TWIGGS COUNTY, Ga. — Some folks in Danville– in Twiggs County– say in February the mail delivery to their mailboxes suddenly stopped.
They say they're both elderly, disabled, and getting to the post office to pick up their mail is tough.
Debby Newell has lived in Danville for 27 years. She said that the Jeffersonville Post Office has been delivering mail to her mailbox for decades, until January of this year.
"She's refusing to deliver any mail to anyone that does not have a box at the street,” Newell said. “They don’t care that you’re disabled."
Newell says she’s been disabled for a large part of her life. She says when she began to build her house at the back of her property in 2007, she asked her mail carrier where she should put her mailbox.
"He told me to put it where these two trees are, and I've never had a problem,” Newell said.
That is until her usual mail carrier's route was switched and he was replaced.
She says in February the post office mailed her a letter saying her mail would be held at the post office until she got a roadside mailbox.
"If you don't come to get your mail every 10 days, we will send it back to the senders,” she said.
Newell says she lives on four acres. She says she cannot walk more than a few feet without a walker or wheelchair, let alone to the roadside of her property.
"It would take me hours to get there. They're not paying for my gas to go all the way into Jeffersonville. I don't even have enough to pay for my electric bill, and my house payment,” Newell said.
Newell's friend, Joanne Read, is also disabled and stopped receiving her mail too.
She says she gets medication in the mail and it takes her up to 30 minutes to drive to the post office.
"You got to either go up their ramp, that's all the way around, or you go to go up their steps, which, steps don't work for us,” Read said.
She says she told the post office, both she and Newell live alone and physically can't install a roadside mailbox.
"You know, all it takes is a dip in the driveway, or something like that. Or rocks, and you step on those and that's it, you're down,” Read said. “It makes you feel hopeless because there's nothing you can do."
Several hours after we started calling about the matter, the The U.S. Post Office told us they will resume deliveries to Newell and to a disabled friend who also called us.
We asked regional spokesperson Evelina Ramirez why they stopped deliveries last month, and why they're resuming now.
She did not respond.
If you or someone you know isn't getting their mail, and you think someone might be tampering with it, you can file an online complaint with the U.S. Post Office's inspector general.
Go here for missing, late, or damaged mail and packages. You can get refunds, find missing mail, and file a claim through the U.S.P.S.