Sorry, I didn't mean to send you insects

[goldierocks]

Royal Mail in my area has been pretty bad ever since Covid. The past two months have been truly awful. We live in the centre of a large town, not somewhere rural. Pre-Covid we had one delivery per day, Mon-Sat.

I've got a number of medical conditions, I rely on mail-order deliveries. My medication is sent by post. My latest batch is very late, but that's not the reason for this post.

I have pet tarantulas. I order their food (crickets) mail order and used to receive them the next day. Cold weather isn't a problem, they go dormant and can last for a long time.

First batch - email from Royal Mail with tracking, out for delivery 'today'. Second email, good news, your item was left in a safe place'. Erm, I'm home all day, Ring video camera, no deliveries. RM had taken a photo of where they'd left the parcel - it wasn't my house.

Got in touch with the company to explain, who kindly sent me a replacement batch. We checked that my address was correct on their system. They were sent 1st class recorded delivery. Took 6 days before I got the 'your item is due for delivery today' email from RM.

I looked at the tracking info and got nervous. They were being dispatched from a different delivery office to my local one. Early afternoon I get the second email, 'good news, we've delivered your item'. Erm, well perhaps you have, but not to me. Waited for the proof of delivery photo to show up - it's the same house as the first time, which definitely isn't mine.

I decided to dig a little further. My home address has a 'twin' in the town covered by the other delivery office. I think my tarantulas' dinners have been going to the right house number/street, but in the completely wrong town.

So, if you've recently received two batches of insects in the post, I'm very sorry. If you've got anything else that should have been delivered to me, please get in touch via PM and I'll arrange a collection. I've not seen a postie since November and have nothing for you, but if anything did arrive I'd be happy to forward it on.

My medication has been due to be delivered "today' for the past 4 days, excluding strike days. AIBU to be beyond frustrated with Royal Mail right now?!

Is your postcode right?

Are you able to send someone to the "wrong" address

You could have a look on Streetview to contact your theory. I feel sorry for both of you tbh. What would happen if the recipient of your crickets just put the parcel on a shelf thinking they'd get round to sorting it later?

Yep, checked my address with the company I ordered from before they issued the second batch. My address is correct on their system, including my full correct postcode.

My 'twin' address in the other town is close enough for me to get a courier over there, which I'm happy to arrange.

Not contact your theory. Should have said "confirm your theory"

Can you send a letter to the other address with your phone number in, in case of future mix ups?

Also have any of your neighbours been having a similar issue?

The crickets are in a sealed plastic tub with small air holes, they won't be able to escape. They're also packed with a food supply.

As it's cold, they'll be very dormant (look dead). It would take a good number of hours somewhere warm to come out of dormancy, and then the females will start to chirp. Loudly.

Royal mail is useless. I don't know why sellers still use them.

Oh god, imagine getting packages of crickets you weren't expecting. I'd be reporting it to the police 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'd happily send my twin address a letter. It might arrive by Easter I suppose!

The last time our street got any mail was the end of the first week in November.

I missed a hospital appointment I had no idea had been arranged (appointment letter finally arrived 9 days after the appointment).

My local delivery office has closed their walk-in counter, so can't go there to try and collect mail. There is a handwritten sign in the window with the generic RM contact info. I lodged a complaint a week ago, heard nothing since.

Oh my god can you imagine! I'm getting lots of deliveries within being Christmas so I'd just open it thinking it was mine, find a tub of dead crickets and pour them in the kitchen bin I think. Where they would warm up.

Me too.

The very thought of it happening to me - twice! - is making me chuckle

Wait for someone posting here freaking out because they've received a couple of rather odd packages......

Similar here but items go to the next road which is not so bad, however I am then reliant on the postman to trace where he left it and then go and pick it up otherwise we have to go and fetch it.

Way before the strikes he had to go and fetch a medical item that he had given them by mistake which I had ordered to arrive quickly because it was needed quickly.

He has since surpassed himself by tracking a missing item to between 2 houses where it was 'delivered', one is the usual one he takes my post to, and the one next door. He went back, they say they don't have it, the other house also appears to not have it or won't answer the door.

I am now requesting that parcels are not sent by Royal Mail, and have been receiving them by Evri (we have a good Evri and Yodel service here) and I am not tipping the postman this year. He has been bad for years but I have picked up mail in the street that he has dropped and delivered it to the correct house so have no faith in him any more.

Different postmen have been coming here too since the strike, they do seem to get the right address, maybe this has happened to you but you have one that can't read (like ours).

I feel really sorry for them, I'd be freaked out to receive the crickets (unsolicited) too!

That was the main reason I posted. It's hopefully such an unusual situation that they'll speak to someone who has read this post.

Sorry to read about others also having issues with Royal Mail.

I'm not sure what incident is worse, this one (mis-delivered insects) or the case of the very busy postie.....

My entire local delivery office was laid low with Covid, nothing delivered for a month. When they resumed operations, they hired lots of temporary posties until the backlog had cleared.

I live in the first house on my street. Postie knocked at 6am, fine, I'm up then anyway. It was a young woman in normal clothes with a RM fluorescent jacket. She handed me a huge stack of mail. I couldn't believe that much had stacked up for us during the month. Then she said "can you deliver these to the street please, I'm very busy today". She was down the path and away before my brain caught up with my mouth.

I had security camera footage, which was I pleased about. When I first spoke to RM, they said their employees 'wouldn't do something like that'. Oh how wrong they were.

DS and me sorted out the post for our street. There were 30 or so letters for places we couldn't walk to, so we dropped them back to the delivery office.

No Christmas tip from me either this year.

Are you on Facebook? Is there a community page for the other area you could post on?

It would be hilarious if your twin address person is also a tarantula or a reptile owner. Possibly more hilarious than someone who has a cricket phobia 😁

"AIBU - someone sent me CRICKETS in the post?! Do I report?!"

Log it with the police 🤣

You need to post this on all your local FB pages, not MN! Much more chance of the poor cricket recipient seeing it that way.

You’d have made my geckos Christmas with that mix up! I’m banned from buying live food for them after they all escaped, so who knows OP, perhaps they’ll actually be appreciated!

Mail for another block across the road is frequently delivered to my apartment building - different street number and post code.
Understandable when the conversion to apartments was first made, but that was about ten years ago :(

Oh wow imagine! I wouldn't be able to help myself from opening a chirping parcel, even one not adressed to me. Curiosity would get the better of me 😱

Could you send them a note and ask them to return them to sender, or post them to you with the address clearly marked (and a rude note to the postman).
(Note would probably be delivered to you though).

The problem with crickets is that they can cause a lot of crop damage if let loose. I read about it when I was tempted to buy the poor things and let them free so if the recipient lets them loose...although they may not survive the snow.

I recently bought an item that could only be posted with RM due to location so the seller kindly put extra labels on with the address and postcode underlined in bright colours after I explained the problem.

Just gave my Evri man a nice tip. He got his and the RM one as well.

I put the wrong post code in once. Whoever it was received a box of size Large Durex condoms. I didn't bother asking for a refund or to seek their location.