Neighbours and Parcels

[Debini]

AIBU to be fed up with neighbours thinking they can have their parcels delivered to my flat?

It’s starting to become quite annoying especially now I have a three week old baby, I don’t want to keep being interrupted or having the baby woken by delivery people who aren’t even delivering to me!
A parcel has just arrived, the neighbour has even used my address as the delivery address not just a “safe place”.
It’s not just one person who seems to think it’s OK to tell delivery people to knock at my address it’s at least two or three and I would say parcels are coming at least three times a week for different people. People who I don’t even really know other than to say hello to in the hall.

Am I being unreasonable? Should I just carry on or start refusing to take them and stop answering the intercom?

Stop taking them. If anyone complains (they'd definitely CFers if they did) I would suggest your intercom has "stopped working entirely" now and how it "doesn't ring any more", to explain how you are no longer taking any parcels.

Then take the opportunity to tell them "I'm quite relieved it's broken, actually. I've realised that taking in so many people's parcels is a total pain in the arse and keeps waking the baby so I won't be taking them in in future."

My neighbour did this, courier knocked the door yesterday and said they'd put down my address as the delivery address.
Don't know why they did that as we don't even get along.
Usually I'll take in parcels for anyone but this time I refused, I apologised to the courier and they were fine with it.
It's party my fault as there was another incident last year when the same neighbour knocked my door to tell me she'd asked for a parcel to be delivered to my address but that she'd be in now so could I just redirect the postman to her house and that she'd put my address as she knew I was always home.
Yes I'm at home because I work from home not so I can answer the door every half an hour.
I should have said something to her then but I just nodded and shut the door as I was meant to be in a Zoom meeting.

*partly not party

I used to refuse to take any parcels for an old neighbour after she moaned I didn't take a particularly large and heavy one round to her. She had a dh who was more than capable of helping her carry it

Isi t your neighbours specifically asking for it to come to you? in my experience, delivery drivers tend to try all the neighbours until they find someone who will take in the parcel.

I would go with the sign on the door, definitely.

I'd also tell any neighbours who have specifically put you down as the back up that it's not convenient and to please stop.

...but inconveniencing your work receiving/mail room staff who aren't employed to take in your personal parcels.

My employer has made a point of not allowing personal deliveries to the office.

I occasionally take in parcels for most neighbours, and they do the same for me; I always make a point of thanking them!
But one neighbour's parcels I now refuse; it turned out after a lot of confusion and a large obstructive parcel in the hallway, that he had heard the knock on his own door from the delivery man, and subsequent attempts to pass it on from me, but "he was busy".
I think he sees women in general as staff who deal with the boring stuff, which may explain why he has ended up on his own......

The post room guys at my old City job told me they LOVED amazon. They had all been at huge risk of redundancy but all the personal stuff coming to the office meant they were kept on and the City firm I worked for seemed to take the view that things that made keeping people in the office easier was a good thing (we also had a local GP surgery we could use etc).

I only take parcels in for 3 of my neighbours and they do the same for us but it is a very rare occurrence.

One neighbour that I now refuse to take parcels in for had a hoover delivered and they were not in so I accepted it thinking they would be home later that day - that hoover was sat in my dining room for 2 weeks, they had gone on holiday.

They never collected anything either. If a delivery driver knocks now with a parcel for them, as they know I am usually home during the day, I just refuse and they go to someone else.

I think they have done it to others though as I watched one courier after coming to me knock on 3 other doors before someone would take the parcel.

You need to put a stop to it @Debini otherwise you will get every courier knocking at your door.

Very cheeky and and put a stop to it. Our neighbour had fabric, like rolls of it - heavy to move etc, the delivery guy used to keep coming to us and expecting to keep it in our garage although her 2 adult kids were at home at the time! 8 months pregnant I snapped at being the one having to intercept and her kids sat on their bums!!! Some people lack the common sense to think of others! And they knew I was home on maternity leave but obviously able enough to move large boxes!

There's a massive difference between the postman knocking on your door then asking the neighbours if they will take your parcel when you're not in and your neighbours actively using your address as a delivery point.

I always hate when deliveries are left with the neighbours especially my NDN so now my delivery instructions explicitly say Do not leave with NDN" as, despite me asking her not* to take my parcels in, she kept doing it as she was "being helpful".

