note, I would never expect someone to deliver it to me or store parcels for days on end.

I always go collect it - 9 times out of 10 neighbours come to pick their parcels up too - there is a very rare time that I've dropped them off.

We take parcels in reasonably often too as I'm a carer so always home more often than not but I can't always get out to take them to the neighbour so they need to be able to come to us.

There is one house that we don't take parcels for anymore because they took 3-4 days to come pick parcels up (we'd tried to drop it off during the days a few times too) and they never ever ever said thank you either - just took the parcel from your hands and shut the door in my face. Happened three times - never again.

I always take stuff in for my next door neighbour and she does the same for me.

I also did this for the house the other side until it gradually became a regular thing of them not collecting their parcels from me and us having to take them round. In the end we found out that they had put us down to take them in without asking which annoyed me so I don't take them in anymore.

I don't know what annoyed me more - the fact they NEVER came to collect their parcels of the fact they put us down as the neighbour to take them to without even asking.

I work from home so seem to be the neighbour that takes in everyone else's packages.
I'm doing them the favour, I consider it to be their job to fetch their package from me. But I do always ask the delivery man to drop a note through their door to let my neighbours know they can collect their parcel from me. I am not a delivery service, if I'm doing you a favour by taking in the parcel, it is not the job of the person taking in the parcel to deliver it.

If I take parcels in it's usually during the day time on my mid-week day off so I always give people till the end of the day to come over to collect as I assume the reason they weren't in to receive it themselves is because they are at work and won't be home till the evening. Also since it's my day off, if I'm in when the couriers/post arrives it usually means I'm having a "homey day" of getting housework/life stuff done rather than being out and about running errands etc so I am always in for them to pop over whenever they get home.

If they haven't come round that night, I will usually be back at work the following day so I will either knock on their door when I leave or when I get in from work, though if I get home late I will only knock if I see lights/TV/signs that they are still up and about (and even if I see signs of them being up I wouldn't knock after about 8:30pm unless there was a good reason eg it was a bulky parcel I had been trying to get them to collect for almost a week and they'd never been in).

That is not because I feel obligated to deliver the parcel, but more that my schedule is hugely variable (could be working 8:00-14:00 one day and 12:00-20:00 the following day) and the neighbours can't be expected to know when I'm at work sod it's easier for me to try and catch them at home when I'm leaving/entering my house anyway rather than relying on them to be watching my front door in the hope they can catch me when I'm in.

My neighbours are pretty considerate though, they usually come round the same day and thank me for taking it in and if they don't come over for a day or two they are usually apologetic about the inconvenience and have usually tried to get their parcel but our schedules have just not synced up for us to catch each other when we're in. The only times I've had to deliver a parcel and a neighbour hasn't previously attempted to collect it is when they didn't get any delivery note from the courier and therefore didn't even know I had the parcel in the first place, and they're usually mortified at having put me out for so long (especially if it's a bulky/heavy parcel)

I'd take it round. I'd try a couple of times before leaving a note asking them to come and collect it. That said, if I'd had a parcel for me be delivered to a neighbour, I'd go round and attempt to collect it to save the neighbour the bother of bringing it round.

The polite thing is to be proactive in making sure the parcel arrives with the intended recipient as soon as possible, whichever side you are on.

If I take in a parcel as soon as I see them come home (live in a cul-de-sac) I take it round. If we have a delivery at a neighbours then if I know about it I go round as soon as I get home the know about it depends on the dog not chewing up the card to the point I can't see which neighbour the parcel is at, if I don't know about it then the neighbours always bring it round

Even when we fell out with NDN this didn't stop either of us taking in parcels for each other

At the house we lived in before this one I often took in parcels for the NDN and she usually collected it as soon as she got home from work.

Three days before Christmas a large parcel came and she didn't collect it. I thought it may be a present for one of the DCs so waited until they were in bed and took it round.

She tried to make me keep it because she "wouldn't have room for it" until after Christmas (flat pack furniture). I said I didn't have room either. I could see she thought I was being unreasonable. It was the last parcel I took in for them.

We live in a double cul de sac; the road comes in and then the road splits two ways. We live in the 'shorter end', IYSWIM.

I get a lot of requests for taking in parcels as I'm in quite a lot. Due to the weird numbering of the road and the cul de sacs, it confuses the drivers quite often (me as well, come to think of it) but I just take in parcels for our end of the road. I always ask the driver to leave a note for the recipient. Anyway, if I take anything in, I take it round to whoever it is when I think they are home, and if I come home to find a note I go round straight away to collect it. ( We have a few retired people here so we're lucky that someone will always take in parcels). Occasionally people have brought parcels to me before I've had a chance to actually collect them, it's so not a problem here. I love my neighbours.

Addressee to collect, but I'll pop over with it if it is getting in my way. It's the modern day cup of sugar in my eyes. A nice wee interaction with the neighbours without having to be best friends.

I go round as soon as I find a card, and if a parcel is dropped off I take it round as soon as I see them, so no consistency here!

Was a bit annoyed as signed up to Prime to get a new Hoover ASAP and a neighbour signed for it just as they went on holiday for a bloody week! Was not best pleased (I have two super hairy dogs...).