The problem was she was out of the house 6-10am, 12-2pm and 4-8pm (she has a cleaning job and a lunchtime supervisor job) and then be in bed by 10pm; I was out of the house 10am-11pm and the post would usually arrive anywhere between 9am and 12pm. So unless my parcels arrived before 10am or after 12pm then NDN would "be helpful" and take them in. However I then couldn't collect it till the weekend unless I woke up at 5.30am to catch her before she left for work or woke her at 11pm when I got home from work due to our opposite shift patterns. Even after I explained a few times that whilst I appreciated the gesture it was actually unhelpful for her to take my parcels in and could she please refuse if she was asked in future, or accept them and then leave the parcel at my door when she went to bed (we live in a block of flats so it would have been safe to leave my parcel at my door for an hour) she would not accept that her "kind" action was not appreciated (and refused to leave my parcel unsecured on my doorstep) and kept doing it until I explicitly said "Do not leave with her"

What was even more frustrating is that most of my parcels were delivered via RM (so no way to redirect to a pick up point/collection locker etc and I can't receive deliveries at work) so if she had not taken them in then they would be returned to the sorting office for me to collect at my convenience. The sorting office is a literal 5min walk from home and is open from 8am Monday -Saturday. It is so much more convenient now that if I miss a delivery on Monday I can receive it by 8am Tuesday as opposed to when my neighbour was "helping" and I wouldn't get it until Saturday.

I had this issue as I WFH too. I stopped answering the door and bought a storage bin for my parcels (they never leave neighbours parcels in there!) The constant interruption was infuriating and I don't have any tiny babies here!

I'd do as the PP said and put a note on your door.

This. You're being unreasonable for doing it!

I had this with my ex-neighbors. I was constantly taking in parcels and often popping them around to them. But when I wasn't in twice for my own parcels they didn't take mine in! I then just stopped taking them in. Answer the buzzer and refuse.

DH works from home now, but when we both worked in an office I'd get all my Amazon deliveries to a nearby locker. In some ways it's more convenient than getting them delivered to home as you can truly collect them when it's convenient for you, rather than disturbing you at home.

Other deliveries you can't necessarily choose, but having some sort of pickup location is becoming more common. Choosing your neighbour's address as an alternative or main delivery address is total CFery and sheer laziness!

You know not every job has a mail room or staff specifically for receiving/sorting out post?
In many jobs, people can easily walk to the door and receive their own parcels.

Absolutely. But there are also loads that have a thousand employees and just perhaps lalalalalalaleeee is the one that works on the 10th floor. Do you think the Amazon guy is going to wait for someone to call her and get her to come down and take the package personally when he's got another couple of hundred to deliver?

I know I'm generalising, but it does happen.

My place stopped it completely when the postroom was looked at and found to have loads of personal packages in at any one time, and then some people were even expecting them to go and hand courier drivers returned goods which was totally taking the P.

SliceOfCakeCupOfTea, I do take your point, if you work in a shop employing half a dozen people, fine. But it doesn't always work that way, and now there are so many pick up point places, it's probably not necessary.

No I wouldn't be happy about them putting you as an alternative address without checking with you first.

Speak to them but say you have a baby and can't access the door easily.

It's difficult with our street as we don't show up on maps properly as Boris Johnson blocked off half the street. Neighbours are pretty good about parcels.

It's rude though if they didn't ask your permission first.

The company kept the guys on in the mail room, (who were just about to be made redundant,) because SO many personal packages were being delivered to the employees, that it 'gave them something to do?!' WTAF?

This is the most batshit thing I have ever heard. It's tantamount to the company thinking of getting rid of someone, as they don't seem to have enough work to do, but keeping them on because they have started spending half the working day on the phone talking to their friends, their husband, or their mother.

If someone put me as their delivery address without asking, I would be handing over the package with a note attached saying that I would not be accepting any more parcels for them, and that if any others are delivered with your name and address for delivery, you will be not accepting the delivery. Take a photo of the note.

I had that.

So when I answered the door I would ask the address on the parcel.

If it wasn't a couple of neighbours, who I know don't take the piss and haven't for over a decade, I simply said I can't take the parcel in and shut the door on the delivery guy.

You do risk them dumping it on your doorstep but most of them have to take a photograph of the item being delivered to someone.

Oh and the delivery guys will swear at you about the first half a dozen times you do that but then the parcels will stop coming.

But if you don't answer, why would the courier just dump it on YOUR doorstep? Why not just dump it on the doorstep of the neighbour who isn't it/isn't answering? I would take NO responsibility whatsoever for any package dumped on my doorstep that was not addressed to me! I would leave it exactly where was dumped.

When I was on maternity leave, my dickhead downstairs neighbour saw it as a great opportunity to use me as the local sorting office. They would always seem to knock when I had both boobs out, baby breastfeeding and settled.

I put a BIG sign on my front door saying 'FLAT A WILL ONLY ACCEPT PARCELS FOR FLAT A'.

Didn't care if my neighbours saw it, because I wanted them to get the 'hint'.

I went back to work after a year, and bumped into him in the hallway. He said "I just wanted to say that I think we should take in parcels for each other, as I've had to go to the sorting office a lot recently".

And I said, with white hot fury in my chest "Yeah, I've gone back to work, so I guess you'll have to sort your own post out, won't you?"

Tell the postman to mark it 'not known at this address' and refuse to take it unless it has your name on it.